I just had an epiphany: if I spent as much time actually making art and writing as I do collecting ideas, supplies, and instructions I would be the Queen of All the Things now.
Okay, appreciate that. I’m also in the mode of “what will I do differently, the same, or better next year?” but that’s a post for another time.
Here are a few ideas that passed my line of sight recently:
First is a drabble idea: While I’ve done sensory image focus on drabbles in the past, I am going to reshape it based on @seeceeread’s idea to focus on character building through smells. I won’t mention the alcohol in my instructions, though, because, you know, Rule No. 1: “Don’t get Mrs. Love fired.”
These are a fraction of books about writing I have collected over the years.
Great conversations happening regarding writing and the teaching of writing — here are some of my current noticings/wonderings, and attempts at supporting students craft their writing lives.
Every student who asks, “How many sentences does it have to be?” has been exposed to either Jane Schaffer or another prescriptive writing curriculum. There is nothing inherently good or bad in Schaffer’s program: some need a paint-by-number mode of writing instruction, and the product serves the purposes. But we teachers, and I mean all teachers, will be forever stuck in the siloing of teaching writing poorly across content areas. And when I say “writing,” I don’t necessarily mean typing out lengthy tomes: writing can be many forms and avenues. Across content areas, teachers should focus on the Role of the writer, audience, the form, the topic, and strong word choices.
Here are some Sunday-morning-I’m-still-sleepy resources:
Read books by writers and trusted teachers of writing
Some recommendations: Angela Stockman, John Warner, Kwame Alexander
Become a writer yourself. I cannot advise this enough. Keep your own blog, Tumblr, Wattpad, whatever. Keep is anonymous and secure, but write.
Moving to the comprehensive high school, I’m currently teaching two periods of 10th grade, one 9th grade honors ELA, (and yes, have already had a debate with one young student about the merits of the What It Says graphic organizer– my sweet summer child, I know you), and two periods of 9th grade ELA. And yes, after being somewhat scolded about how they’ve used Jane Schaffer forever, I had another deeper conversation with my evaluator about how it was okay that I looked and researched the materials, and then collaborate with my PLC about instructional methods. Cool, cool, I can do that. I totally can. And, I can also go back through my previous blog posts and share them again, along with other resources:
Again, this is just a fraction of resources, and it can be overwhelming. My instructional advice is to start with fostering students’ ideas; ultimately, this is what serves them and their creative growth. You may find a different path that meets your students’ needs, and that’s the joy of this process.
Years ago my friend and mentor Holly introduced me to RAFTS — Role, Audience, Form, Topic, and Strong Verbs. Using the RAFTS format for teaching writing and writer’s craft helps students break away from the ‘blank page’ and word count fears. And, my friend Jennie finds the most amazing TikToks, and shared this one this morning:
Here is one possibility in deconstructing this RAFTS:
You’re the wife of Michael Myers, the notorious serial killer from the Halloween series. You have two small children, and now live in a suburb of Chicago. For a family vacation, you go on a camping trip to a somewhat crowded campground though you’re concerned Michael might be up to his old ways.
Note: Here is the challenge: take one hour on a Saturday or Sunday and curate your own list of three things you could make into a mini-unit, writing prompt, etc.
Simon Warmers
“Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said. ‘One can’t believe impossible things.’
I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the shawl again!” – Lewis Carroll
How many times in a school year do students hear the word ‘authentic’ but have no idea of what that means? My sense is that I’ve said it myself in a somewhat precious tone, and I catch myself because it sounds a tad pretentious. In fact, I could probably erase that word from my pedagogical discourse and we’d all be better for it, at least until we get our sea-legs with writing. Maybe it’s the Glenda the Witch approach: you had the power all along, my dears, and you’re writers! But I tell them they are writers from the get-go, and attempt to give context to authenticity.
So just what is authenticity?
It’s important to remember writing and reading are not in competition in a zero-sum game. Authenticity grows from every source: lies, truth, and the devil in the details in between. Our continuum of existence demands a story. How our parents met, and what legacies we leave after we’re gone. Our ancestry, and our ‘wishful thinking’ as we explore our singular and collective identities.
Authenticity lives at the highest source of Blooms: Creativity. We hear something, see something, use our senses and ideas, and then it is our job as teachers and parents to guide our children towards creating something new out of the world’s gifts. We provide the guiding thoughts so students can find their own. It can be a phrase or an idea that we hear, and then we ask the powerful question, “What if?”
This morning a McSweeney’s article had me laughing, the concept of “What if” Lovecraft was a substitute teacher at a junior high school? I know of Lovecraft’s writing, but have never read his work. (I should, maybe I will, but….the cultural references and allusions feel like ‘enough.’ Just like not actually reading Shelley’s Frankenstein feels shallow but ‘enough.’) So if I were to use a writer unknown to students, a little background knowledge would be in order. But that’s doable, and certainly not impossible.
I take this idea, and then think about how I could apply it to writing prompts for students. What am I actually asking? I’m asking them to think about things a different way, with my core value belief that everyone can be creative, if you just show them how.
Another example is I was listening to this podcast this morning, and a dozen ideas popped in my mind –ways I could use this grand information for discussions about argumentative writing, reading, memes, digital citizenship, and human history/sociology. And ultimately, is everything or nothing a lie?
In San Lorenzo, California, on May 5, 1942. The last laundry drying in the sun before the mass removal of Japanese Americans during World War II. Famed Dust Bowl photographer Dorothea Lange documented the process of internment for the federal government.
Here is a series on making learning visible — the students look a little uncomfortable, but I’m going to take the big ideas and make them my own, and more importantly, my students’ own.
Does this video inspire or is it a buzzkill for creativity or authenticity?
This post is getting messy. Filled with bits of type and text, like overcooked alphabet soup. Consider it a link festival, full of rabbit holes and mad hatter tea parties. The question presented is now that CCSS is established in many states, what have we lost or gained?
Reminder to read and understand how to move forward with CCSS in ELA/SS:
First, I am wondering if we even have a sense of what is ‘teaching writing?’ It doesn’t seem to exist. There is the editorial/grammatical end to the whole language approach of ‘any mark is a good mark on the page’.
Most of these fear seem to be the opposite outcome from Common Core. I’m not quite sure what the rumors were, or where the fears came from. But the testing part does seem to have some merit at first glance. Later this weekend I’ll be completing a Prezi that contains the brief write rubrics for Common Core writing assessments, and they are valuable for any content area.
Some of these fears are truly odd: since when have standards given students specific topics? And since when have standards ‘taught teachers how to teach writing?’
And on what metric is creativity? I’m not sure. I’m still a bit baffled.
New Dorp’s Writing Revolution, which placed an intense focus, across nearly every academic subject, on teaching the skills that underlie good analytical writing, was a dramatic departure from what most American students—especially low performers—are taught in high school. The program challenged long-held assumptions about the students and bitterly divided the staff. It also yielded extraordinary results. By the time they were sophomores, the students who had begun receiving the writing instruction as freshmen were already scoring higher on exams than any previous New Dorp class. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from 67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011; for the global-history exam, pass rates rose from 64 to 75 percent. The school reduced its Regents-repeater classes—cram courses designed to help struggling students collect a graduation requirement—from five classes of 35 students to two classes of 20 students.
The critical difference between pre-CCSS and emerging CCSS is writing argumentative and explanatory pieces.
In the coming months, the conversation about the importance of formal writing instruction and its place in a public-school curriculum—the conversation that was central to changing the culture at New Dorp—will spread throughout the nation. Over the next two school years, 46 states will align themselves with the Common Core State Standards. For the first time, elementary-school students—who today mostly learn writing by constructing personal narratives, memoirs, and small works of fiction—will be required to write informative and persuasive essays. By high school, students will be expected to produce mature and thoughtful essays, not just in English class but in history and science classes as well.
The NCTE provides their take, which correlates to the analytical approach, and appears more inclusive instruction.
Writing is not just one practice or activity. A note to a cousin is not like a business report, which is different again from a poem. The processes and ways of thinking that lead to these varied kinds of texts can also vary widely, from the quick email to a friend to the careful drafting and redrafting of a legal contract. The different purposes and genres both grow out of and create varied relationships between the writers and the readers, and existing relationships are reflected in degrees of formality in language, as well as assumptions about what knowledge and experience are already shared, and what needs to be explained. Writing with certain purposes in mind, the writer focuses attention on what the audience is thinking or believing; other times, the writer focuses more on the information she or he is organizing, or on her or his own emergent thoughts and feelings. Therefore, the thinking, procedures, and physical format in writing are shaped in accord with the author’s purpose(s), the needs of the audience, and the conventions of the genre.
And the NWP weighs in with their suggestions for ‘teaching writing.’ I’ve labeled each suggestion to make sense of what skill it may be adressing.
Evolving from the fears of the CCSS writing standards to the present, what changes do you think have been most effective, and where are some areas educators are still confused? What is most beneficial to students, or is an understanding that writing is complex, and approach with patience and grace the most important thing?
Scholarly articles if you’re really bored this summer:
http://sho.co/embed/17FCLRecently our administration sent out a valuable PD article, ‘Write More, Grade Less: Five Practices for Effectively Grading Writing’ by Lisa Lucas. Having been a big believer in the quick write for years, this sparked a renewed interest in R.A.F.T.S. writing. In addition to our drabbles, R.A.F.T.S. prompts can be content-focused, creative, and imaginative. Middle school students, in particular, feel the squeeze away from creative writing and often freeze up. RAFTS are not new, but they are tried and true.
