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| CC Image Courtesy of emily.aurel504 on Flickr |
Sarah's demo opened my eyes to a harmful practice that I do in my classroom. I taught an argument writing unit where we brainstormed potential topics they could write about and then I handed out a graphic organizer for them to fill out. Some students groaned and asked if they could use something else besides the graphic organizer and I did say that it was fine. But the majority of them still filled out the formulaic graphic organizer that I created with another teacher. I like that Sarah put us in our students' shoes and we knew how it felt to be constrained in our writing process. Our group talked about how it didn't even feel like we were writing. We didn't feel like writers. Our writing is usually messy and all over the place and it doesn't fit into a nice oreo shape. We felt like we were just going through the motions to get this done. It's like we were doing a paint-by-numbers picture. Writing-by-numbers.
Maybe the whole process of how we approach these genre unit blocks are too constraining. Lil said that she never sits down and tells herself that she's going to write a persuasive piece. It is unnatural and strange to write with the format in mind, instead of a message. I think I need to either ease students into the process with a lot more freewriting beforehand, or show them a lot of models of different types of brainstorming (Ashley's idea), or incorporate what Lacy was saying about asking students to think about what is being valued in this type of writing (translingual?). I think I also need to bring in a lot of model texts of persuasive texts so students could know the possibilities (like a modified, more specific version of Kendra's demo--asking 'what is good persuasive writing?' and ). Lots of swirling thoughts in my head about this topic.
P.S. Worms should be eaten for dinner by vikings who won't be brushing the teeth of their pet alligators who own only one T-shirt collectively.
I love connecting writing to the images of worms and digging in the dirt. Writing is rarely neat, sometimes messy, and always interesting! I agree that we, as teachers, need to allow for the worms and dirt in our classrooms - those opportunities for students to simply dig and find whatever nuggets they can!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the "writing-by-numbers" idea! Genius! Also, don't feel so bad and be so hard on yourself...many of us have been right where you are. How is it okay? At least you were TEACHING writing! Yet, I do agree with exposure to various mentor texts to help frame their vision on a certain genre. PS. I am cracking over your PS. It's awesome...just like you! Love your clever writing!
ReplyDeleteI can remember times when I used a "formula" process for teaching argument. It must have been very difficult for the students. But the inquiry process really helps to eliminate formulas. Graphic organizers can be a good thing to get students brainstorming but the student does not want to leave it there or for it to be the final product.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Creative ending! :[)
I can agree that I have definitely used graphic organizers in the past. Sometimes the organizers worked, sometimes they didn't. However, I can now see why the organizers were so limiting. SI has me re-thinking almost every aspect that I teach. I think it has answered a lot of my questions about how more experienced teachers pull great writing out of their students.
ReplyDelete