Open ended or focused journaling?

As I engage in exploratory writing for this blog, I ponder the use of journaling in the classroom. Writing for journaling can be open ended, or focused and highly guided, according to Bean. The form ultimately used is determined by teaching style and course objectives. In most cases, I would choose open ended writing if I were to use journaling as a class activity. That is my teaching style. Focused/guided writing can potentially impose too many requirements and may stray from the true purpose of journal writing. Why not just assign a short essay with relaxed grammar, punctuation and structure requirements instead?

Journaling is exploration for the writer, and evidence of the mind at work. Bean describes it as the thinking process put to paper. He states, “Writing is messy because thought is messy” (101). I love this statement! Journaling should be messy! Focused and “highly guided” writing assignments should not be categorized as journaling in my opinion. I do recognize one contradiction - writing should relate to the class. That within itself is giving the student a requirement. Agreeably my argument is not a perfect one.

My thoughts on the different types of journaling - open-ended writing vs. guided, focused writing, stem from a journaling assignment that I was once given. I thought the assignment was to be a free writing, open ended experience. Unfortunately my writing did not meet requirements, having discovered this upon the return of my first journal entry. When looking at my returned journal assignment, I found myself faced with a multitude of comments in red ink, resulting in points deducted from my grade. Subsequently, this took away the enjoyment of writing for the class. From that point on, it never failed that with each journal entry, I received multiple comments and suggestions for my writing. My journaling became about “looking for the right answer” and the drive to decrease the feedback and number of comments made on my entries. My writing became very structured, and honestly, felt nothing like my own thought process.

The two, and only two requirements, that I believe instructors should institute with journal writing assignments are: writing in relation to the course, and the use of a check mark system of evaluation by the teacher, as Bean discusses. Journaling should allow a student to literally “free write” and to truly experience the thinking process.

Where Does the Responsibility Lie for Boring Presentations?

This week’s reading on alternative approaches to active learning in the classroom is very similar to the ongoing discussion in the meetings industry about meeting formats. There has been a backlash against the traditional lecture-style presentations and PowerPoint sessions that has led to some interesting experimentation. A colleague of mine, Jeff Hurt, who blogs at Midcourse Corrections, writes (rants) often about the topic.

In a recent blog post titled, “Are Conferences Flushing Education Dollars Down the Toilet?” Hurt writes, “It’s been proven time and time again that lectures, those pesky Max Headroom talking heads, lead to the least amount of learning and retention possible. Yet the majority of most conference education is lecture-based. It’s nothing but hundreds of talking heads.” These sentiments are a reflection of what some in the meetings industry have been railing against for more than a decade.

There have been a number of meeting/presentation designs offered up by members of the industry to, as Adrian Segar writes, “challenge the entrenched dominant learning paradigm of passive reception of predetermined information”:

Open Space Technology—style in which participants both decide the topics to be discussed and drive the meeting/session while employing a pre-set framework for interaction.

World Café—style focusing on twenty-minute rounds of conversation in small groups seated around a table.

Conferences that Work—style that leverages attendees' expertise and experience to create the conference that participants want.

Future Search—style of planning meeting that “helps people transform their capability for action very quickly. The meeting is task-focused.”

TED—style of brief 20-minute audio and slide presentations on non-traditional topics.

Pecha Kucha—style of presentation requiring the speaker to use 20 slides for 20 seconds each. The slides change automatically as the speaker delivers the presentation.

The discussion and experimentation in the meeting industry bears a resemblance to the evolution of teaching styles in education with one difference. In the meetings industry, the attendees have been the driving force behind the introduction of alternative “information delivery systems,” perhaps because they have attended one too many talking head lectures. In contrast, the education system in this country appears to have placed the responsibility for innovation on the shoulders of the teachers and the teaching institutions—a fact that budding teachers may want to keep in mind.

Coaching Writing.

I quite enjoyed William Zinsser's quote, "The writing teacher's ministry is not just to the words but to the person who wrote the words" (qtd. in Bean 239). Bean adds, "Sometimes we do not treat students' work in progress with the same sensitivity that we would treat our colleague's" (239). This is a great reminder for me. I do my best to offer plentiful marginal comments about high-order matters, along with a helpful, encouraging end comment...but when you have around 500 pages of stuff to grade, sometimes you're focused more on finishing than effective commenting.

I have a pretty quick turn-around when it comes to grading papers; students hate waiting for grades, and I hate the feeling of 50-something papers looming over my head. However, I've learned this year that in order to give my full attention to every student's work, I must take breaks when grading. If that means it takes an extra day or two, that's just fine. I can't just grade one lengthy paper after another all day long. My brain turns to mush. I've made a couple rules for myself now:

• No more than five papers at a time (each paper takes me about 15-20 minutes to grade--pretty typical for most teachers--so short breaks here and there to clear your head are essential!)
• No grading past 9pm (it's not fair to students to grade when I can't devote my full attention to them)

Commenting on papers is really about coaching students to the next revision, as Bean says (242). (So as much as I might want to finish up grades, I need to keep focused on this coaching concept!) It's about process, not product--for my students and me. (This is why plenty of peer response and conferencing time is pivotal when teaching writing. More on that tonight.)

In terms of structuring a class lesson, I've found that varying the activities work best (I know, kind of a given, but it's easy to get stuck in a "rut"). You can't just tell students to get into groups and "discuss" and then share with the class. You'll lose them. I've observed TAs who seem to rely on the "get in groups, discuss, and then share" method every class. Bean gives us an example of cooperative learning ideas (170). How might we incorporate collaborative learning in our sessions, while varying our activities enough to foster an engaging learning environment? Further, after each session is finished, how will we wrap things up and briefly assess the lesson?

As a new teacher, I still have lots of learning to do, but I have found a few favorite activities that seem to work quite well:

• Fishbowls (Bean 178). I struggled with getting students to focus and listen. Fishbowls really help with that and to facilitate further discussion.
• In-class journals. Not only does this help them process and reflect on class lessons, but it's also great if students seem quiet or non-responsive. After five minutes of writing time, use their responses to facilitate further discussion.
• Online forum postings. Rather than just verbally sharing groups' findings, sometimes I'll have small groups post their responses in class on our class forum (we have a computer lab day once a week). For homework, they can respond to other groups' posts.

I'm excited to work in teams; this will ensure that we come up with new, engaging activities for the kids to get them really thinking about why writing matters (check out Dusty's cool list), how it can help them in life, and to (hopefully) get them excited about higher education!

Writing as a Survival Skill

Convincing younger students - that is, the ones who don't already enjoy writing - that learning to write well is worth their time, attention, and effort can be a tough sell. Young people today are writing more than ever before, thanks to the advent of social media, blogs, text messaging, and the like. But these outlets seldom emphasize good writing. Grammar, diction, spelling and punctuation are often sacrificed on the altar of expediency. As long as the message gets across, the finer points of composition can fall by the wayside.

I guess it's a case of familiarity breeding contempt. Before all the technologies I mentioned came about, young people had little call to write much of anything besides schoolwork. When writing comes with grades attached, and consequences loom when bad grades happen, then young people (in theory) have some motivation to do the best writing they can.

Now that interaction via social (and other) media has become the norm, it may be that kids today do more informal writing than formal. Writing for school becomes something they hurry through so they can get back on Facebook. Formal writing is a distraction from the writing they consider to be part of their life.

So what will happen to them if they find themselves in a circumstance where they must rely on formal writing skills to keep their chestnuts from roasting on an open fire?

It's not entirely farfetched. Something like that happened to me. I was one of many people in a bad situation, and one of the few for whom it turned out as well as it did.

After a year spent in Iraq serving as the commander of a small unit in the Army, I returned to my regular duty station in Germany. Soon I began to experience what was later determined to be delayed-onset post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I was hospitalized in Germany for a time, then transferred to the main Army hospital in Washington, DC for further treatment.

I refer to this as a bad situation because until recently, the Army has never been well-known for being a paragon provider of quality psychiatric care. Quite to the contrary, the system I found myself in was clearly geared against providing real, meaningful care for all but the very worst, most horribly (read: undeniably) afflicted soldiers. The rest of us found ourselves in a kind of holding pattern, receiving token care and sitting in group therapy sessions. The usual outcome for the soldier was either a discharge from the Army with few or no benefits, or being returned to duty having received little in the way of meaningful, truly helpful mental health care. There was a clear agenda to avoid ever diagnosing a soldier with PTSD, because that automatically triggered a level of care and benefits the Army was required to provide, which in turn would put a strain on limited budgetary and human-resource assets.

In these circumstances, most soldiers did what they could and hoped for the best. I, on the other hand, watched, waited, and then started writing. A moment ago, I leveled a pretty serious accusation regarding the quality of Army mental health care as it was in 2007-8. Had I put that in writing at that time with no evidence to back it up - or even worse, put it in writing poorly and unconvincingly - my complaints would have fallen on deaf ears, and I'd have been kicked to the curb (so to speak).

Knowing this, and knowing that I knew how to write, I was careful to both gather good, compelling evidence to back up my claims, and to write clearly, concisely (when possible), and convincingly. I was more successful than I could have imagined.

My goal was to avoid the "usual outcome" to which I referred earlier. My hope was to shed some light on a scandalous issue in Army medicine, so that soldiers who came after me might also avoid that same outcome. And after writing carefully-considered and -worded memoranda to hospital ombudsmen, military commanders, and politicans, not only did my situation change for the better, but the resolution offered for my particular case became the standard by which many soldiers who came after me received their care at that hospital as well.

I didn't change the world. But I did pull my own chestnuts out from over an open fire, and I also helped make life better for a lot of service members who came after me. Many of my fellow patients were young soldiers with not a lot of education, who could not have written what I wrote, nor accomplished what I did. I was lucky to have been able to help myself, and I was glad that I as able to help them as well.

Writing can be a survival skill. I hope no one is ever put in a circumstance such that it needs to be. But given that life is not perfect, and that things to go badly from time to time, young people should consider learning how to write their way out of a bad situation before they find themselves in one.

Evaluation

Last week I was invited to edit an essay one of my former employers was thinking of submitting to the “On Being a Doctor” column of the Annals of Internal Medicine. I read the essay and a bunch of the essays that had been published in the column. They did not match. Ah hah, I thought, not only a chance to edit but a chance to help a good academic writer make a meaningful revision of a piece outside his usual “introduction, methods, results, discussion” format.

I resisted the urge to edit sentences and instead commented on the flow of the document as it had been written and how it differed from the “lesson” format of the published pieces. The piece starts out with his father’s story: surviving the Great Depression, growing up to become a lawyer, and ending up a gentleman farmer. The heart of the story, however, is how Dr. E, a critical care doctor, decided to be a son and not a doctor when his father ended up in an intensive care unit where Dr. E did not have privileges. It is a story I have heard before so I talked about the advantages of writing the story the way he tells it (without his father’s history). I wondered if he wanted to make his “lesson” more explicit. And, because I have heard the story and wondered when I heard it, what he would have done if his father had not done well under the care of those other doctors.

I thought I had been careful not to take over the story, that I’d given him room to write a piece that fit the needs of the column but also told his story; a story he uses to illustrate a point to the medical residents he teaches. The note I got back from him said essentially: This is exactly how I tell the story. I don’t have time to redo it now so I’m just going to submit it as is and see what the editor has to say.

So now it is a different kind of learning experience. How do I give helpful feedback?

· Part of the answer may be timing: feedback may be more helpful if it is earlier rather than later in the process. Once the story is set, it is more difficult to move.

· Part of the answer might be form: this was an email exchange. A short conference might have made it easier to talk about the dilemma (staying out of the medical decision making) and how the introduction detailing his father’s life fit or did not fit into that.

· Part of the answer might be content: in the end, it is not my story. I was a little miffed to hear that my client was taking this to a higher authority. And though the higher authority might agree with me, this is still a chance to learn again that suggestions offered tentatively and with a little humility might be more useful to the writer and better for me as well.

Rules of Engagement

Before entering a class of juvenile boys, I often feel like I am about to enter a lion’s den. I use lion’s den as an analogy simply because teaching can be terrifying. You never know what to anticipate! Sometimes they are overly engaged, sometimes distracted and other times they can make you feel invisible.

I have been working with Decker Lake Juvenile Hall for four years. One of my mentors suggested I help with world studies and assist in creation of current event lessons. The boys we teach range in age from 13 to 18 and come from trying circumstances.

I always have a few topics in mind, but the planned topic is rarely the one they are interested in. It is amazing what can be done in a 50 minute class when students are engaged.
I was reading an article today about strategies on teaching junior high students, and I was horrified to discover junior high teachers tend to be the most verbally abused in our school systems. I guess my analogy of the lion’s den was an accurate one after all. Students in this age range are often unpredictable and difficult to engage.

So, I took a few minutes to put together some engagement tips for our classrooms.

1) Planning a lesson reaches beyond an outline and content. If our class is not engaged, our content is irrelevant

2) An engaged audience is not neccessarily a learning audiance; We should be prepared to assess their progress quickly

3) Regardless of age, no-one wants to be lectured. Class discussions are the best format for this setting

4) Before planning our lesson, always ask “Why”. If we know the motives, we are more likely to engage our classroom. For example: why would they care about writing? Why would they use the information we give them and how will they use it?

5) Be enthusiastic. Nothing is more engaging than our passion for the topic.

6) Link it. Students are most engaged when they are able to create a link between the material presented and their own experiences. My group will have our class write an essay or a story about themselves which they can use for a future college application. This exercise will help them understand the connection between writing well and their future success.

7) Engagement is about choices. Our classroom will be more engaged when they feel like they have a say in the content and structure of their learning experience.

8) Before we can teach them writing, we must teach them critical thinking

9) Have fun. I am always the least engaged when I am bored

10) Don’t forget your end result. No matter how fun and engaging our classroom is, we still have to remember our agenda and goal. Did I teach them something before class was over?


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/17/education/17middle.html

What Makes Writing So Important?

- Writing is the primary basis upon which your work, your learning, and your intellect will be judged—in school, in the workplace, and in the community.
- Writing expresses who you are as a person.
- Writing is portable and permanent. It makes your thinking visible.
- Writing helps you move easily among facts, inferences, and opinions without getting confused—and without confusing your reader.
- Writing promotes your ability to pose worthwhile questions.
- Writing fosters your ability to explain a complex position to readers, and to yourself.
- Writing helps others give you feedback.
- Writing helps you refine your ideas when you give others feedback.
- Writing requires that you anticipate your readers’ needs. Your ability to do so demonstrates your intellectual flexibility and maturity.
- Writing ideas down preserves them so that you can reflect upon them later.
- Writing out your ideas permits you to evaluate the adequacy of your argument.
- Writing stimulates you to extend a line of thought beyond your first impressions or gut responses.
- Writing helps you understand how truth is established in a given discipline.
- Writing equips you with the communication and thinking skills you need to participate effectively in democracy.
- Writing is an essential job skill.

~Based upon brochures from Brown University and the University of Missouri


Maybe these reasons can help our students understand the importance of writing and the practicality writing has in the world.

Connecting

My big concern with teaching this group of young adults is how to connect with them.  I have not had similar experiences that they have had.  I went to school purely for the social aspect.  I just wanted to have fun; I really didn’t want to go to college.  I just wanted to get married and have lots of children.  Then life happened and everything did not fall into the nice little timeline that I had planned.  At this point I decided I need to take care of myself and plan my own future.  I wouldn’t change my life or the experiences I have had but I am not sure if they will be enough to connect to these students.  These are just my thoughts.  Maybe I don’t need to connect with them I just need to show them respect and value their thoughts and ideas.  Thoughts?

In my group I am the first person to present and we are planning and Activity, I have been trying to figure out a way to introduce writing in my component.  I know that through the activity the students will need to work together to complete the task which will be an important foundation but I want to be able to bring it around to writing because this is what we are here to teach these students about.  It is important to find an expressive outlet and I think that writing can be an outlet for these students.  I thought about making a journal for each of the students which would allow them to write out how the activity made them feel, what they learned, and how this activity can help them work toward other goals in their life.  These are just some thoughts that I have had.  I am always welcome to suggestions.

I have never graded a paper before so this week’s reading has been very helpful.  I take most comments personally so when teachers would comment on my papers throughout my schooling years I would take them to heart.  Thankfully I do not have any painful memories from the comments they left.  I am a little leery of grading a paper just because I am a perfectionist and I want to do everything right, but through the assigned reading I have been able to find useful tips.  So bring on the paper grading I am ready for a challenge.

I appreciate all of the insight that I have gleaned from your blogs. Thank you!!

Teaching as Catching –not as coaching!

Students often learn better as they are familiar with the subject or topic of discussion. So exposing them to such subject would make them learn better and they would become critical thinkers. Thinking critically is what school ought to be and so doing will enable students’ horizons and abilities.
 The meaning of topics as students know them, would expand their learning sphere. Why not relating learning to what the students live. For example, a history teacher could bring current event as topic and listen to students debate the topic and slowly transition to the actual lesson plan. Learning is by its nature a cognitive cycle as we all learn different ways.

From my own experience as a younger student, I experienced teachers who came in class, will teach the rules and especially the dos and don’ts. And all I learned was just to follow and I did not grow up with the chance to think critically.

Did I grow up resentful?

 Now, should one teach the Grammar Rules?

Learned or learnt! My bookshelf is full of grammar books and writing books, sometimes, I feel so bad. I wish English was my first language. It is not even the second but the forth language and I have to undergo all the pains again from reading how to write to getting the American English and proper grammar. Indeed I came to know that grammar is the pillar of good writing and or communication. That’s why it is called grammar. As a teacher, I would explain after each remark or red-line, what the error is, give a detail explanation of the rule and encourage student with a common example that would not shield him/her away from writing. Furthermore, I would definitively detail any good signs of excellent writing and encourage the student that his/her writing is excellent and should keep it up. My own assertion- the way a teacher should mark my paper is to be tough-pen’d simply because that is how I grew up and that is the way my elementary teachers were taught to teach.

As grammar is as important, so is the flow of ideas in any writing endeavor. A complete package (grammar-style-flow of ideas-choice of words) is paramount to writing and teaching these techniques requires tact, patience, and creativity to successfully bring students to the points.

I will not be able to teach as I will get all the students a passing grade, and will recognize achievement of those who excel by offering extra books to read as perfection makes it much more perfect, and repetition is all about perfection.  Positive comments are considered a best practice (Gee, 1972, Straub, 2000).

In this specific Summer Camp, time is a factor and we would not have enough of it to get to know the students. However, it could be an opportunity for us to make the greatest impact ever. So building upon teamwork, a hot topic for reflection where the students would learn how to critically think and make decision and or comment in a short period of time is a plus. Due to the time constraint, students would learn to bring nimble and keen rational solutions to situation as they think critically and this is how we prepare students to be the leaders of tomorrow, with positive feedback on writing assignments that would enable them to grow. Leading tomorrow is honing skills from today. So encouraging students to get college degree should be a point of discussion as well.

FLoWiNG

In last week's class I talked a little bit about the state where attention, motivation and situation meet. This occurs when the skills of the individual and the challenge presented before them meet. You know you've reached this state of FLoW when you become completely involved in an activity for its own sake.

Here are a couple ways Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says one can build an environment where people can achieve the single-minded immersion where one can perform their best.

I. We need to be challenged by the task. SKills and Challenge - or at least the psychic impression of them - must meet up to experience flow.
II. We need to be able to Concentrate - Removing or Blocking Out Unnecessary Ambient Noise and Interruption is Key
III. We need to have clear goals to achieve.
IV. We need to receive immediate feedback.

Cheers, Tk

Get Out

I have been thinking about the outline that each group is following for the teaching of the lessons. I believe that the general outline is a great way to teach the students similar but uniquely different messages. One major thought that I have been having for the camp centers around what we want to be a deliverable. For most of the days of the class I have thought that we need the students to produce a story. Something long and thoughtful. I now believe that there is not enough time for this sort of project and I think that we need to do something more like Bean suggest in creating "active learning." The long, written assignment would have way to much silent time and eliminate the "active" in the active learning. I have been dilligently searching for what "active learning" project should be done and I found the following websites to be interesting and helpful:

www.education.com

www.abcteach.com

I would have included the link directly to the information but I could not copy and past the link directly and to be honest, I am a little bit lazy to type it all out (that and I would have messed it up). There are some worksheets sna d fresh ideas on these different websites. I just googled for ideas.

Also, I thought to meet Rich's vission of something the students could have to remind them of the importance of college, we could establish a blog for them. As a Junior High Student I lost or threw out most of any of the deliverables that I developed. If we have a blog for them, it is something that is always available for them to read, contribute to, and stay in touch with (we as there summer camp instructors could also give more encouragement on the blog for the next 4-7 years as our students prepare for college.

I think "getting out of the box" is what we need to do. Many of you are there but I am just now opening the lid.

Inspiration

My purpose in taking this class is to inspire and give these kids the awareness of their potential. My efforts and ideas are designed to open up their minds and introduce them to their dreams. By doing so, they will gain a vision for their future that they have never known before.

Here is our group's tentative activity plan:

Objective:

We want to start the day with an activity that will help bring down their walls and create a level of trust between us and them. More importantly, it will drive the concept of teamwork home.

Overview and Purpose:

The kids will have to help each other across the "electric fence" without touching it. They will not be able to accomplish this task alone and will have to problem solve together. One of the rules of the activity is that they have to all be touching as they cross the "electric fence". This will help them break the touch barrier and encourage them to trust one another. The activity will be a fun way to "break the ice" between themselves and with us.

Materials:

We will need to have a rope and two volunteers to pull off this activity. The rope will be stretched across a small space by the two volunteers. Minimal materials are needed for our activity.

Activity:

I will give directions to the kids in the beginning of our class Friday morning. They include:

-The object is to get everyone over the rope without touching it

-Everyone must line up behind the rope single file and must be touching (ie: appropriately holding hands, holding a shoulder, etc)

-The challenge is designed so that they will problem solve

Assessment:

After everyone is across the "electric fence", we will facilitate a discussion to find out what they observed and learned from the activity.

Rationale:

This activity will force the kids to work together to solve a problem. This will foster their participation in critical thinking as a group, rather than by themselves. After the discussion, we will help transition these principles into their individual dreams and the challenges they face to accomplish their dreams. The concept of "teamwork" and "mentorship" will be thread throughout the rest of the lessons as we coach them in defining their dreams, and clarifying the actions needed to accomplish their dreams.

Food for Thought

The Qualities and Characteristics of a Good Teacher:

- Good teachers treat their students with respect
- Good teachers don't have double standards
- Good teachers are honest
- Good teachers give their students a lot of choice in their assignments
- Good teachers have creative ways of presenting class
- Good teachers get to know their students individually
- Good teachers stand up for their students
- Good teachers let students listen to music (with headphones on!)
- Good teachers don't give much or any homework
(These qualities and characteristics came from 12 Jr. High School kids in my neighborhood)

How to gain the respect of your students:

I feel there has been a common misconception among teachers that being respected by your students means that they "shut up and do everything you command". You could do it this way if you want, but I assure you through my own experience, your students will despise your class and you.

The first step to earn their respect is to simply be nice and respect them. Now, this doesn't mean you should let them walk all over you, but it does mean you shouldn't walk all over them either. There needs to be balance. If you are having a bad day (as we all do from time to time), the best would be to tell your class, so that they can be careful to not aggravate you. That of course doesn't mean someone won't annoy you, but if this happens then at least an angry outburst from you won't be completely unexpected, and since you announced it to begin with, the others should be more likely to accept your apology if you took it out on someone undeserving. Also accept that some of your students may be having a bad day as well, and treat them the way you would want to be treated in such a situation. Students are people and need to be recognized as such.

Encourage your students to call you by your first name instead of Mr./Mrs. etc. This creates a friendlier atmosphere and helps to do away with the idea that you're an authority figure over them, and will encourage them to be more open and friendly with you.

Try to get to know your students individually. Get to know what they like/dislike, their ideas and needs. This can be a lot of work, especially if you teach at a large school, but if you can grade all that homework and keep track of who the good/bad kids are, you should be able to remember a few personal traits as well. Knowing your students will allow you to plan, socialize, and interact towards each individual and not the general class.

Be honest with your students. Especially when they ask things like "When will I ever use this in real life?". One thing a lot of kids hate is when teachers tell them that it's important to know things like the formula for a parabola. Most people will never use that knowledge again.

Grade class assignments on time. Just as you would expect your students to hand projects in on time, you should set the example by being timely yourself. If you don't grade things on time, then be sure to give your students the same leeway as well.

Don't censor yourself too much. Most students actually like a teacher that swears a little every now and then. On the other hand, don't attempt slang unless you're totally comfortable with it.

Knowing the kids

"Good teaching is one-forth preparation and three-fourths theater."Gail GodwinRead more: http://www.primary-education-oasis.com http://www.primary-education-oasis.com/funny-life-quotes.html#ixzz1OpE3TlZB Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

I don't know the best way to connect to my audience. To be honest I don't even think I like Jr. High kids. My thoughts however are that we do need to connect and the way to connect is to have students write about themselves. I also think that we only have two days and very little time. We need to help the students feel good about themselves. I think that we need to focus less on what we teach them (give 1/4) and more on connecting with them (give 3/4).

The importance of Pedagogical Strategies in Preserving Global Leadership

In China, 15-year-olds taking the infamous “Gaokao” exam, which determines their placement in a university, future earning potential, and eventual marriage prospects, consistently rank number one in the world in math and science. A report on yesterday’s “Marketplace” program on NPR Radio confirmed that American 15-year-olds taking similar standardized tests rank seventeenth in the world in the same subjects. The disparity in results has sparked an interesting conversation among those concerned about the future competitiveness of the U.S. and whether or not China has the capacity to surpass this nation to become the world’s next superpower. The outcome of this “race for first place” may lie in pedagogy.

Why Chinese students succeed academically

According to the experts, Chinese students succeed academically because they live in a culture that has valued scholarship for centuries and they have embedded a Current Traditionalist teaching strategy for writing and other disciplines into the educational system. Consequently, Chinese students do very well at regurgitating numbers, facts, and figures. They are masters at repetition and duplication. They take instruction very well. However, they perform poorly at tasks that require personal expression or creativity—the core of innovation.

Why American students lag behind academically

Conversely, Americans do not value standard education as highly as the Chinese (or, apparently, the other 15 countries besides China that rank higher in the standings that the U.S.). In fact, “hacking,” the practice of scrutinizing, deconstructing and working around the rules, has become a much sought-after skill. The current pedagogical strategies for teaching writing and other subjects in the U.S. are based more heavily on the Expressivist and Social Constructionist principles that are in tune with the technological demands of our American culture. Consequently, American students are more creative and innovative than the Chinese—a trait that some argue will help America maintain its superiority in the global economy.

The Value of Critical Thinking

If we accept that writing is foundational to all learning (including math and science) and that the style of teaching—the Current Traditionalism of China vs. the Expressivism and Social Constructionism of the U.S.—leads to specific societal outcomes, we can understand how important the pedagogical strategy is to ensuring global superiority. There are millions of excellent writers, mathematicians, and engineers—those who practice their respective disciplines with precision and demonstrate high-levels of technical skill. The true leaders in their fields, however, exhibit critical-thinking habits gleaned from a more subjective and open system of teaching.

The Takeaway: Despite the poor academic showing of our students today, the pedagogical strategy of teaching writing and other subjects is critical to preserving the U.S.’s global leadership position in the long run.

This post is an example of a social constructionist response to the topic. Our fast-paced American society dictates that teaching which fosters critical thinking is good, rote teaching is inferior, and it is better to be a leader than a follower.

Post Traumatic Stress from writing

I will never forget Mr. M. He was my 10th grade Health teacher. I have many traumatic recollections of life in high school but his class is one that will haunt me for life.

Picture this: a bushy eye-browed teenager, with no speaking skills, navigating through the halls of an American high school. Life was traumatic enough before I even set foot in Mr. M's class, but somehow he found a way to make things worse.

The curriculum in his class included choosing a news article every week, summarizing and presenting the findings to class. I assume the intent of the curriculum was to help us think more critically and allow us to convey our findings in a well-organized manner.

I spent endless hours each week searching for key words in English, which would relate to health and wellness; that was the extent of my ability. Week after week Mr. M gave me a zero on each assignment because I refused to stand before class and present. I ultimately failed my health class that year. His response to my advisor was " she has to learn at some point" which I actually agree with.

Mr. M failed to observe one obvious fact about me. I DID NOT speak English. It wasn't that I chose not to, it was that I couldn't.

Bean briefly talks about accommodating At-Risk and ESL students. He describes how defeated teachers often feel when it comes to teaching these students. I do not agree with his assumption that these two groups are the same, but I agree with his method for teaching critical thinking and writing for those who face learning and language barriers.

Mr. M did not have the skills to teach English, but he had the ability to teach me critical thinking and developing my thoughts. He could have offered me a framework in which I was able to think and write. He could have provided me with an outline of simple questions to answer about articles to help me think more in-depth. He could have encouraged me to read and write more.

If you think I am passing judgment on my former teacher, you are right! I would have taken the failing grade in-stride had I not felt humiliated in his classroom. His inability to relate to my learning challenges distanced me from writing.

While we plan our lessons for camp, I will be thinking about Mr.M. I hope we make a better impression on our young scholars.

In case you are wondering, I am experiencing major writing anxiety as I write this blog post!

You Don't Teach Writing...

...so much as you nurture writers.

I just made that up. I can't cite much to bolster this assertion, can't quote some luminous luminary before whose words we can genuflect and nod in our own sage agreement.

Oh, wait - yes, I can:

You see, I got my first undergrad degree (an A.A. in Spanish, of all things) at Dixie College of St. George, Utah in 1991. St. George was not my favorite place; I had no desire to spend two years of my life there. So I wound up utilizing every underhanded trick I could in order to earn course credits; I finished their two-year, 90-credit-hour program in one year with 108 credits. My only regret was that I did not stick around long enough to take more classes from Dr. Ace G. Pilkington.

Ace was a trip. In the faculty section of the school catalog, the professors would list their academic degrees in descending order. All except for Ace. His bio boasted an M.A. in Modern Drama from USU, an M.Litt. in English Renaissance Drama from Middlebury College, a B.A. in something from somewhere (memory fails), and at the end, oh-by-the-way, a D.Phil. in Shakespeare (History and Film) from Oxford. Yep, that Oxford.

Ace was (and is) the quintessential expressivist. His chalkboard (those were the days!) bore a paraphrased/condensed quote from Tolkien: "Anyone can write the words, 'The green sun,' but it takes a rare talent to make a green sun make sense." Ace's own advice to us consisted of offering us alternatives: "Write what you know, or know what you write. At least one of those, please."

Although he (of course) made corrections to grammar, syntax, diction, spelling, punctuation, etc. when he graded papers, he never spoke of such things in class. He demanded writing worth reading, without harping on those finer details best left to editors. That is the idea I'd like to convey to students of writing, while the prescriptive grammarians among us suffer collective apoplexy: just write something that comes straight from your heart, or your brain. Write something you care enough about to want to write, and worry less about "doing it right" or it being "good enough" or whatever other concern might stop you from beginning to write it in the first place.

That's exactly how this blog entry came to be. I was sitting in bed, with a whole day full of things I had to get done looming over me, reading the delightful posts of my peers, and thinking, "Crap. Now what? I got nothin'." Yes, such is the grammar of my inner monologue. But then I stopped worrying about whether or not I would write anything worth reading, or that anyone might agree with, or even about where in my sentences the prepositions would show up at.

Instead, I thought the first thought that I thought, and then split it into a title and an opening line. Then I told a story or two. Then I pulled a moral or a take-away value proposition out of it all. Before long I had stopped worrying, and begun writing. But was what I wrote worth writing or reading at all?

It just doesn't matter.

Not in the nihilistic sense of, "Nothing really matters, anyone can see, so do whatever you want while you can," although following that philosophy has led me to a good time or two over the years. But I digress. No, it just doesn't matter because you don't become a good guitarist by picking up a guitar for the first time and flawlessly playing Stairway to Heaven. It just doesn't matter because (to abuse a cliche') Rome wasn't built in a day. It just doesn't matter terribly much what you write, or how good it isn't, because the act of writing (combined on a sustained basis with the act of reading) gets the budding author familiar and comfortable with the tools of the trade: words, phrases, turns thereof, and things of that ilk.

So just do it. Write. Write anything. Write more, worry less, but think and feel always. Escriba en cualquier lenguaje o estilo que le gusta. It just doesn't matter. Just write, get feedback, take a class or three, but above all, write - so that when it does matter, you'll be ready.

Too easy!

Growing Writers.

At the beginning of the semester, I have my students fill out a student profile worksheet. It covers the basics--"Where's your hometown?" "What's your intended major?" "What do you expect from me as your instructor?" and a handful of other "get to know you" types of questions. Something I'm really interested in finding out, though, are their answers to this one: "Do you think you're a good writer? Why or why not?"


Out of the 75 or so students I've taught this past academic year, all but a small handful said they were "bad" at writing. Their rationale as to why they thought this usually had something to do with how they received "bad grades in English" and/or they were "bad at grammar."


So, initially, I was surprised to read that most of my students thought of their writing abilities in a negative light--but then I understood why (at least a little bit, anyway) they responded in the manner that they did. They associated their perceived writing abilities with grades and how well they've mastered correct grammatical/mechanical skills.


Another question on that student profile worksheet asked students how often they read, what they typically like to read (books, magazines, blogs, etc.), and their favorite book(s). I certainly did have some readers, but overwhelmingly, most said they did not read and didn't even have a favorite book. Many couldn't even remember the last book they had read.


Recently, Christy shared this article with me from the The New Yorker. In it, Menand says:

If you read a lot of sentences, then you start to think in sentences, and if you think in sentences, then you can write sentences, because you know what a sentence sounds like. Someone who has reached the age of eighteen or twenty and has never been a reader is not going to become a writer in fifteen weeks.

After reading Menand's words here, I couldn't help but think back to that beginning of the semester student profile. If most of my students who didn't think they could write well weren't even reading, how feasible is it then for them to "become" writers?, as Menand mentions above. Now, the idea that we can become writers is complex (i.e. can writing be taught?); we started this conversation a bit last week (and it's an ongoing one!).


One of my faculty teaching mentors at Iowa State, Michelle Tremmel, is a workshop facilitator for the "Growing Writers Symposium," sponsored by the Iowa Council of Teachers of English. The goal of the symposium? To "help students grow as writers, focusing on habits of mind and behavior conducive to successful writing in high school and in college."

So there's this idea of becoming vs. growing as a writer. And then the idea of "successful writing" is noted here; we could pick that apart and dialogue about what successful writing even means, but we can talk more about that later (and fortunately, we have all sorts of fun rubrics to help us assess that). But I really like this idea of growing.


So, Menand is right. We're not going to be able to help students transform into "perfect writers" (no such thing) who leave the classroom--or writing camp--and decide they all want to write novels for a living. That's not the point. But I'm confident that we can teach by example. We can model. We can encourage. If our little campers and future students leave the classroom with a boost of confidence, motivation, and some knowledge about writing (quite important, of course)--that's something. The idea of writing as process is an ongoing lesson throughout any writing course. If my students learned anything this past year, they certainly have learned that! The process is gradual. Like any sport or craft, it takes practice and time. (And reading helps, too.)


In sum, there's a few things here I'm really interested in right now:

• How students perceive themselves as writers--and why.
• How reading and writing go hand-in-hand (and how on earth can I get my students to read!?).
• Being deliberate and mindful of the language we use in the classroom to talk about writing (peer response v. peer review v. peer edit, introduction v. opening paragraphs, etc.)
• How I can encourage the "writing as process" mindset among students.

Getting to Know How to Teach is Fun

My past and current jobs have exposed me a lot not only to the different cultures but also how family, ties, and groups are important factors in youth development.

I have come to learn that the environment in which one grows up from are subsequent to one's development.

To successfully carryout the learning process, one needs to:

1. Get to know the family atmosphere of the student

2. Get to know the friends of the student

3. Have the student outline him/herself career plan

4. Ask student how she/he anticipates to carryout successfully such plans

5. Share w/student some pointers such as real examples.

6. Have student explore other venues/options

7. Always encourage students and give feedback during the conversations.

8. Being in the shoes of the students will ultimately help them as they become so familiar with us and thus they are more likely to trust us, listen to us and then follow our guidance.

Blooming

Skiers and Dreamers, to acquire excellence, must start young. There is, from my experience, no other way.What does this have to do with schooling and writing and teaching, you say? Read on, and in my rambling writing might become less grey.

###

For two summers of my youth, I did the Westminster MPC summer school gig. Then, I left Zion and headed back West. During this time, I kept the day job. Instead of summer school, though, I picked up a little something on the side – coaching junior high cross-country and track.

Before I jumped into coaching, I read up. I felt a duty to be an asset, not a thorn in these youngster’s development. I remembered my own early days of athletics, running into teammates overcome with fear of failing in competition, hiding out under the bathroom bleachers. I felt with my inexperience in coaching, reaching these kids, making them see competition as something in the words of the late great Steve Prefontaine – the opportunity “to make something beautiful when we run” instead of being near paralyzed by the fear of failure. I knew before I ever set foot on the track as a coach this was my greatest challenge, this would be my Moby Dick. Instead of reading books on training physiology, it was more psychology centered.

In coaching the seventh and eighth graders I wanted to build self-efficacy. I wanted to build within them the belief that they will be able to better handle whatever the future throws at them. My reasons for doing this were selfish. If I could connect with thirteen and fourteen year olds and get them to change their perception of their ability I would be reconstructing within myself these same beliefs.



The coach Jumbo Elliott liked to tell his troops at Villanova to “keep running until you can smell the roses.” That is, to get to a point of conditioning and callusing that strenuous physical exercise becomes more than sidestiches, soreness and six a.m. morning runs. When I read Hemingway write about writing, the man had to keep writing until he found his muse. He had a devotion to his craft. He had to head to the cafés and write, and write daily. Somedays he’d write 2,500 words, all for naught. But he still had to write them. The daily experience would finally awaken an explosion of interest and the writer would capture this with pen hitting paper. These are lines we’ve read then carry with us always. For me, one of these passages came from Norman McLean’s last lines of A River Runs Through It.

Eventually all things merge together and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops, under the rocks are words and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by these waters.

I felt the most important responsibility a coach has is building the team and environment the team inhabits. From here the athlete can chase peak experiences in the competition arena or come out for sport to be part of a social club that happens to exercise. A coach, in my opinion, cannot build another’s desire or toughness or resolve. But the coach can aid the athlete in cultivating these skills and help the channel it. When Bill Bowerman said, “Tigers are tigers” I believe he was expressing a similar sentiment.

So how do I help build the Cascade exercise-as-a-way-of-life movement? By tweaking what I see as the prevailing, and antiquated, American definition of success and failure in sports. Most people interpret winning as a standard for success. Instead, imagine if success - and its ancillary doppelganger, failure – became a psychological state, not an objective one. Success and failure no longer need express themselves merely in win-loss outcomes. Rather, performance becomes a series of process goals leading to personal accomplishment. No longer is anything less than winning a threat, a threat that increases a young athlete’s fear of failure.



“An avoidance of failure is a self- perpetuating process that serves to exacerbate the tendency to avoid failure, leading to more mistakes and failures,” is how a peer-reviewed article titled “Why Young Athletes Fear Failure: Consequences of Failure” puts it. To me, this says those who fear failure the most are also the most likely to experience it the most. And that’s not ideal. I feel writing is the same way, only instead of expressing oneself kinetically, it’s through words.

The normal reaction to threats, real or imagined, is fear. I wanted the young Cascade Mountain Lions to be part of a team burdened by simplistic definitions of success or of failure. I told myself, then the team, we will hold ourselves to a higher, more enlightened standard. The budding athletes will not toe the line in an emotional state defined by words like apprehensive or scared. With writing, it’s the same way. We all need the latitude to express ourselves and build up within us the capacity to not be confronted with a stimulus and see it endangering our values and goals. Instead, to help the three schools we have the opportunity to meet with and work with later this month, and help them get just that little bit closer to bask in the expressive beauty of writing.

Can you teach writing

The question I drew last week was: “Can you teach writing? Or is it just something you pick up through practice?”

I saw Christy's face fall when I answered “no, it cannot be taught. It is learned by doing.” It becomes a conundrum: why I would take a class titled “introduction to teaching writing” if I believe writing cannot be taught. I could justify my answer by parsing the question to mean that I personally can not teach writing. Or I could continue to justify my answer by quoting a friend’s observation that education is not teaching but is instead having “space and time” to explore. Neither is satisfactory. Instead I must admit that I had not done the reading and I’m changing my answer. The change is not just a craven response to the teacher’s frown but is, instead, a reasoned reassessment in light of the reading and the in-class introduction of a “process” approach to writing.

If I move from the “current traditionalism” approach to composition (“listen, write, discard”) to the view that writing is process which allows me to learn what I think about a subject by engaging in a continuing dialogue with it, then I have entered my friend’s educational “space and time.” If I accept Bean’s assertion that the process of dialogue can be taught, it is engaged by writing and revising within a critical frame. Practice alone may not supply the frame.

Working with the Junior high students

I agree with what has been posted so far that we need to make these classes interesting, and meaningful. Finding out who we are going to be working with has made me very reflective about what I went through in school. Some of my nieces and nephews went to one of the schools that are being represented and even though I didn't go to one of these I attended a high school with over a 30% drop out rate. For me the hardest part about going to school (and I talked with my relatives and for them it was the same) was being bored with what was being taught.

So much of what we were being taught in school didn't seem relevant to what was happening in my life or around me, and school was my means of escaping the hardships I was going through.


What this means to me, in context of this discussion, is I feel we need to determine what these people want from what we are doing for them.

Dan

Writing can be fun

In my experience working with adolescents with similar backgrounds, it is vital that we make their writing experience fun and personal. If we ask them to write something that they aren't passionate about, they will view this experience as a boring school assignment. By incorporating their interests, unique talents, and life experiences, they will learn how to improve their lives through their writing.

My suggestions are:

1-Start the lesson with an engaging and fun activity that requires team building.

2-Have a discussion after the activity by asking them questions pertaining to the activity. The questions could include:

-What observations they made during the activity? (ie: working as a team made the task possible to accomplish)

-How do these observations relate to your life? (ie: if I allow others to help me, I will be able to accomplish the challenges in life)

-What are your top three dreams in life? (ie: to be a professional NBA player, to be the first in my family to go to college, to be a doctor, lawyer, nurse, etc)

-How can you apply these lessons in your life to create a successful outcome to achieve your dreams? (ie: if I put in the effort, time, and allow others to help me, I can become a college student, professional NBA player, etc)

If we guide the kids in understanding a principle that will help them accomplish their dreams, and ask them to write it out, they will be more engaged in the writing process. Furthermore, they will have fun doing it!

Please feel free to offer any feedback you have on my suggestions.

Fist, Fears, and Fighting

It was really great to get to know all of you in our last class.  I neglected to tell you a very important fact about myself.  I can fit my fist in my mouth, and no I do not have a small hand, I just have a big mouth.  I am not sure when  I realized that I had this talent but once realized I could not help but put this down as a most interesting fact about myself. 

In class last week my introduction question pertained to what student’s fear  when it comes to writing.  I mentioned that one of my biggest fears is punctuation.  I still stand by that fear but I also have a fear of rejection in my writing.  I have always been a people pleaser and so if I am working on any type of project whether it is cooking, writing, or a presentation I want to make sure people enjoy the end product.  I probably put too much pressure on myself but it is a natural fear.  I am very good about putting on a brave face though.  When I read in the syllabus to make the blog entry interesting I definitely felt the pressure.  I can be funny sometimes, usually it is done accidently and at times what is funny in my mind does not always sound funny or interesting when written out.  So no pressure… 

I think some of our fears also steam from our differences whether cultural or racial, and in the article The Teaching of Anti-Violence Strategies within the English Curriculum it talked about “creating a learning environment where students feel secure”.  This is essential when trying to teach students any topic; this type of atmosphere can take away fears and lead to an open environment where they can feel secure in expressing their feelings.  When it comes to fears I want to always help others to feel comfortable.  This is one reason why I want to teach.  One of my favorite classes in College was Speech 101.  I have rarely had the fear of speaking in front of others, I want to create an environment in my speech classes were people feel that they can express themselves and not fear rejection. Do you think this is possible?  Maybe I am being optimistic but I think that it is.

I came into work this morning and a co-worker informed that another co-workers son was in jail due to aggravated assault this weekend.  My mind wandered again to the article The Teaching of Anti-Violence Strategies within the English Curriculum.  If you can’t tell I really enjoyed this article.  It made me think about why we act out and can we through English curriculum really help teach anti-violence.  I am not a violent person by nature, but if I am passionate about something and someone tramples on that subject it can get my dander up, but would never produce violence.  It would be interesting to see how many violent acts were stopped through teaching anti-violence in the English curriculum.  This person (co-worker’s son) went into this situation with anger and maybe he was looking for someone to push around, but the end result doesn’t justify the means. Unfortunately violence is very prevalent in our society today and if we can help people find ways to confront violence in a non-violent way I will support it 100%.  This article helped me to realize that we can use English Curriculum to help students learn ways to combat violence through peaceful methods.  In my opinion the base of most violence is ignorance and if we can teach students tolerance and respect for other cultures, races and all around differences through discussions, writings and other avenues.  I would be interested in knowing what some of your thoughts were?

This was a really long blog entry; I can be a little long winded sometimes.  By the way I do love to cook and would enjoy bringing a treat to class I can bring something sweet or an appetizer, let me know what you would prefer.  See you in class!!

Welcome June 2011 Students

Welcome to MPC 680b. Send me an email at my Westminster account, and I'll send you an invitation that will allow you to begin posting on the blog.

Don't forget that camp dates are June 24 and June 25!

Teaching Philosophy: Classroom Advice

Teaching Philosophy Notes from Class

This is a collection of phrases/words from my notes during discussions and guest speakers in the Teaching Writing class. I did not intend to make such a list but the margins of my pages are littered with emphatic phrases, underlined quotes, and starred considerations. Apparently these items appealed to my sense of a personal teaching philosophy - maybe they will help you establish yours!

Be passionate about your subject
Have enthusiasm
Like your students (at least students in the abstract)
Love what you do
Develop relationships (but not “erotic” ones)
Be committed to learning, not teaching
Identify with your student’s needs
Stay flexible
Be careful of the power relationship issues between teacher and student
Process based versus product based
Recognize the role the teacher plays when you are not in the room
Beware ideological hegemony: language issues of power & privilege
Honor students’ intentions
Create a culture of choice
Fidelity is not a teacher virtue (be able to change with classroom needs)
Be a guide/facilitator
Grades must be objective – rely on rubric (be careful of favoritism)
Working harder does not necessarily mean teaching better
Constraint builds creativity
Scholarship of engagement – service learning
Students need to reflect on their learning/growth
Have realistic expectations
Develop investment with other students
Create a classroom community
Honor students’ power (ability to be influential/make a difference)
Recognize what students do know
Build from strengths
Link lessons to cultural context
Praise what they can do
Help them be better thinkers
Interactive games
Student-active curriculum: games, discussion, role play
Use media – sounds and images
Teach to a variety of learning styles
Use humor
Be authentic
Collaborate with students
Give students a role/responsibility in the class
Allow drafts, give positive feedback and specific constructive comments
Give students the chance to demonstrate their skills
Respect diversity of all kinds: race, class, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation, etc
Model good examples – in teaching, handouts, frontloading experiences, etc
Discuss standpoint theory with the class
Recognize your own hidden curriculum
Discuss how to hold a discussion
Build skills according to a taxonomy
Clearly identify expectations, use a grading rubric
Be aware of pacing – make the curriculum accessible but challenging
Get a mentor your first year as a professor – expect to have difficulties/challenges

Unassigned Metaphors: Teaching Idea

A good idea for a composition course activity might be something I do myself to sharpen my creativity and prose writing. It's an exercise I call "Unassigned Metaphors."

Often the trouble with writing is the process of beginning to write: either you don't have any ideas or you don't know where to start. This can be a mildly frustrating thing to overcome or a total writer's block. To keep my writing muscles strong I do a warm-up exercise, (or whenever I have extra time but nothing particular to "say") which focuses on metaphor/similie and descriptive language. It is "unattached" because I don't labor over the effort of making it mean something or connect to a larger plotline. It frees you up just to be creative (expressivist style!)

In the spot where there would be a noun you just leave it blank and then write a description. Like this, "_______ is like (insert your awesome description here).

Write descriptive phrases, using metaphor and/or similie to describe details (for younger classes think: 5 senses - taste, touch, smell, sound, see). The phrases don't have to describe anything in particular, just be interesting words together. Here are some examples:

- gleaming dark, like the blue black wings of a raven in the dessert sun
- like sweet and unexpected afternoon breezes
- like the panic of having your breath crushed from your lungs by deep water

You can write until a time limit is up (like a daily warm-up exercise) or until something inspires you to pick up a particular topic. Keep the list and add to it whenever you do the exercise.

When you have a writing assignment or get bogged down in self-doubt and writer's block you can go back to your list and pick one "unassigned metaphor" and try to "assign" it. Decide what the noun is that fits in the sentence: Owing the IRS money is like the panic of having your breath crushed from your lungs by deep water...or... Being in love is like the panic of having your breath... or... When I heard the news it was like the panic of having your breath...

Usually something sparks my imagination and is the beginning of a story, essay, or etc. This is one of my personal strategies for staying creative. It is a great way to do daily journaling. You could even invite the students to do an unassigned metaphor swap with their neighbor. Everybody trades and then writes about the subject they got.

Let me know if you try something like this. I know it works wonders for me but I would love to see how it translates in the "real world."

Lessons from the learning journal

One of the most productive teaching tools I have found in my writing education was the inclusion of a class learning and reading journal. My sophomore year I took a class on “writing about nature.” The curriculum involved the standard canon of Thoreau, Muir, Emerson, and modern writers including Barry Lopez and Ed Abbey. What made the class memorable was the time I spent with my class journal. The journal provided a sort of no-judgment zone for me to muse about how these writers were impacting me; what words or phrases hit an emotional response, and how I could learn to incorporate their style into my own work. Beginning writers need to get past the “blank page” syndrome, and learn to trust themselves to put something out there on paper. Each week I would take my journal somewhere outside, on campus or on a short hike. The portability of the journal made it a sort of learning companion, and the fact it was only evaluated based on participation assured that I would feel confident in writing dozens of pages a week. These free-writes provided me the creative fodder in developing more polished and structured essays as the semester unfolded. I continue to freeze up looking at a blank screen and waiting for some gem of insight to pour out of my head. In these times of struggle I still rely on the freedom of a journal to get my process going. The journal need not be completely without structure. Instructors can guide the process with leading questions, or give a quote or passage for students to respond to. The key is to feel free to express oneself without the editor lurking over the shoulder. That is the lesson I have taken from this exercise: sometime the most important ingredient in the writing process is just getting started.

A Post from Sid

This is concerning my writing experience which started decades ago but under a different system then the one of main stream America. I was first instructed in a Native American boarding school in the midwest and needless to say the teachers who were there often followed the protocal of what the prevailing mode of induction they felt best for any particular age group. This often followed the rhetoric or the unwrittten philosophy of the government school policy which always was archaic at best. The protocal of education still emanated of the theme..." save the child..kill the Indian".

So imagination and the ability to question was regimented many times by the strict influence of who was the instructor. How one learns under those circumstances is questionable at best since it is in the formative years. Then i attended public school up until high school in the urban areas of idaho. And it was here that I felt less inhibited in my wrting approach, the teacher introduced many social issues of the time , kent state shootings , vietnam war, woodstock(hey i'm giving my age away) but those areas were what they were.

Then during this time I was from a reservation which also stood as a barrier into the dominant society at that time...so much so that one particular incident peaked my interest in persuing at what ever means the true inner feelings of my soul as a writer . Martin Luther King had just been assasinated and I remember my family was living in a small town where the majority was anglo. On the ever of Martin L. King's death the anglo people could be dancing , shouting and rejoicing in the streets in this mid-west town.

I made a commitment that even though I may not be the greatest writer of all times there was something that I could do to educate the Native people in communicating in the English language. The road through the educational process has been a very challenging one and remains so but I feel fortunate to be able to learn from who i consider the best along with picking up missed knowledge from my constituents also.

Transitions exercises contest

Something I always wished I'd been shown, and something I'd like to develop an activity around, is writing transitions. I'd probably pass out or show on a screen, a bunch of short paragraph pairs on a wide range of subjects that needed transitions.

Then I'd divide the class into two teams and solicit comments and ways of transitioning (such as paraphrasing the last sentence in the first paragraph, repeating words in the second paragraph to tie it to the first paragraph, etc.). The student teams could brainstorm a bunch of different ways to make transitions smoothly or with themes or with actual words and a designated recorder would write them down.

Then the teams would come back together and describe their different ideas to the rest of the class. I'd feel most successful with this if the teams made transitions in ways I'd never imagined. Perhaps I'd even put up paragraph pairs that were really unrelated and challenging, like a paragraph from a motorcycle magazine and a paragraph from a fashion magazine. Some of the transitions could be pretty funny because we'd have to really stretch to tie them together.

The Writing Experience

One of the most memorable teaching activities I remember was from one of my junior high English classes. There were many more male students than females. I remember the girls felt overwhelmed--like our voices weren't being heard, but overpowered by more aggressive male voices. To discuss the situation, we were instructed to read a magazine article about gender and write about gender-based problems in our classroom journals. This led to conversations and writing about real-world issues. We often had "conversation leaders" at the beginning of the period, where each class someone would bring in a topic that was relevant in our community (which required us to be "in the know" -- reading the newspaper and watching the news regularly). We would discuss it, and then write about it. At age 12 or 13, I remember feeling so aware about the world around me -- and then writing/responding after classroom discussions certainly helped me feel even more connected.

Another favorite was from my freshman English class here at Westminster. Our class teamed up with fourth graders from a local elementary school for a book club of sorts. We were matched up with a fourth grade buddy and had truly involved discussions about the novel, Esperanza Rising. The book, although geared toward young adults, was full of relative content that allowed for discussions of newsworthy issues. Both parties wrote regular responses, and listening to the difference between ten-year-old and 18-year-old responses and the issues/topics that resonated with us most was quite thought-provoking. Hearing the insights from a young group of diverse students from a wide range of backgrounds allowed for fuller writing responses for everyone.

During the "Writing Your World" camp that Westminster puts on each summer for high school students, one of the activities the campers do involves "place." Campers go to the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Great Salt Lake, and a hike at dusk to provide some extra inspiration for writing about anything they'd like. As a camp counselor, I was amazed to read the end results; the difference in quality from a piece produced from just sitting in a classroom to a piece produced from being in a new or unfamiliar environment was truly noticeable.

These three activities reaffirmed for me that writing truly is an experience.

Experiencing the Exigence of Writing

I remember, back in the day, that sick sinking feeling that my high school self used to associate with writing. Not only was it difficult to generate words in "good" sentences (and my perfectionist self hated not being able to be great at something), but it seemed like unnecessary torture too. Each essay was just an essay for itself. Of course I understood I was developing my ability to write so I could succeed in college... but after college, then what? Like many of my classmates, the writing assignments in my English class seemed as relevant to life as my calculus problems in my Period 2 math class.

I think it would be fun and helpful to create a class activity/assignment that would communicate the importance of learning how to write well... although I have been having a hard time trying to create an activity/assignment. Ultimately, I would like to engage the students in an activity that would illuminate how writing is power and, conversely, not knowing how to write renders one powerless.

I think I have inklings of a possible activity. Each student would be asked to freewrite about something they know well - for example, their favorite memory of summer or their favorite food. However, each student would be given secret directions that would metaphorically represent not knowing how to communicate effectively (e.g. one student would only be allowed to use words with 5 letters or less, another student could not use any periods or commas, another could not use any sort of introduction or conclusion, etc). After freewriting, we would discuss how the students felt regarding their ability to get their ideas out into the world considering their communication restrictions (or lack thereof). Then, I would hope to help the students realize that learning how to master appropriate grammar, expand vocabulary, organize thoughts, etc will give them power in their daily lives to share their ideas, influence others, and succeed in any avenue.

Of course, the above idea is still quite idealistic. I would love any input regarding how to better organize the above activity or how to implement other activities that might help students understand the power of effective/efficient communication.

Ethical Expectations

I heard a story the other day about the two young men who tried to protest at the Republican National Convention last year by using Molotov Cocktails.  Something that captured my attention during that story was that the author focused on two things about the activists-- youth and lack of education—neither of them had college degrees.  It almost seemed to imply that if these young men had only been educated with more than a high school education, maybe they would have been lead down a healthier path.

 

Although I am not claiming I believe this line of thought, it did, however, start me thinking about what it is that we get from college that would prevent one from using these extreme means of protest?  What types of things do we or should we be learning in those first critical years? This leads me into a really great article I read for my class project: “Honest in Freshman Rhetoric”.

 

Margaret McDowell writes that we sped too much time teaching students argumentative techniques in first year rhetoric or composition classes while we should be teaching them ethical implications of their arguments and more time devoted to the writing and delivering of speeches.  She continues to suggest that professors need encourage students to master their subject and then learn to write about it.

 

This is a very watered down version of this article but I found connection in this and what was being mentioned as “missing” in the story about the activists.  The simple fact that there is an academic argument of how we teach students to argue and that we need further time devoted to this subject stands out to me.  This is what I believe those young men were missing—the ethical dilemmas they face and how to critically think about them.  College does not teach you to be “ethical” but it does encourage students to think outside their boundaries in a variety of ways.  Professors, on the whole, care about the types of thinkers they produce and send into the world.

 

The articles I have been reading are really helping me to form a base of what I think is important to focus on in the classroom.  Thinking that maybe these young men were missing something because they did not attend college puts a bigger expectation on me to think about why others are going to college and what they need to take away from it. What do I need to be prepared for and how can It assist future students down a path to be moral beings?  Another reason I am scared to be a teacher-- what pressure!