Today, my students sit at their desks, read 12 pages of a textbook and take notes. It is very quiet.
This appears to be strange and unusual. People walk by the open door and peek in, eyebrows raised. They think I’m angry at my class - everyone sitting with their noses in a book. They stifle a chuckle at the notion that this is punishment for some misbehavior. Or, maybe they think I just didn’t have a plan for today and regressed to the textbook.
Some teachers assign reading (and writing) for homework, and believe that class time should be used for other things. They do many, many wonderful things with their students during class time. There is an overwhelming amount to get done. It can be justified, then, to defer reading and writing to homework. It is, after all, what a student should be able to do independently.
I do a lot in my classroom as well. I also have students read and write in class. When I do, kids sit in their seats and read or write for a sustained period of time, quietly.
Excuse me while I ask my students what they think of the book they are reading for 20 minutes straight…..
I’m back. Here are the comments.
“It’s interesting.” “I like it.” “It puts you into the story.” “It’s fun.”
OK, not the most eloquent descriptions, but you get the point.
Here’s how my ‘No I’m Not a Control Freak’ class session is set up:
The textbook is A History of US – The First Americans, volume one of a 16 book series written by Joy Hakim about the history of the United States. I’ve modeled reading the first chapter aloud, and have had a discussion with students about why reading aloud and following along is vitally important to their personal growth as readers. In a nutshell – Listening and following along with a good reader helps them to:
1. hear good pace, cadence and inflection
2. hear and see words being pronounced correctly
3. hear and see mistakes that can be glossed over without losing meaning/understanding
4. simply receive input from more than one modality
I read the first chapter out loud, and I thought out loud as well. I stopped when I wondered about something, and I shared that with my students. I wrote down a few phrases that captured my attention. I messed up on a couple of words, and quickly told the class, 'Eh, it doesn't matter. I used another word just like it."
Now it's their turn, reading silently.
There isn’t a corresponding worksheet to go with this reading. They aren’t writing ‘words I don’t know’ for a vocab list. The notes I modeled for them to take consist of listening to their own silent reading, and copying a few sentences from each chapter (2-3 pages) that catch them; make them stop and think, ‘hmmm’; cause them to pause and imagine for a second before moving on. They are leaving space under each set of ‘hmmm’ sentences, and tomorrow we will circulate the ‘captured sentences’ and allow other students to respond to these ‘findings’. Something of a simplified ‘Gallery Walk’ of text statements, that will hopefully generate personalized responses and thoughtful input from others.
What’s the point? Will we make anything of this? I’m not there yet, but if I don’t do anything else (hey, I could test them!), the process I’ve involved my students in is a skill they can repeat anywhere, any time for their own benefit. The content is no longer isolated in some barren text. It is food for thought, individually selected and shared with others. It allows students to have their individual takes on content-related reading be shared, read, and listened to. It will enable students to ‘think big’ in terms of the course content, and to know that simply wondering and being alert to their own thoughts is worthy of sharing. I’m sure I can turn this into a major writing assignment, and if I do, students will be more willing to buy in to it because they generated the thoughtful fodder to make it interesting for themselves. But I don’t have to make something more of this. Some reading and writing should be left just to the pleasure of seeking, discovering, and sharing.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Generative Writing… Isn’t that like “Inventive Spelling?”…
Generative writing. It has the same ring to it as ‘inventive spelling’, which has its own merits, but woe is the student who never gets past it. You may have heard it before - “His teachers were really into inventive spelling at his elementary school, and now he just spells words however he likes.”
I have to admit, some of the prompts I use to get my students to write are pretty ‘inventive’. “What’s bugging you?” “What’s on your bucket list?” “What Words of Wisdom do you carry with you?” “What’s a burning question you’ve had?”
I’m a social studies teacher - American history. These trite and fluffy questions are not on the New York State Grade 8 Social Studies Assessment. Sooner or later, my students are going to have to learn the facts.
For our students, writing started out as a wondrous way of allowing them to share what they were thinking. What first grade child didn’t bounce back to his seat with his very own words written for him under a stick picture? The child thought and shared, the teacher listened, and the words came out on paper to be kept there, saved, enshrined for the child, the parent, the classmate, the world - to look at and listen to any time later.
By the time they get to middle school, most of what our students are expected to do in terms of writing is what other people want from them – ‘Write an essay on the comparison of characters in book ‘X’’. ‘Write a paragraph explaining how historical event ‘Y’ caused effect ‘Z’’.
Teachers, whose performance is judged in no small part by student scores on standardized tests, learn to ask the same kinds of standardized questions, assign the same kinds of standardized work, and begin to expect the same kind of standardized writing. They light up when a sprinkling of style emerges in a student’s work, but are mandated and conditioned to penalize students for clear streams of original thought in responses that stray from prescribed assessment rubrics.
It’s no wonder students shut down when it’s time to write. Our educational system has fooled itself into believing that writing truly is simply a mechanism for the conveyance of information, which when operated correctly, provides an adequate measure of skills and knowledge generated by others.
Our students aren’t being asked to think. No one is listening to what they have to say.
To recover that enthusiasm for writing students had early on, some ‘unlearning’ needs to occur. Those seemingly fluffy and trite questions are just one small and early step in that unlearning process. It's true, students will not learn the order of the Presidents by responding to “What Words of Wisdom do you carry with you?”, but they will, in time, learn that they can dig something out of their past to have it shared and valued. “What’s on your Bucket List?” won’t help them learn how to construct a five paragraph essay, but it will help them to dream again, and realize that they can share their thoughts for the moment without fear of being edited, boxed, redirected or forced to revise. “What’s a Burning Question you’ve had?” won’t teach them how to take notes for a research paper, but it will allow them to ask their own questions, to be original, and to realize, perhaps, that they have many of the answers themselves.
Most of all, these kinds of, yes, 'generative' questions, allow students the experience of being listened to once again. Whatever they come up with, they know they can share, that they can talk about it, that others can chime in and expand and offer clues, cues, knowledge and experience to the pool. They begin to unlearn the adult imposed expectations of mechanical writing, and begin to relearn the pleasure of writing as a means of thinking, sharing, and listening.
So what about that list of presidents, that essay they need to write, and that research paper they need to complete? That is writing, after all. There are rules.
Students will write to fulfill those tasks, willingly and well, when they know their thoughts are safe. They will edit, revise, and suffer over individual words, when they know they will be listened to. They will jump through hoops generated by adults, when they trust that those hoops are valuable not only for what they show of adult-generated skills and knowledge, but for what they also can learn and tell of themselves.
I have to admit, some of the prompts I use to get my students to write are pretty ‘inventive’. “What’s bugging you?” “What’s on your bucket list?” “What Words of Wisdom do you carry with you?” “What’s a burning question you’ve had?”
I’m a social studies teacher - American history. These trite and fluffy questions are not on the New York State Grade 8 Social Studies Assessment. Sooner or later, my students are going to have to learn the facts.
For our students, writing started out as a wondrous way of allowing them to share what they were thinking. What first grade child didn’t bounce back to his seat with his very own words written for him under a stick picture? The child thought and shared, the teacher listened, and the words came out on paper to be kept there, saved, enshrined for the child, the parent, the classmate, the world - to look at and listen to any time later.
By the time they get to middle school, most of what our students are expected to do in terms of writing is what other people want from them – ‘Write an essay on the comparison of characters in book ‘X’’. ‘Write a paragraph explaining how historical event ‘Y’ caused effect ‘Z’’.
Teachers, whose performance is judged in no small part by student scores on standardized tests, learn to ask the same kinds of standardized questions, assign the same kinds of standardized work, and begin to expect the same kind of standardized writing. They light up when a sprinkling of style emerges in a student’s work, but are mandated and conditioned to penalize students for clear streams of original thought in responses that stray from prescribed assessment rubrics.
It’s no wonder students shut down when it’s time to write. Our educational system has fooled itself into believing that writing truly is simply a mechanism for the conveyance of information, which when operated correctly, provides an adequate measure of skills and knowledge generated by others.
Our students aren’t being asked to think. No one is listening to what they have to say.
To recover that enthusiasm for writing students had early on, some ‘unlearning’ needs to occur. Those seemingly fluffy and trite questions are just one small and early step in that unlearning process. It's true, students will not learn the order of the Presidents by responding to “What Words of Wisdom do you carry with you?”, but they will, in time, learn that they can dig something out of their past to have it shared and valued. “What’s on your Bucket List?” won’t help them learn how to construct a five paragraph essay, but it will help them to dream again, and realize that they can share their thoughts for the moment without fear of being edited, boxed, redirected or forced to revise. “What’s a Burning Question you’ve had?” won’t teach them how to take notes for a research paper, but it will allow them to ask their own questions, to be original, and to realize, perhaps, that they have many of the answers themselves.
Most of all, these kinds of, yes, 'generative' questions, allow students the experience of being listened to once again. Whatever they come up with, they know they can share, that they can talk about it, that others can chime in and expand and offer clues, cues, knowledge and experience to the pool. They begin to unlearn the adult imposed expectations of mechanical writing, and begin to relearn the pleasure of writing as a means of thinking, sharing, and listening.
So what about that list of presidents, that essay they need to write, and that research paper they need to complete? That is writing, after all. There are rules.
Students will write to fulfill those tasks, willingly and well, when they know their thoughts are safe. They will edit, revise, and suffer over individual words, when they know they will be listened to. They will jump through hoops generated by adults, when they trust that those hoops are valuable not only for what they show of adult-generated skills and knowledge, but for what they also can learn and tell of themselves.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Forgive Me, For I Digress
It happened. Try as I did to avoid it, I digressed. Right there in front of my students. Shameful, I know. But I couldn’t help myself. Maybe I set myself up for it.
The heading for today’s half-sheet booklet page was “Booklet 1.7 – Weekend Update”. I know, it should have been about Obama’s healthcare speech, but I just wanted to know about their weekends. The only stipulation was that they had to write about ONE thing, and not make a list of “and then…, and then…, and then…”. Of course, as usual, it needed to be “unique, bizarre, interesting, unusual, reflective, or otherwise noteworthy – not including birthday parties, sleepovers, or the mall.” By the middle of they year, my students can recite this right along with me.
So I wrote about my weekend. We had a picnic at Stewart Park for our 7th grade students and their families. Decent turnout. Nice to see everyone. Beautiful day. But I found myself reminiscing about the days when I brought my own children to that park when they were young. I noticed that all the ‘old’ playground equipment was gone, replaced by plastic structures. And then I ran out of time. Some kids were still writing as I was penning and smiling on the overhead transparency. But I had to stop.
We did a go-around. Pass if you want, talk a bit if you want, read it all if you want. It’s a great way for students to share and learn about each other. It isn’t all school. These aren’t just classmates. Lives are being lived here. It’s revealing.
I shared last. This is what I wrote.
“This weekend I went to a picnic at Stewart Park. It reminded me of when my own kids were younger, and we went there a lot. There were different things to play on then. A tall metal slide, see-saws, and these metal swings shaped like animals. They’re all gone. Now there is a plastic play structure. I’m sure it would look incredibly fun if I was a kid. But what happened to the old stuff?”
Of course, I know, and they wanted to hear. I went on and told them about how I was probably scarred for life, deeply traumatized, by my older brother ditching me on the see-saw and laughing as I came crashing down. Or getting my tongue stuck on the metal slide when I licked the frost off one of the bars, and had to pull it off when the bell rang (Yes, just like in the movie “Christmas Story” – it happened to me.) And about the metal animal swings that moved back and forth like battering rams, ready to knock out any kid that crossed the path. There was even a rooster with a pointed metal rooster comb on the front of it. Lethal stuff.
I told the class, “You know, I could write a whole page about this. I could write an ESSAY about this. Maybe I will!”
Maybe I will. Maybe tonight, I’ll play with this, and share what I come up with in class tomorrow. My work in progress.
But wait, what about Obama’s healthcare plans? Writing about playgrounds isn’t part of the job, is it? I’m a teacher of social studies. There’s the curriculum to get through.
Eh, we’ll do the homework in class tomorrow. They’ll do better than if they’d done it at home, they’ll feel more successful at it, and I’ll know they got it right. And just as a small addition, they will see that I value writing, that writing can GENERATE ideas and CREATE thinking and isn’t just used to SHOW information; that writing is just plain fun.
The heading for today’s half-sheet booklet page was “Booklet 1.7 – Weekend Update”. I know, it should have been about Obama’s healthcare speech, but I just wanted to know about their weekends. The only stipulation was that they had to write about ONE thing, and not make a list of “and then…, and then…, and then…”. Of course, as usual, it needed to be “unique, bizarre, interesting, unusual, reflective, or otherwise noteworthy – not including birthday parties, sleepovers, or the mall.” By the middle of they year, my students can recite this right along with me.
So I wrote about my weekend. We had a picnic at Stewart Park for our 7th grade students and their families. Decent turnout. Nice to see everyone. Beautiful day. But I found myself reminiscing about the days when I brought my own children to that park when they were young. I noticed that all the ‘old’ playground equipment was gone, replaced by plastic structures. And then I ran out of time. Some kids were still writing as I was penning and smiling on the overhead transparency. But I had to stop.
We did a go-around. Pass if you want, talk a bit if you want, read it all if you want. It’s a great way for students to share and learn about each other. It isn’t all school. These aren’t just classmates. Lives are being lived here. It’s revealing.
I shared last. This is what I wrote.
“This weekend I went to a picnic at Stewart Park. It reminded me of when my own kids were younger, and we went there a lot. There were different things to play on then. A tall metal slide, see-saws, and these metal swings shaped like animals. They’re all gone. Now there is a plastic play structure. I’m sure it would look incredibly fun if I was a kid. But what happened to the old stuff?”
Of course, I know, and they wanted to hear. I went on and told them about how I was probably scarred for life, deeply traumatized, by my older brother ditching me on the see-saw and laughing as I came crashing down. Or getting my tongue stuck on the metal slide when I licked the frost off one of the bars, and had to pull it off when the bell rang (Yes, just like in the movie “Christmas Story” – it happened to me.) And about the metal animal swings that moved back and forth like battering rams, ready to knock out any kid that crossed the path. There was even a rooster with a pointed metal rooster comb on the front of it. Lethal stuff.
I told the class, “You know, I could write a whole page about this. I could write an ESSAY about this. Maybe I will!”
Maybe I will. Maybe tonight, I’ll play with this, and share what I come up with in class tomorrow. My work in progress.
But wait, what about Obama’s healthcare plans? Writing about playgrounds isn’t part of the job, is it? I’m a teacher of social studies. There’s the curriculum to get through.
Eh, we’ll do the homework in class tomorrow. They’ll do better than if they’d done it at home, they’ll feel more successful at it, and I’ll know they got it right. And just as a small addition, they will see that I value writing, that writing can GENERATE ideas and CREATE thinking and isn’t just used to SHOW information; that writing is just plain fun.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
I Love Butcher Paper
There’s a lot of construction going on at school, and the start of the year has been anything but normal. With six new modular classrooms outside, and one wing still under renovation, everyone’s routine for the beginning of the year has been challenged, to say the least. I am amused by some very good teachers who've found they can actually begin their classes with dust, of all things, still on the hallway floors. I personally was forced to realize that I can still teach without a whiteboard or chalkboard.
The secret? Butcher paper.
Oh yeah. I have a roll of that stuff that weights in at 40 pounds, and I’ve been using it for years. Cheap, white, easy to rip, easy to recycle butcher paper.
Since I’m moving out of my classroom mid-year to let the hard-hats come in with their hammers, I decided not to completely unpack everything, and to hold back on the annual first bulletin-board competition (no one really talks about it, but it’s true). Instead, I plastered my walls with butcher paper, and here’s what we did with it.
Day One – Words of Wisdom
The kids came in and were immediately initiated with the daily routine of picking up a half-sheet of paper, standing at their desks, putting their backpacks down, getting out a pencil, and labeling with a full heading and “Booklet 1.1 – Words of Wisdom”. One the overhead (secret weapon without chalk or whiteboards), I did the same thing. “Good morning!” “Good morning.” Said the class. “Please sit down, and let’s get started.” That’s my cue that the talking dies down, and we are on to class-related things.
I told them the story of joining the church junior choir when I was a kid. Every year I joined with guarded optimism, and every year I wanted to quit around January. My parents always said, “No, you can’t quit in the middle. If you don’t like it, don’t join next year. But you can’t quit now.” Those ‘words of wisdom’ have stuck with me, and help guide my life. I’m a person who has abided by those words, “Don’t quit in the middle,” more than once since I was a kid.
And another story, about taking risks, about thinking before jumping off the shed into the four foot deep pool, with my buddies chanting, “Do it, do it, do it”, while a little voice inside me said, “If you’re not sure, DON’T.” . Or writing an email or posting a comment on the internet and hearing that little voice right as my finger was about to press the ‘send’ button. It said, “When in doubt, DON’T.” Those words of wisdom have probably saved not only my life, but my relationship with more than one person.
I asked, “Do you have Words of Wisdom from your life?” They were dying to talk. But I didn't let them. “Write,” I said. “Write it down. Write it all down. Write how you got those words, who gave them to you, when you needed them, how you used them, how you love them, or hate them. Tell it all on your half-sheet of paper.”
Three minutes later, I was filling up a sheet of butcher paper with their ideas as they shared them. We have a long and fascinating list of great life lessons, wise words, and family history that will stay on the wall for a few weeks. We’ll make posters after we study advertising techniques, and post them around the school before parents’ night. Each poster will be unique, meaningful, personal, and positive, and hopefully help shape the culture of the school in some small but good way.
My “Booklet 1.1 – Words of Wisdom” half-page went up on another blank bulletin board, so everyone could see it. Tomorrow, Booklet 1.2 goes up, and on, until we have a collection of about 12 or 15 half-pages of freewrites, examples, class notes, reflections, vocab words, ad infinitum – one from each day in class. They’ll make covers and turn the ‘Booklet’ in for credit – one point per page, in order, done completely. When student is absent, s/he can check out the board to see what s/he missed. If a student doesn’t want to think on a particular day, or loses a page, s/he can simply copy my example. (“But, s/he didn’t do the work!”) I could write another entire column on my philosophy toward that. Maybe later.
More on the butcher paper tomorrow. Burning Questions, and My Bucket List. The walls are full of really delightful sparks, all from the students.
I love butcher paper.
The secret? Butcher paper.
Oh yeah. I have a roll of that stuff that weights in at 40 pounds, and I’ve been using it for years. Cheap, white, easy to rip, easy to recycle butcher paper.
Since I’m moving out of my classroom mid-year to let the hard-hats come in with their hammers, I decided not to completely unpack everything, and to hold back on the annual first bulletin-board competition (no one really talks about it, but it’s true). Instead, I plastered my walls with butcher paper, and here’s what we did with it.
Day One – Words of Wisdom
The kids came in and were immediately initiated with the daily routine of picking up a half-sheet of paper, standing at their desks, putting their backpacks down, getting out a pencil, and labeling with a full heading and “Booklet 1.1 – Words of Wisdom”. One the overhead (secret weapon without chalk or whiteboards), I did the same thing. “Good morning!” “Good morning.” Said the class. “Please sit down, and let’s get started.” That’s my cue that the talking dies down, and we are on to class-related things.
I told them the story of joining the church junior choir when I was a kid. Every year I joined with guarded optimism, and every year I wanted to quit around January. My parents always said, “No, you can’t quit in the middle. If you don’t like it, don’t join next year. But you can’t quit now.” Those ‘words of wisdom’ have stuck with me, and help guide my life. I’m a person who has abided by those words, “Don’t quit in the middle,” more than once since I was a kid.
And another story, about taking risks, about thinking before jumping off the shed into the four foot deep pool, with my buddies chanting, “Do it, do it, do it”, while a little voice inside me said, “If you’re not sure, DON’T.” . Or writing an email or posting a comment on the internet and hearing that little voice right as my finger was about to press the ‘send’ button. It said, “When in doubt, DON’T.” Those words of wisdom have probably saved not only my life, but my relationship with more than one person.
I asked, “Do you have Words of Wisdom from your life?” They were dying to talk. But I didn't let them. “Write,” I said. “Write it down. Write it all down. Write how you got those words, who gave them to you, when you needed them, how you used them, how you love them, or hate them. Tell it all on your half-sheet of paper.”
Three minutes later, I was filling up a sheet of butcher paper with their ideas as they shared them. We have a long and fascinating list of great life lessons, wise words, and family history that will stay on the wall for a few weeks. We’ll make posters after we study advertising techniques, and post them around the school before parents’ night. Each poster will be unique, meaningful, personal, and positive, and hopefully help shape the culture of the school in some small but good way.
My “Booklet 1.1 – Words of Wisdom” half-page went up on another blank bulletin board, so everyone could see it. Tomorrow, Booklet 1.2 goes up, and on, until we have a collection of about 12 or 15 half-pages of freewrites, examples, class notes, reflections, vocab words, ad infinitum – one from each day in class. They’ll make covers and turn the ‘Booklet’ in for credit – one point per page, in order, done completely. When student is absent, s/he can check out the board to see what s/he missed. If a student doesn’t want to think on a particular day, or loses a page, s/he can simply copy my example. (“But, s/he didn’t do the work!”) I could write another entire column on my philosophy toward that. Maybe later.
More on the butcher paper tomorrow. Burning Questions, and My Bucket List. The walls are full of really delightful sparks, all from the students.
I love butcher paper.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Bedazzled and Exhausted
There are other teachers, very respectable teachers, who are incredibly organized, and who are firing on all eight cylinders before the kids even arrive. They have the map of the curriculum plugged into the calendar for the year, and they are going to get their students to that place in June where they can look back and say, “We worked hard, and we learned a lot.”
That’s not me. The kids are showing up tomorrow, and I’m exhausted already. I’m still wrestling with the gear-shift and trying to get it into first.
It’s a problem I have each year, that I reinvent myself as a teacher. I create this problem by not saving and filing (and sometimes not recording) what I do in my classes from day to day, and year to year. Dare I say ‘I wing it’? nnnnNo. Not really. I plan. I prepare. I could justifiably say that I ‘fine tune’ my teaching to the needs of my particular classes, students, as well as the times they are living in and the interests they have. I find the curriculum through my classes each year. But it’s the journey, not the destination, that I teach for.
This doesn’t bode well when I try team up with workhorses who are passionate and driven to instill the skills and knowledge they believe, desire, and are obligated to provide to their students. Their minds are like rolodexes, recalling activities, dates, moments and eras in history. They mesh and weave and knead units into weeks, and projects into units, and leave wiggle-room during part of class on every Friday for current events. I get so bedazzled, I have trouble remembering if the Reformation came before or after colonization. And that doesn’t look good when you’re outed, either.
I admire these people. I can learn a lot from them. They are bursting with ideas. I just nod and volunteer to do some of the grunt work, but in the back of my mind, I have the feeling they’re regarding me as some kind of second-chance teacher. I remind myself that I’m a good teacher. And I ask myself, ‘If these teachers are so great, what do I, who teach so differently, have to offer them?’
That’s not me. The kids are showing up tomorrow, and I’m exhausted already. I’m still wrestling with the gear-shift and trying to get it into first.
It’s a problem I have each year, that I reinvent myself as a teacher. I create this problem by not saving and filing (and sometimes not recording) what I do in my classes from day to day, and year to year. Dare I say ‘I wing it’? nnnnNo. Not really. I plan. I prepare. I could justifiably say that I ‘fine tune’ my teaching to the needs of my particular classes, students, as well as the times they are living in and the interests they have. I find the curriculum through my classes each year. But it’s the journey, not the destination, that I teach for.
This doesn’t bode well when I try team up with workhorses who are passionate and driven to instill the skills and knowledge they believe, desire, and are obligated to provide to their students. Their minds are like rolodexes, recalling activities, dates, moments and eras in history. They mesh and weave and knead units into weeks, and projects into units, and leave wiggle-room during part of class on every Friday for current events. I get so bedazzled, I have trouble remembering if the Reformation came before or after colonization. And that doesn’t look good when you’re outed, either.
I admire these people. I can learn a lot from them. They are bursting with ideas. I just nod and volunteer to do some of the grunt work, but in the back of my mind, I have the feeling they’re regarding me as some kind of second-chance teacher. I remind myself that I’m a good teacher. And I ask myself, ‘If these teachers are so great, what do I, who teach so differently, have to offer them?’
Day One - September 9, 2009
Saw my wife, Alison, off a few minutes ago. It's her first day with a new class of first graders. She's a seasoned teacher who knows what to expect, and still, she's got the first-day jitters. What could I say to allay her nerves? "Start easy." "Remember, they're still kindergarteners for a while."
What I advised to her, I need to take to heart myself. Especially when it comes to writing, which to me as a middle school teacher, is the ultimate learning tool.
Start easy.
Kids think writing is hard. It shouldn't be so. How did it get to be that way? Do they remember the thrill they had at successfully scribing their names? Or dictating the caption for that wonderful drawing they did in first grade? I'm sure at some point in their early years, they practically bounced back to their seats with those completed sentences of their very own words. Who cared if they didn't actually tool the letters themselves, or even if they needed help coming up with the words? They had a piece of paper with their very thoughts encoded on it! They were filled with amazement and pride.
Then, we killed it.
Of course, they needed to learn how to spell. And there are proper conventions of grammar and punctuation that need to be mastered. Let’s not forget handwriting, editing symbols, paragraphing, note-taking, tests, assessments, reports, worksheets, rewrites and final drafts.
Writing became lost. The pride, thrill, and amazement disappeared underneath everyone else’s demands for those encoded thoughts on paper (or screen). Nobody was asking for their very own thoughts anymore – pure, raw, unadulterated thoughts. Writing in school became a painful means of producing evidence for others, rather than a pleasurable means of processing for one’s self. In fact, few kids these days can recall that original joy of writing, perhaps because they rarely, if ever, had the experience.
So this year, I’m going to start easy. I think that this year, I’ll start out with a picture, and a sentence. I’ll tell them, and show them, and continue to remind them, that writing is about capturing thoughts, so you can share them with others, look at them later, learn from the past, and talk to the future. We’ll put those pictures and captions up on the wall, and I will try to bring back that pure, raw, unadulterated thrill.
I’m not worried. This is isn’t kindergarten. We’re not going to stay there. My intention is that by the end of this year, ALL of my students will perceive writing as a useful, active, and pleasurable experience, and from that fertile soil, their writing skills - nay, their achievement in every area - will improve. (More on how we twisted educators turn our mighty acorns into dwarf bonsai trees later).
What I advised to her, I need to take to heart myself. Especially when it comes to writing, which to me as a middle school teacher, is the ultimate learning tool.
Start easy.
Kids think writing is hard. It shouldn't be so. How did it get to be that way? Do they remember the thrill they had at successfully scribing their names? Or dictating the caption for that wonderful drawing they did in first grade? I'm sure at some point in their early years, they practically bounced back to their seats with those completed sentences of their very own words. Who cared if they didn't actually tool the letters themselves, or even if they needed help coming up with the words? They had a piece of paper with their very thoughts encoded on it! They were filled with amazement and pride.
Then, we killed it.
Of course, they needed to learn how to spell. And there are proper conventions of grammar and punctuation that need to be mastered. Let’s not forget handwriting, editing symbols, paragraphing, note-taking, tests, assessments, reports, worksheets, rewrites and final drafts.
Writing became lost. The pride, thrill, and amazement disappeared underneath everyone else’s demands for those encoded thoughts on paper (or screen). Nobody was asking for their very own thoughts anymore – pure, raw, unadulterated thoughts. Writing in school became a painful means of producing evidence for others, rather than a pleasurable means of processing for one’s self. In fact, few kids these days can recall that original joy of writing, perhaps because they rarely, if ever, had the experience.
So this year, I’m going to start easy. I think that this year, I’ll start out with a picture, and a sentence. I’ll tell them, and show them, and continue to remind them, that writing is about capturing thoughts, so you can share them with others, look at them later, learn from the past, and talk to the future. We’ll put those pictures and captions up on the wall, and I will try to bring back that pure, raw, unadulterated thrill.
I’m not worried. This is isn’t kindergarten. We’re not going to stay there. My intention is that by the end of this year, ALL of my students will perceive writing as a useful, active, and pleasurable experience, and from that fertile soil, their writing skills - nay, their achievement in every area - will improve. (More on how we twisted educators turn our mighty acorns into dwarf bonsai trees later).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)