Literacy Journal - Week 8

We will be focusing on writing during the next class. How does one (or more)of the readings for this class relate to your placement experience? Have you experienced 6 Traits or writing conferences as a student or as a teacher? As usual, you may also choose your own topic related to the readings.

In both my main placement (5th/6th grade Quest class in elementary school) and in my dyad (8th/9th grade language arts class in junior high school) there is a great emphasis on writing, so I have found both the readings AND the assignments in my Literacy class to be both relevant and enlightening. Although I have already confessed to a preference to teach higher grades, I still find that much of the work relating to writing and literacy in the earlier grades is very helpful in understanding and teaching good writing proficiency in my placements.

I have not personally experienced either whole-class shares or conferences with students related to their writing, I have been able to have some really great first-hand observational experiences in seeing how many students, particularly in Junior High School, are still struggling with some of the most basic concepts and strategies associated with good, clear writing. For example, in my dyad, students have to complete several essays throughout the school year, in nine different formats. The most basic essay form is "Form 1," and they grow increasingly complex and challenging as students complete each numbered form. Although there is an element of competitiveness involved (nobody wants to still be on Form 2 after three months), the teachers truly are more concerned that they master and perfect each form before moving on. The essay forms each differ in format, such as "Persuasive with Text," "Compare and Contrast," "Problem/Solution," etc., but each level also requires students to know how to make outlines, take notes, and do the necessary prep work for writing a good essay.

It is also a bit disheartening to see the number of students who are still struggling with these forms, particularly in light of the fact that many of them will be starting high school next year. But it was also refreshing to see the 6-trait model for assessing and teaching writing, because, whether or not they are specifically aware of the "Six Traits," my dyad teachers emphasize all of these characteristics, such as ideas, organization and voice, in their writing classrooms. They have also supplemented this with very detailed blueprints and examples of how to write each of the particular nine essays, with very helpful hints to improve and enhance their individual writing styles (e.g., in a persuasive essay, open with an attention grabber rather than pose a question). Of course, as will inevitably happen in five classes of 60 students each, you will get a lot of repetitive essays, but those students who get into it really take ownership of their work. That said, there are quite a number of students who are bored out of their skulls and never seem to move beyond forms 2 or 3.

One writing class that I found more inspiring and innovative was being taught to an 8th grade honors class in Language Arts, whose students had advanced past the basic mechanics of writing, and were more eager to personalize in order to be creative. In this class, the teacher handed out what she called "Smiley-Face Tricks," which consisted of eight things that a writer can do to really place a more individualized stamp on their writings. These included such things as: giving a series of examples in order to create a poetic rhythm or to support a point; making non-literal comparisons; repeat specific words or phrases to make a point; and using humor.

I also very much liked what Lamott said about carrying around index cards and jotting down ideas. All too often I notice that a student gets up to make a point and has completely forgotten what he or she intended to say, and you wonder how much of this could be avoided if we began encouraging students, at a young age, to get into the habit of jotting down thoughts and ideas (I know this is something that would have benefited me enormously, both in writing and in speaking).

Not coincidentally, I have also found the writing classes in my dyad to be extremely helpful in constructing my own literacy vignettes. One of the things that some teachers seem to lament is that for all that they are required or expected to teach about writing, they very rarely get to practice what they preach, so being asked to write so many different kinds of assignments this quarter (book reviews, annotations, lesson plans, reflective essays, vignettes) is a perfect marriage of theory and application.

Literacy Journal - Week 7

Share a quote from Lamott (include page number) and your response.

For the most part I enjoyed Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, although I found the most interesting and quotable passages to be from the book's opening pages, particularly in her rather lengthy Introduction. I felt that her more generalized and "non-technical" comments regarding writing to be far more enlightening and meaningful, at least for me. (Without trying to be arrogant or a know-it-all, I think it is more difficult to teach students or write a book on "how" to write, as opposed to the more intriguing "why" we should write).

Perhaps that is why I responded strongly to the more autobiographical aspects of the book, because it's there that I think Lamott really articulates the virtues of a "writer's" life, or at the very least, a writer's sensibility. For example, when she writes that "there was a struggle going on inside me to find some sort of creative or spiritual or aesthetic way of seeing the world and organizing it in my head," (pg. xx) this beautifully conveys an almost universal struggle that all of us can relate to, no matter what level of literacy we may have obtained.

A few pages later, she writes "That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual art of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward." (pg. xxvi) The higher truth that I think Lamott has stumbled upon is in discovering the power and strength of writing - the self-discovery, the need to dig deeper into one's self, and the drive for reflectiveness - these are all things that speak less to the quality of one's writing (which of course will vary wildly as between individuals) and more to the liberating and healing power of the writing itself.

This notion is reaffirmed on page 19 when she writes, "Writing can be a pretty desperate endeavor, because it is about some of our deepest needs: our need to be visible, to be heard, our need to make sense of our lives, to wake up and grow and belong." These are probably the strongest and most poignant words I have ever read about the creative process, and it can apply in equal force to all art, not just writing. More so than her "words of advice" to burgeoning writers, or her admittedly helpful hints about how to construct a story, or write dialogue, the true majesty of Lamott's book can be found in this one sentence, because it speaks to those most basic of human emotions and needs: to be seen, to be heard, to grow, to belong.

Literacy Journal - Week 5

Writing Essentials Chapter 5: What is shared writing, how is it used, and for what purposes? How does shared writing fit into the optimal learning model? Deconstruct one of Routman's shared writing lesson examples (starting pp. 99 or 105). What does she do that makes it "shared" writing? What is the potential impact on students? How does this lesson compare to writing instruction in your field experiences or past schooling?

I was quite intrigued by this idea of "shared writing" set forth in Chapter 5 of Routman. Put succinctly, it is a collaborative teaching process whereby the teacher and children write a text together. The teacher acts primarily as the scribe, with the children writing the parts that they know while the teacher fills in the unknown. Usually the teacher uses chart paper or a white board, markers, and post-it tape. As I understand it, the purpose of Shared Writing is to demonstrate exactly HOW writing works by showing children that their ideas can be captured (on a board or paper) and how they can then participate in the "writing" process. It also provides opportunities for children to develop concepts about print (directional movement, return sweep, one to one matching, etc.), and to get to know what it feels to create something out of words. It assists students in learning how to communicate for different purposes through writing, develop an understanding that letters make words and words make sentences,
develop an understanding of use of punctuation, as well as get them in the habit of reviewing for clarity and comprehension.

According to Routman, Shared Writing fits into the optimal learning model by having the teacher hold the pen and guiding the actual writing while also acting as an expert for the student learners. Eventually, this will lead students to gain the skills and confidence to write on their own, with guidance.

One example of Shared Writing provided by Routman is the creation of a fictional story, in which every child needs to participate in generating story ideas, learning the specific aspects of a fiction story, including dialogue, and emphasizing the importance of review and revision. While there are different strategic approaches to Shared Writing, Routman seems to favor doing it over the course of a few (three) days, but the procedure should generally follow a logical course of story conferencing between teacher and student, having students vote on the best ideas, and brainstorming those ideas. In order to seize the kids' attention, it is probably best to give a title to the story (for grounding purposes) and to activate their imaginations and creativity. Routman remain cognizant of the importance of not losing the children's attention, so moving quickly and efficiently becomes most important. For dialogue, having the kids call out what they would say in a given situation, and adding appropriate punctuation keeps them actively engaged and participating in the process. But it seems that part of the strategy is not to do TOO much in one day or session, in order to circumvent boredom or chaos, as well as leaving them something to look forward to the next time. Also, by breaking up the sessions, it allows for a new and fresh look at the story each time the process begins anew, allowing for reflection, rereading and revision. While the teacher is obviously guiding the process, making sure it doesn't derail or get too unwieldy, the trick is to do it seamlessly, and always allow the children to believe that they are the ones doing the writing, and that the teacher is only acting as a scribe. In reality, the teacher is facilitator, editor and guiding hand, as well as making sure that the story is coherent and "readable." It would be important to make sure that the contributions come from as many different students as possible, to avoid being seen as the work of a few, which may mean actually rejecting some superior suggestions from some students in order to have the writing process be more inclusive and the story more representative of the class as a whole. I can only assume that the impact on the students is phenomenal (especially if the teacher walks the extra mile and has the story printed and photocopied, giving each student his or her own copy, perhaps with all of the names attached as author). The combination of pride of creation, seeing one's name as a contributing author and seeing a finished product that can be kept and shown off, must surely be one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment a young student could feel.

To the best of my recollection, I have never actually encountered Shared Writing, either as a student or in the field (probably the closest I ever came to the notion was when I did Mad-Libs as a child, where you take a preprinted story with key words left out, and you have to supply the appropriate grammatical word (e.g., noun, adjective, verb, etc.), although it is hardly the same, since you would supply the words without knowing what the story was until after the insertions were made, usually to great comic effect and high hilarity (well, at least to a 10-year old). I think it is a fabulous idea, especially in kindergarten and 1st grade, although I could see using it in even higher grades if there are struggling writers.

Literacy Journal - Week 4

Writing Essentials Chapter 3: Routman asks us to examine our lives as writers so that we can more authentically and effectively teach writing. She poses four questions on page 41 for us to explore. Consider these questions and write a response about your writing process and yourself as a writer.

I thought this was an extremely important and incisive chapter, because it really gets to the heart of the matter, i.e., how can we, as educators, attempt to teach students how to write, if we either cannot write ourselves or are unwilling to undergo the same discipline and skills that we expect from our kids. Even more important than the basic components of good writing (e.g., spelling, grammar, etc.), teachers need to know how to express themselves clearly, concisely, and most of all, thoughtfully, whether we are teaching kids how to write fiction, essays, poetry or journals. Unfortunately, far too many teachers have little or no background in writing. Even as a lawyer, required at times to write lengthy legal memorandums or even an occasional scholarly article or contribution to a journal, I sometimes have lost the reflectiveness and yes, sense of wonder, that we look for in students' writings.

That is why I think it is so crucial that we, as prospective teachers, do exactly what Routman suggests, and examine our "life as a writer," especially those of us who have not had such a life up to now. The four questions set forth on page 41 provide the perfect opportunity for us to practice what we hope to teach. For many of us, we can use these questions in our numerous assignments in our UW Bothell Education courses, but some of those papers tend to be overly scholarly and/or academic. Rather, I think that in our blogs, our book reviews, and even in our lesson and unit plans, we need to find answers to Routman's four questions and to write with the same purposefulness and energy that we are going to be asking of our students.

Again, speaking personally, my whole decision to return to school and earn a teacher's certification, turning my back, so to speak, on a 25-year career as an attorney, has rejuvenated my whole approach to writing and has started my creative juices flowing once again (as a precocious 14-year old I once wrote a very pretentious but personally satisfying one-act play about a misunderstood junior high school boy, complete with pregnant pauses and Pinteresque silences). I hadn't written a poem since my college days, some 35 years ago, until I had to complete one for Jane's introductory seminar last spring, and I had forgotten how much pleasure one can get from the simple act of expressing yourself with words. And I had always resisted the urge to blog, believing it to be the ultimate ego trip and the height of self-indulgence (well, part of me still believes in that). But a blog is also the perfect vehicle to capture our thoughts and reflect on the process of turning mere mortals into educators, as well as to hone and refine our writing skills. It helps keep us focused, organized and creative, but the greatest gift is in allowing ourselves to think back on our own education, to utilize the tools that we were given as children and adolescents in learning how to express ourselves and our ideas.

I know some in our cohort have expressed frustration and mystification as to why we have had to do certain assignments in these past three quarters, especially those that require us to dig deeper, examine our own lives and values, to consider things from the point of view of others, and to get in the daily habit of expressing ourselves in a meaningful and reflective way (and yes, I was one such doubter). Well, I am no longer a doubter. I am on the road to become a writer....once again. Look out Pinter!

Pee Wee Teaches Us Manners

Besides being a huge Pee Wee Herman fan, I love this clip because of its use of an actual film that used to be shown in elementary schools across the country, in a rather ham-fisted attempt to teach children good manners. Of course, in my class, and probably countless others, we all wanted to be Mr. Bungle!

Literacy Journal - Week 3

Please post a response to this week's readings. Fox Chapter 3:Based on your experience and your reading of this chapter, do you think "invented spelling" (in which children spell words the way they sound) helps or hinders young readers?What cues do you see your kindergarten buddy using based on his/her writing samples? What other experiences do you have of children using early word identification strategies?

After reading this chapter, and based on my own experiences, I have very mixed feelings about the concept of invented spelling. Obviously, learning how to spell is one of the earliest and most important developments in the literacy of a child. However, for me, the importance of learning how to spell correctly was drilled into me in elementary school. This is why the whole idea of invented spelling seems somewhat odd to me, although I understand that its purpose is to encourage children to write anyway they want, and that the very act of writing becomes more important than correct spelling. Again, the way I was taught, we used workbooks, teacher-generated word lists, and good old-fashioned spelling tests and quizzes.

I know that proponents of invented spelling believe that children should take responsibility for their own spelling, and that the seven best practices listed on pages 79 thru 81 is designed to emphasize becoming good readers with a rich vocabulary, and that by following these steps, students will become better independent spellers (as opposed to teachers administering weekly spelling quizzes and circling in red their misspellings), but part of me remains unconvinced. I suppose the theory is that children will outgrow invented spellings as they read, explore words, etc. But this approach has also been attacked by many educators, who feel that it simply “allows teachers to mask failure to teach spelling effectively” (Dr. Patrick Groff). He also asserts that there is much scientific evidence to show that children learn to spell correctly faster if they are taught in a direct, methodical way, and that there is a direct correlation between children's ability to spell correctly and the quality of their writing. That was, at least, my experience in elementary school.

My other issue with invented spelling has more to do with things that I have observed in my placements, which have been in 5th/6th grades, and 8th/9th grades. In particular, last week, I observed close to 300 students in various stages of writing essays. The students were nearly evenly divided between those that wanted to type their essays on computers, and those that wanted to write them out long-hand. What struck me was the high number of misspellings that were occurring on the computer essays, that is, at least, until they were ready to print and let the computer do an automatic spell-check. Of course, this has always been one of the main issues with students using computers at increasingly younger ages: it makes them into thoughtless and often lazy writers (and by extension, readers). And as I witnessed first-hand, a spell-check only goes so far, because if a student uses their instead of there, it is not detected as a misspelling. Even worse is when the student is presented with multiple options for his or her misspelling. One student (an eighth grader I believe) raised his hand and asked for my help, because he was trying to type the word “coincidence,” but had spelled it so completely wrong (something like “cawinsedens”) that the spell check program couldn’t even offer any suggestions. I also noticed that students who had problems spelling usually had similar weaknesses with grammar, sentence structure and coherency in their writing. Of course there were exceptions, and some of the students had multiple misspellings because they were typing quickly (although the knowledge that the computer would spell-check didn’t hurt either).

One theory I have read proposes that perhaps invented spelling has usefulness, but only through kindergarten, and that starting in first grade, it will have outlived its usefulness. Of course one can argue that with the proliferation of computers, perhaps spelling doesn’t even really matter that much anymore. According to the Internet, Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and John Lennon were all poor spellers, but I’m not sure that is a good or correct lesson to convey. Yes, you can be a good, highly creative writer, without being a particularly good speller. But I think part of comprehensive literacy is the ability to spell correctly and proofread your own work. Speaking only from my own experience, I think that the ability to spell correctly only strengthened my ability to read and write cogently.

On the other hand, one thing that the book and Chapter 3 emphasizes is that no two children learn in exactly the same way, and that a teacher must be flexible and adaptive to each student’s individual needs. So while it is possible that certain students in second, third, maybe even fourth grade could still benefit from “inventive” spelling, it would be equally important that it not be used on many students past kindergarten, having hopefully outgrown its effectiveness or usefulness.

Racist Literature - Who Decides?

Literacy Journal Response, Week 2

I read with great interest the article by the Council on Interracial Books for Children, and realized how "gray" and morally ambiguous this whole topic can be.

While I think we can all agree on the types of books that have either outlived their usefulness (e.g., Little Black Sambo) or perhaps were never really that good to begin with (Dick and Jane readers), I think the issue becomes much more muddled when we are dealing with truly important and thoughtful literary works (and no, Gone With The Wind is not a great or even good book).

I think the article gives some good guidelines in to how to recognize and/or evaluate potentially racist characteristics, such as looking for stereotypes, weighing relationships between people, watching for loaded words, etc., it seems to me that the danger is in either oversimplifying the process or in taking the process itself too literally. Consider the example of HUCKLEBERRY FINN, not only one of my favorite novels, but arguably the best American novel of the 19th century (with the possible exception of MOBY DICK, which has its own unique racial problems). The book has been the subject of raging debates for many years, and has been alternately described as virulently racist and presciently anti-racist. Of course, much of this comes down to a question of semantics, namely, how do you define racist? It would be easy to conclude that Twain's work is racist based on the guidelines presented in the Council's article, but how accurate and/or useful is that?

Even a more thoughtful and progressive definition of racism (a view, presented by a dominant group that other groups are in some way inferior) could lead one to label HUCKLEBERRY FINN as racist. But what these definitions and guidelines completely omit and/or ignore are the novel's nuance, subtlety, satire, tone and motivation. If one were to use only such superficial data as characterizations, dialect, language (even though the book is being told from the point of view of a rather ignorant and at times racist adolescent), one would completely miss the much larger social and literary contexts of the book.

So how do we resolve these apparent contradictions? Well, as with all problematic things in life, it has to be carefully taught. Having said that, I am not sure I quite know how to do that at this point in my teaching career. I probably wouldn't teach it below fifth grade, and would have few qualms teaching it in high school, but what to do with those problematic grades of 6 through 9. I think it would be both disastrous and wrong-headed to exclude a book like this from the curriculum, but I am still trying to figure out ways I would teach this novel in middle school.