Can I just call it a Writing Workshop Classroom?

                The Inquiry Approach to teaching writing, which is explained in Wood’s reading, is brilliant.  Starting with a blank curriculum and filling it with ideas and focuses that are actively and collaboratively generated by students seems very much like a new literate, democratic way of operating a class.  It seems pretty difficult to be effectively working in many of the “typical” classrooms though, especially in lower-grade classrooms.  However if it does work with some group of students, it seems like it would be an idealistic class not only for teaching writing but also for teaching Language Arts in general.  

      

          In order for this approach to work in a ELA classroom, I think the class should put a great amount of weight upon writing lessons and teach reading skills and additional strategies along with the writing lessons because this inquiry approach seems to require very specific and explicit guidance.   Unlike the traditional writing lessons many of us probably have experienced in our traditional classrooms, this approach allows a greater amount of time and thinking to go into the entire writing process from the beginning to the end.  Students read carefully-chosen texts, which will help them develop a “vision” to determine how their writing will go, revisit the text in order to learn a specific technique or process of writing, then decide on their own what and how they are going to write, instead of being told what writing topics they have to choose from, explained how their “5 paragraph essay” should look like, and then asked to have their essay written and turned in by a certain date.   This new approach is very much student-generated and seems to require the full participation and cooperation of the students in order for it to work.  

                Teachers, including myself, may well be intimidated by and unsure of this new idea because they may not have enough faith in their students that they will contribute 100% of  their participation to this writing workshop or for many other reasons.  However, I think if the teacher very carefully and thoroughly plans his/her class to incorporate this approach into his/her ELA classroom in a way that this approach can coexist with the other lessons—reading skills, vocabulary, etc—it would be a great idea for any ELA classroom.  To be honest though, I cannot help having some doubts about this approach as to students’ participation and the possible risk of the class being turned into just a writing workshop; however, the detailed and step-by-step lesson plans explained in “Craft Lesson” soothes my heart a little bit because it provides specific lessons plans which seem to help students build their writing pieces with each writing technique that they will learn day by day.  

                Although this inquiry approach might seem only workable for writing workshops, I come to think that it will not teach only writing because it will require students to also read the given texts with the mindset of writers, from which they will learn about the writing genre itself and how to read like writers at the same time.  Also since this approach allows students to create their own syllabus (what they want to learn or improve on), students will have a greater chance to improve on what they need the most help with.   With this great idea of teaching writing, I’d say Language Arts class could be even renamed as writing workshop class. :)

Millennial Kids Are Closer To Us Than They Seem

Maybe it’s because I don’t feel old enough YET or because I can’t quite grasp how young these kids really are.  Sometimes, or more often than just sometimes, I feel that the old-fashioned way of reading books and writing works much better than the “new literacy” ways.  Although I know and understand that everyone learns differently and especially different generations learn much differently, I just can’t quite fully acknowledge the fact that these kids are much different than I am.  Maybe I should take a couple of minutes everyday to tell myself  I’m old in order for me to really realize that these kids need different learning strategies that what I was offered when I was younger.  

                As an educator, I realize that I need to respect the idea of “connected learning” much seriously because it is true.  I know and believe that students learn and participate better when they learn things in the context that is more familiar to them.  So then, agreeably, the kids of this generation will connect and participate better when they are being introduced to lessons through various, creative means of communication, such as many possible technological means or fast-paced, fun activities.  

                Passively understanding due to a bit of a fear of technology replacing traditional means, I had to take some time to fully accept the fact that I have to conform to the new literacy educational strategies until I encountered the quote by Jenkins: 

                “It’s not about technology replacing books; it’s about the informational affordances and cultural               practices which have taken shape around the computer and other interactive technologies.”

The concepts and themes will stay the same.  It’s just the way they will be transported will be a little bit different.  We are to teach the concepts—big or small—,and it’s the students who will figure out a way to apply those concepts to their lives or to their storage of knowledge.  So, what we can do is to find the way our students learn the best and incorporate that into our teaching/delivery.  

                Whether they present their final draft in a traditional double-spaced, Times New Roman font or they present theirs in an animated, moving paper filled with audio sounds, graphic creatures, or what have you, it doesn’t matter because we are to assess whether students understood certain concepts well enough to apply them in their writings.  Well, there will be many other criteria on which we need to assess our students, but my point is that we can overlook what may seem to be too innovative or funky to our own generation because what is different between our generation and the students’ generation is just that “informational affordances and cultural practices which have taken shape around the computer and other interactive technologies.”

Student Interview

During Homeroom, I saw one girl, just ONE girl, who was reading in class.  The students are supposed to be silent during Homeroom which is about 20 minutes for the morning; they usually stare at somebody or something, or they whisper to each other.  And, this girl named Bria was reading a book, which seemed pretty thick for a middle school kid.  So, I asked her if she minded me asking some questions about her reading habits; she was willing to answer those questions.

I only had one or two minutes with her during transitions, so I could not finish asking all the questions I had in mind for her to answer.  However, she told me that she loved reading and reading was her favorite hobby.  She, of course, read about two hours a day in her room, outside of class.  She also told me that she enjoys reading novels in general, but she likes paranormal and graphic novels specifically.  When I asked her why she reads and why she likes reading, she answered by saying she likes to learn about new things and books allow her to explore different things.  She said she has access to books through libraries and Barnes N Noble, which made me assume that she likes looking for books on her own.  I didn't have enough time to ask her all the questions I had prepared to ask, so I'd like to ask the remaining questions if I have another chance; however, it was still interesting, thus far, to know a little bit about a student who truly truly loved reading and whose favorite hobby is reading, especially.

A Teacher-Centered Writing Instruction in a Teacher-Centered Classroom.

First of all, I think I need to tell you about my mentor teacher, to be specific, about her teaching style.  My MT, a shorthand for Mentor Teacher, has 7 years of  various teaching experiences.  She has taught middle school Language Arts, has taught online classes for teachers, and is a certified for teaching AP Language Arts as well.  She is very knowledgeable, and most of all, she is an eloquent speaker.

Very much NOT like me.  Not to mention I am not even close to being as knowledgeable or experienced as her, I am definitely NOT an eloquent speaker.

My MT usually runs her class like a boss, literally like a boss.  Well, I should be more kind with her.  She is like a responsible and humane boss.

She has good relationships with most of her students, and she genuinely cares about their education.  She takes her job as a teacher very proudly and also very responsibly.  However, she might talk a little more than how much I would have if I were the teacher.  She usually dominates her class period just as the students come in her class and start working on their opener exercises instructed on the board.  She would close the door behind her as she counts how many are in the class; she would indicate the actual start of the class by quieting them down and checking if they are all working on their work at the moment.  after 2-3 minutes later, she would, then, go over the work together as a class; she would transition to the main lesson of the day by either introducing an interesting video related to the lesson or simply explaining what the concepts/lessons are like verbally to the class; then, she would delve more deeply into the lesson for about 20-25 minutes, leaving some time for the students to work on another assignment on their own till the end of the class.

I can describe this teaching style in one word. Scaffolding.

As a better example, she was preparing the class for the writing assessment that the students were to take the next day.  The first thing she did was giving out outlines of "how to write a 5 paragraph essay."  She explicitly directed the class to write out their thesis statement, hook, and three supporting ideas which they were going to use in their three body paragraphs.  She also emphasized the importance of going over these outlines and preparing for the writing assessment by saying that the people who are going to grade their papers in high school are going to simply look at their hook, thesis, and main ideas then decide what their grade is going to be. 

I think my MT stresses the classic form of writing, "training students to write in a way that is consistent with the scoring standard on the state writing assessment" for the obvious reason written above.  The opening exercise that she does in the beginning of every class everyday--the grammar exercise in which students identify sentence structures and parts of speech--may help students improve their writing, but in a single level, meaning the students are only taught how to write each sentence in the correct grammar but are not taught how to combine those sentences to make a unique and good piece of writing.

All the teachers who have had good writing experiences or know what the true writing is about probably know that the standardized "five paragraph essay" format does not guarantee a good writing piece, rather a dull, useless writing piece that will only work in high school.  It's quite unfortunate for both teachers and students because the state standards do not allow them the ultimate freedom to express their thoughts in any forms or shapes in writing. 

As the common core standards hopefully begin to realize that writing is a creative act, the 21st students will hopefully gain more freedom in writing and expressing their thoughts.  There already exist creative writing conventions today; however, they are yet accepted in middle and high schools.  I hope to be able to guide my students to express their thoughts in any way they want as long as it is creative, artful, and personal; I hope to be that one teacher who helps at least one student in my class learn how to write for oneself. 



sources:
http://azharreflections.blogspot.com/2011/05/worst-experience-of-my-learning-life.html
http://www.scriptmag.com/features/script-tip-are-you-writing-for-yourself 

Jinyous Start of Freshman Composition ENGL1101

                I was an average level writer in high school.  I had grades from Bs to low As on my papers in high school Language Arts classes; however, I never knew what exactly it was about my writing that made my paper a B, not an A.  I never cared enough to ask my Language Arts teacher what I did poorly in my writing and what I could do to improve it because I didn’t like Language Arts and I didn’t want to invest any more of my time on it. 

                Then, I went to a college.  I had my first writing assignment in my freshmen composition class.  It wasn’t easy not necessarily because it was a difficult writing assignment in terms of its depth and its difficulty level but because it was longer than the usual length that I was used to in high school.  That was it.  I thought the length was the only problem standing in my way.  Well, I was wrong; I didn’t realize that there were much more things that I should have considered difficult other than the length of the assignment until I got my paper back from the professor.

                76. I had never seen a grade in 70s in my entire life, and there it was. A 76 on my first writing assignment in my first college English class.  I was shocked and ashamed to see the grade on my paper.  Actually, I was more ashamed to see all the marks and scratches on it.  As soon as the professor handed the paper back to me,  I quickly folded it in half so nobody could see all the embarrassing red marks and scratches on it and came straight back to my dorm.  I had to take a few minutes to calm myself down before I could seriously delve into the graded paper and figure out where I wrote poorly and why the professor had to mark it with his red pen.

                Some people might say that I’m over-exaggerating it, but it really was an enlightening moment.  It was the very first time that I physically saw my mistakes and lack of my writing skills marked all over my paper in red ink; it was also the starting point when I actually wanted to be better at writing.  In class, we had short reading quizzes on the reading assignments that we were required to read for the class; then, we had a class discussion on the reading quiz questions, which was helpful to comprehend the reading assignment better; during the workshop weeks, we would write 2-3 drafts, revise and edit them; the professor would have individual conferences with each student and help them organize their thoughts, structure their essays, direct them where to focus and where to de-focus. 

                I was a student who only did the bare minimum in class, especially in the Language Arts class.  Ever since the 76, however, I started putting more efforts in writing drafts and revising them.  I remember going above and beyond what was required for me to do in the Freshman Composition class.  I would write 4-5 drafts and revise each draft at least 3 times when I was only required to write 2 drafts; when I say “revise”, I mean restructuring the whole paper, adding new ideas, deleting long-thought-through paragraphs, and rewriting almost the entire paper. The rigor I put into writing and revising was first motivated by a little bit of anger and eager to get better grades in the class.  

                However, the rigor did not stop even after my original goal was reached.  The rigor, which was generated by the eager to get better grades, later generated greater interests in writing and in the English language itself as well; that is how I came to major in English and English Education even though I had never enjoyed my Language Arts classes in high school.  Because I tasted true joy in writing (revising and playing with a variety of ways to express one thought/emotion) through the writing workshop experience in my Freshman Composition class, I was able to endure hardships that I encountered later in other English classes and continue to work towards finding that joy again.   Unfortunately, I do not think that I have experienced another experience like the freshman writing workshop experience again, but I am still searching for a similar experience to hopefully be able to taste that joy again.

image sources:

 http://newtraderu.com/?p=4152

http://climbingthemonkeybars.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html