Blog Entry #3 (CG)

For my esteemed colleagues:

When in the process to become a teacher, I was fixated on improving my English skills, believing that I wasn't ready to teach English because I wasn't up to par with what I believed an English teacher should be at. In my credential program, I learned how to teach, but I didn't learn how to teach English effectively. That disconnect bothered me, but eventually I learned that I was enough for many students. I think I set the bar too high, and maybe it's good to have the bar high when you first start out, but I quickly realized... yeah, I don't need to set the bar that high.

So now I find myself blessed and fortunate to be learning more about practices and strategies to teaching composition and discourse. Early on in Chapter 8, Lindemann writes, "We write to be read, and what our readers expect influences our decisions about how to organize and present our idea" (131). One of the biggest mistakes a teacher can make is assume that students know how to transfer their thoughts on to paper, that they have an awareness of their voice and identity. I forget to put myself into the shoes of a 9th grade 14/15 year old teenager often. With the few years of experience I have now, many, if not all, of them write for me and only me. They often see me as someone with years of experience, perhaps some kind of writing wizard whose authority cannot be questioned. From the get-go, the bar is too high, so what's the point of trying anymore? I think that is what needs to be deconstructed and made obvious with students. We, students and teachers, have expectations of each other, but these expectations are rarely addressed in the traditional classroom, so is it any wonder why these unspoken expectations block or barricade a student's ability to grow and succeed?

In Chapter 9, Lindemann makes an intriguing, valuable point regarding paragraph writing: "We don't begin with forms, pouring content into paragraph molds; rather, we begin with content, and in the act of drafting discover form" (150). I thought this was fascinating for many reasons, but let me share what goes on in my teacher brain:

Imagine you, the English teacher, are going to introduce paragraph writing. Using post-its, you ask your students to list all the expectations they have when they read and write paragraphs. Using as many post-its as they can, they place them on their desk. Then, they turn to a partner or partner and share their thoughts. Then, they organize all their post-its into three+ categories, but the trick is that they get to name/choose the categories, compartmentalizing their thoughts. Then, station-rotations/share-outs. As the teacher, you note patterns, writing down common themes and important outcomes on the whiteboard or on a poster-board. Together with your class, you created expectations for the classroom, leading into free-writes, blocking, and brainstorming.

Again, this type of thinking is what I am missing, or have been missing. Assumptions of what students know and expect diminish the learning process; instead, these chapters invite me to deconstruct what I expect vs what they expect, meeting students half-way while reinforcing the properties of good writing through self-discovery, inquiry, and reflection. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lindemann Chapters 8-9

At the top of page 131, Lindemann explains how artists create forms and later writes how "we begin building a repetoire of forms for poems, dialogues, explanations, and arguments." The previous life as a musician taught me this. I learned to play guitar and bass by learning other people's songs and in doing so the songs I wrote sounded like the bands I liked (even though this similarity wasn't intentional). I learned how to play by mimicking the bands I liked, which is how I learned how to write. I found writers whose words sounded the way the words in my head sound and I mimicked their styles. I'd like to think my words (and songs) have deviated from this mimicry, but the influences remain. I found this practice helpful for anyone learning an art. If you're learning how to play guitar and you want to be in a punk band, there's no better teacher than Johnny Ramone. If you want to be an essayist circa 2021, David Sedaris is a good place to begin. This idea ...
Read more

Blog Post #3: Dominic Lopez

                      Some of the things I have been thinking about  and wondering  about this week are:   - Chapter 8 of the book provides a meaningful explanation for the purpose of teaching students how to properly form and format their writing. Teaching students how to use certain forms of writing can be a hinderance to their growth in writing because students then only stick to that form of writing. Their writing style and writing content often suffer since they try to fit their topic and their writing voice on the topic into a set format.    However, it is still important to teach students forms of writing because it gives them ideas for how to write coherently and how to structure their ideas well. Their ideas will become more connected and written better. We can show students a good  amount  of different forms of writing so that they  are able to  write well for any to...
Read more

Blog #12: Dominic Lopez

      These are the areas of the reading that I wanted to discuss for this week:   1.) I would really like to implement the method for teaching writing that is discussed in chapter five of the Warnock and Gasiewski text that has to do with peer reviews. In this method, students provide feedback to each other on the peer reviews and revisions that they do for their  peers when  reviewing each other’s writing. What I like about this method is that students will get feedback on the type of feedback that they are giving when they do peer reviews for others which allows them to see if the type of  feedback  they are giving is useful and effective rather than feedback that shows little effort. It helps them to understand when they aren’t being specific enough or reading their peer’s writing as thoroughly if their comments aren’t very detailed. It also allows them to help their peers improve their feedback as well which makes  all of  the stude...
Read more