Teaching Writing as a Process:
Shifting the focus from the final product to the process of creation and development seems like the obvious way to teach writing (and reminds me of some popular life philosophies that emphasize the journey over the destination). However, like a lot of students, my own educational experiences with writing rarely reflected this idea. In my opinion, a high school education should serve as a training ground for the college and the “real” world. The finished products shouldn’t matter as much as learning how to do things. I see my job as helping students to learn how to think better.
A lot of the ideas presented in Chapter 3 reminded me of similar things that we’ve read about relating to student learning. Primarily that in order to motivate students they should be given the opportunity to work with subjects they are passionate about. While it is true that students will inevitably have to write about things that they don’t care about at some point (in other classes, in college, in their careers, and in life), high school language arts classes should be a time to focus on the process of writing. The most important thing is not that they have an amazing final product, but that they have a better understanding of the process and of how to get to the final product. After all, they won't always have a teacher around to tell them what their writing needs.
The Dornan reading reminded me of our experience in Woodbury where students were working on personal narratives. The process was explained to them as a very linear procedure, and they were given graphic organizers to help guide them through the process, but there was very little opportunity (that I saw) to brainstorm, to revise, to go back and forth between coming up with ideas and writing a draft. Reflecting on this experience with student writers also reminded me of how hard it is to guide students toward their own problem solving (rather than doing it for them) and I particularly appreciated the list of questions to use when conferencing with student writers (Dornan, 62).
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The website I chose for the week is a “fiction writers character chart” that gives writers a huge variety of questions that can help to help flesh out characters with detailed backgrounds and lives. It would be important to emphasize that writers would not have to include all of this information in their stories, but that it exists to help the author understand their character’s actions, and intents.
http://www.epiguide.com/ep101/writing/charchart.html
I agree that the process approach seems obvious when reading the Dornan et al. text, yet you are correct that it's not something we see when looking back on our own learning experiences. This brings up a question for me about how the structure of schools might limit this approach. Something for us to talk about... Thanks!
ReplyDeleteI almost wish I had read this week's text after observing today at South--we spent the entire day involved in the process of writing, looking at thesis statements, topic sentences, thinking about how it all builds into a good introduction and a complete paper, and constantly revising. It made me realize, like you say Matt, how much it makes sense to teach this way, but I never really experienced it in a classroom before. Even though these students have already written two big papers this year, it's still so important to spend time on the process. I guess it's just a different way of thinking.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree about Crosswinds...it tried to be process, but failed somehow. Too quick? I don't know. But it definitely lacked that time, that space for thought and revision, that I experienced today.
When I returned to preliminary courses to get into this program - I had forgotten how awesome it was to have a professor deeply read your writing and give you critical insights for improvement (or just plain praise).
ReplyDeleteIt had been so long. I was able to delve into these powerful writings by women and explicate the phenomena of brain cells bursting by pouring it all out over the page. My teacher and I began a conversation and I could feel my writing improving throughout the semester.
So important - as you point out - to hold the ideal of process above all else. I want to be explicit with my students about time, patience and overall: determination. It takes a steel will to follow through - I should know - I hate revising!
Center....
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you about your feelings of your own high school education not really reflecting or emphasizing the importance of the process of writing over the final result. I wrote about in my own posting that I avoided creative writing classes until after college because of this exact reason. It wasn't necessarily that I didn't think I wouldn't enjoy it, it was more because I lacked the confidence in my own writing and style (having spent my high school years writing mostly literary analysis papers or things i "had" to write about) and frankly, just thought I would struggle too much in a class that would require me to be so creative with it. I agree with you also then, that our job as teachers is to help our students become better thinkers through their writing. The Dornan text said something along the lines of if students feel attached to their writing because it is meaningful and personally relevant, that they will find the language and to be able to express that. Similarly, I really do believe from my short time observing at Armstrong and through my own writing experience, that if you really want to get the message across about something, you will find the best way to express that because you're just straight up intrinsically motivated to do so. My only questions then, after reading this text, and like you said, is how to we support the writing process as teachers, but keep enough distance to let students figure out their own mistakes and challenge their own writing? I think this is definitely something I'm going to struggle with, not merely showing them how to write/organize/edit something better, but allowing them to get a grasp on the process itself and come to their own conclusions about what good writing is. I can see my cooperating teacher might have a better understanding of this concept than they did at Crosswinds, but I'm not entirely sure what that difference is. Perhaps it was too much freedom with their writing process? Or perhaps that was because I had a student who was writing a novel, a poetry anthology, a collection of haikus, a personal narrative, and a short story on ice skating at the same time that I couldn't see what anyone else is doing. Oh Vera... :)