The readings this week focus on developing students.
I would have to say that, as someone who considers himself to be a better writer than a reader, I am very excited to get involved in this unit.
But we face a problem... just how do we teach students how to write?
The readings this week talked about the ways in which we teach students how to write. Though the one question I have after these readings is this: is teaching high-schoolers the same as teaching younger students? I noticed the readings seemed heavily focused on teaching elementary. What do we do about high schoolers? How do we develop their own writing further? Do I model it after what I learned?
I am currently in a high school class of freshman teaching them the skills necessary to create expository essays. Though I can create lessons that are good, not every student is engaged with the lesson. What does this mean for me? How can I make them more engaging?
"When teachers give students a simple way to write something, not only are they not true to the product, they aren’t true to the process either." Ray, Exploring Inquiry
This is a very interesting statement that I think can be applied to any level of teaching. I definitely agree that there isn't any particular way in which we should teach students to write. In my own experiences as a youngster, I was presented with many different options to construct thoughts and ideas, but I do not recall being forced into any particular style. These sentence constructions seemed simple enough, but there was great complexity in choosing which ones we would use, where. We had to learn how to vary our style, our sentences, and our words. My teaching will reflect this.
Ray's "Study Driven" article also talks about the need for students to see teachers as writers and writer models. How we chose to do so will be crucial for our students. I hope to show students that writing is a process. Maybe I can teach students how to write by modeling my own writing for them, present them with my writing, and ask them to help me edit it. We all know how much they [the students] love fixing our [the teacher's] mistakes.
I, too, echo your concerns about figuring out how to teach good writing practices. Who taught you how to write well? Or did you have a teacher with high standards that forced you to become a good writer? Just some food for thought. I'm sure a lot of us are good writers because of a combination of the two, but more or less I'd like to think that it was practice that made perfect. A good place to start might just be with frequency, but don't hold me to it. The trick is to help kids to see the value in that before they burn out on writing. :( Writing is definitely a process and I like that you recognize the importance of showing your students your writing instead of just teaching it. I wish one of my teachers would have done that!
ReplyDeleteYou make some questions that I'm sure every teacher struggles with: how can we make any topic more interesting; for me it might be articulation drills, for you it's teaching writing. Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to that question. I struggle with it everyday myself. However, it's very interesting reading about other's people similar struggles and watching how you attempt to solve this question by teaching your students in a similar manner that helped you become a better writer. I like the idea of writing being a process--it invites students who think that is should be a natural ability.
ReplyDelete