My methods aren't perfect. The "perfect" method of teaching an English class, let alone teaching writing, has not yet been created. My methods don't save much time. In fact, I'm absolutely certain that I spend probably 50% more time teaching writing than the average English teacher. And it's a good thing the kids have other English teachers who lean on speech, drama, debate, and visual arts more heavily than I do. My speech program is minimal. I hardly ever have my kids do poster board projects or perform plays or segments of plays. When the curriculum calls for those, I "cover" them. When I have to, I even "cover" grammar exercises. I do what I have to do.
But I believe in my program of reading and writing instruction. When kids come to my class, they take a while to get acclimated, but they do learn.
I'll admit that I'm perhaps a bit skeptical, and even a little overbearing, with some of the following assumptions, and if you're a "kinder, gentler teacher," they might be wrong for you, but they pretty much summarize my views:
We tend to settle for kids' imitating of others' sophisticated styles rather than insist that they develop their own voice and style. Mimicry of style isn't all bad, but if teachers don't adequately attend to the substance of a student's writing as it develops, the effect can be a mind-numbing series of dislocated lines, mere "sound bites" heard and memorized from the media, where they're used for their inflammatory effect, or, as good ol' Rush says, for "entertainment," the excuse behind which he most famously hides.
No holding back here: Rush Limbaugh is a meathead. True satire is not just "entertainment." It is a lens through which we examine truth WITH GENUINE HUMOR. It is not meant merely for creating waves of anger. It is much gentler and more subtle. Thomas Paine didn't use satire. He wasn't trying to entertain. He was trying to incite a riot. That's what Rush does. It's not "entertainment." Shame on that man.
My young verbal stylist felt that her rights were being violated when I required her to reject the work of "entertainers" and do some of her own actual work. I'm certain she felt she had already given me exactly what was needed to satisfy all requirements of the assignment. She had written the acceptable number of words arranged in paragraphs, punctuated and capitalized properly, and, contradictions and weak arguments aside, her statements seemed to make as much sense as they had on the political ads and radio talk shows she'd heard.
The fact that she hadn't read was immaterial to her. My expectation that she turn in three drafts to complete the project and demonstrate an improved understanding of the point of view expressed in print by another human being before attacking or accepting opinions was an outrageous trampling of her personal right to adopt, maintain, and express any prejudice she wanted.
Freedom to speak prejudice leads to the growth of defensive, often rude, extremely judgmental, very poorly founded ideas. Teachers of late elementary and early middle school kids are usually impressed by sophisticated style, and kids who learn the trick of mimicry can often milk very good grades from instructors who are glad to read something that at least sounds intelligent, regardless whether or not the underlying ideas are pertinent, original, on-topic, and properly supported.
At the secondary level, we can't continue with that. By graduation, these students are expected to read and write with college proficiency. The extent to which they're actually capable of demonstrating that proficiency reflects on our integrity as professionals in the high school language arts classroom. They may be short on prerequisite abilities for our writing programs. They may not be personally motivated and ready to learn. None of that matters. We have to deal with these kids anyway.
I believe writing is the most important form of "thinking out on paper" that exists, meaning, it's not just "school stuff." It's human stuff. It's humanity. We must teach humanity with the greatest of care. The following steps summarize what I do:
1) Ascertain, from the writing of a first draft, where each student is in her or his development of skills, talents, abilities, and knowledge brought to bear on the task.
2) Gather some notion, from the writing of a second draft, of the students' willingness to try to improve their skills.
3) Between drafts, identify weaknesses and establish individualized learning goals that are reasonable for that person's current skills, abilities, and attitude.
4) Provide individualized instruction specifically for the student.
5) Engage in co-authoring. Endeavor to help students build solid foundations for their opinions. (It is the teacher's job to transcend controversy and understand all sides of an argument from solid, neutral ground, while helping students to express their beliefs, not ours.)
6) Constantly re-evaluate learning goals as the process continues.
7) Provide clear opportunities for all students to improve expression skills through identification and correction of their own errors and revision of their own writing.
8) Grade on the basis of efforts demonstrated by students in the revision process through documented evidence of their efforts to deal with their own expression issues.
Often, students who are trying to bring together complex thoughts are told by their teachers, "Write simply. Don't try too hard to use fancy language. Stay within your own abilities."
I believe this sort of advice is a dismissal of student effort, and therefore, absolutely wrong. Kids may be clumsy at subordinating one concept and elevating another, for example, to show how they perceive the two of them. We may have never before seen the ideas drawn together; we may therefore be surprised at the assertion a student is trying to make, but if the ideas have any merit and demonstrate real thinking, we shouldn't be dismissing them.
I realize that it takes careful reading to find those nuggets of rich thought, but their writing deserves as much attention as we give to the great classics we prepare to teach.
Whether we manage to find intelligent thought in their work, or whether we find none, we need to have conversations with the kids. We need to explain to them what sorts of reactions we're getting or not getting from their efforts. We should ask them what they're trying to say and help them say it. If the ideas are ridiculous, or injurious, or libelous, we need to show them how to get their precious, vital main point expressed without incivility.
In place of true writing instruction, too many kids get grammar exercises, whether they need them or not. Many have trouble with mechanics, subject-verb agreement, and pronoun-antecedent agreement. Instructors frequently resort to grammar exercises to "cover" them. They ask kids to address these problems in their own writing, but the teachers don't systematically hold them accountable when they continue to make the same errors.
At the secondary level, some students need grammar review and some do not. The problem with grammar exercises is that the mistakes addressed in them seldom originate in the writing of weaker students, because they'll try to "stay within their own abilities," and not worry about that problem. They will not use structures that make their writing look weak. They will avoid using "who" or "whom" when the grammar rules make them difficult to apply. We need to show them how to use specific structures and words when the opportunity arises in their own writing, not in grammar exercises.
For the last two years students spend in school, and perhaps for the last four, we should not be devoting any class time to grammar exercises, and in most cases, we shouldn't expect kids to spend much time on them. Those who still have grammar issues by the time they get to high school should be given individual, extremely brief grammar lessons, and they should be directed to address their particular problems themselves. That's a whole story in itself. You'll need to download my free product entitled "Writing: Dealing with It ..." if you want to see how I accomplish that.
Another popular fad today is the "daily language" routine, where kids are given sentences to edit. They're taught editing symbols and are given one or maybe two sentences to mark up every day. Then they are shown the "right" way to "rewrite."
More balderdash! A rich discussion of language can take up a whole class period, but students won't listen to you talk about structures they avoid. However, once you get their attention, they will certainly listen to you talk about structures they're attempting to use in expressing their thoughts.
The teachers' biggest concern, they will tell students, is content. But too often, that isn't so. Instead, they reward smooth syntax, accurate mechanics, and clumsy, rude arguments. Lack of thought, prejudicial opinions, and even inflammatory imitations of talk show gibberish is too often perfectly allowable as "filler," and many teachers happily accept that kind of writing in their classrooms. As long as they're moving kids from writing fragments to developing real sentences with actual subjects and verbs, or getting them to intelligently combine two short sentences into one compound sentence, they believe they're doing their jobs.
We should open kids' minds to the fact that thoughts relate to one another in various ways. We should show them several approaches, identifying how each strategy works differently. We certainly should expect them to use as many of our suggested revisions as they want, and we must demand that they use our revisions when they agree that we've helped them say what they want with eloquence. When they choose not to use our revisions under these circumstances, they must be asked to share the reasons behind their choices.
We should be devoting significant portions of our classroom time to writing workshops, during which we attend to each child's current struggles with idea development, logic, and organization. Whenever it's necessary, we need to co-author, that is, give their language a boost to help them catch up to the ideas they're endeavoring to express. Allow them to see the various possibilities, and then let them choose what best represents their real thinking. Those kids are trying to put ideas together. We must operate under the assumption that they are not trying for "fancy language," but for original thoughts.
Plagiarism, if it is a problem at this point, ceases to become your concern and instead becomes a huge one for the kids themselves who have "borrowed" language and ideas from other sources. If, while asking kids what they mean or what they think about various matters developed in their writing, you get odd-sounding hesitation in their "yesses," and "noes," and an awful lot of "maybes," and "I don't knows," you're probably dealing with a plagiarized piece.
If they stonewall you about what they actually think, simply tell them to figure out what they think, and then require them to add a couple of paragraphs explaining it with examples. Always provide the option of going a number of directions with the thought. Demonstrate to them some possibilities and insist that they rewrite. Offer them several outlines if necessary. If they want to start over completely, allow the to do so, but explain also that it will count as a first draft, and you will be glad to help them catch up with the project.
Carefully document all the help you offer, particularly in those cases.
We must assume that our high school students have real, working brains. We need to get them thinking first; next, we need to help them find language to express their thinking; then we need to show them the various approaches, the numerous voices, the many logical patterns, the countless ways in which an opinion can become convincing because it is civil and polite instead of outrageous and loud. Particularly in these times, when hostility is so often glorified in the media, it is our duty to teach civility, and while doing so, reveal shallowness for what it is and condemn it.
Most importantly, we must fight the tendency people have to dismiss another person's point of view before understanding. We must fight prejudice. I believe it's our job to humanize.
No comments:
Post a Comment