I love Peter Elbow's advice about unlocking the secret of the mystery of liking your student's writing. He says we need "to be able to see potential goodness underneath the badness" (pg. 198). I think this is GREAT advice for liking people in general - seeing their goodness underneath their badness. I have heard teachers say that they dislike some of their students. Sometimes personalities clash - but I think we owe our students the decency of finding things we do like about them. After all, I hope people do this for me, don't you?
Elbow says to improve the liking we should get to know the student as a person. His preferred way of getting to know his students is through reading the free write papers he assigns and through one on one conferences (pg. 203). I saw my MT do similar things with her students during the month of September and witnessed her relationships with her students grow as a result.
Giving our students the opportunity to write without evaluation, grading, or ranking is one of my favorite concepts from this week's readings. Writing is very personal, so grading someone's writing is like grading the person. Allowing students to free write first will give them the confidence they need to continue, to like their own writing, and finally - to share it with others. I think that free writing gives students the ability to find their own voice. (Lamott talks about the importance of finding your own voice (pg. 195-201), and Routman discusses it on page 44).
Routman says that eighty percent of students' reading and writing needn't be graded, and that lots of their grading should be self assessment (pg. 252). I totally agree. I have always been a timid writer because I worry about the end result, my grade. I try to stay within the perimeters of the rubric and do not branch out for fear that my grade will suffer as a result. So, my voice stays hidden behind my grade.
High stakes testing is something I think we would all like to avoid. However, it is not going to go away. I want to prepare my students to be able to nail any test - high stakes or not. Routman says the best way to prepare our students is through excellent teaching, not teaching to the test. If kids who write a lot develop higher order thinking skills and understanding that helps them achieve higher test scores, then that's what we should all be doing. I think some of the best ways to keep kids interested in writing are, 1) by keeping the topics relevant to their lives, 2) by demonstrating our expectations, 3) by frontloading using mini lessons, and 4) by having them write every day. Teaching them about writing to fill a one inch picture frame and not worrying about their first draft should keep their anxieties down and their spirits up. Not grading everything they write will also put them at ease.
We’re in agreement with Elbow’s ideas about de-emphasizing grades and placing more value on the process and on constructive evaluations that enable students to improve. When students are concentrating only on obeying the teacher, they are neither thoughtful about suggested revisions nor do they adopt a creative approach to their work. We liked the idea of beginning a term with non-evaluated work, which helps students grow accustomed to a non-ranked system and helps them become less worried about “performance” -- scared to takes risks, and unable to use their own judgment. Later, students can accept evaluation and use it as a tool to improve.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your comments about freewriting and how it provides students with an opportunity to develop thier own voice. Elbow also writes about the value of freewriting and how students often find it to be one of the most valuable things they learn from him, which reminded us of what Lamott says about getting everything down, whether by carrying and using index cards or as “shitty first drafts.” Lamott focuses on the extraordinary value of just getting our ideas down, and cautions us about the pitfalls of focusing only on publication. This process isn’t about making it “perfect,” which is something you can get to later, and it’s important to not be too critical at first. Narrowly pursuing the goal of publication, like rankings, can inhibit the flow of ideas and cause us to write for the wrong reasons.
I also agree with Elbow's idea. I think our job as teachers are to help our students improve their writing ability by giving them more opportunities to write enjoyably, rather than grading and ranking them. From my own experience, I remember always being too worried about how I was going to be graded on my writing rather than enjoying to write. The readings from this week gave me great ideas that will help me improve as a teacher.
ReplyDeleteLike you mentioned, not grading everything they write will also put them at ease. I think our job is to know our students and find the balance. This is the art of teaching.