Leaving a Trace

For my personal book, I read Leaving a Trace, by Alexandra Johnson.

Some ideas she mentioned in the latter chapters of the book:

1. Keep a journal for the sole reason to have a resource for future writing. Think of it as a data collection device. She suggests keeping journals for different reasons, and to keep information separate and organized.

2. Journals can be great springboards for fiction, especially. As an exercise, she suggests going to a cafe, picking out three people, and trying to describe in detail one mannerism that they display. Virginia Woolf kept numerous journals and later used them as source material for her novels.

3. She writes at length about the places that people write or pre-write. She walks the streets of New York and "writes" as she goes, then later transfers her thoughts to her journal. She often carries a purse-sized journal to keep it handy.

The introductory chapter set the tone: the author had read the journal of a woman who had lived in the late 19th century and had recorded her daily life in a journal, though wrote in it from time to time that her life was mundane. The author's discovery of the journal set her on a journey to collect more journals, and to commit herself to journaling. Every life, she says, is worth remembering.

I would recommend this book to both of my parents. They have lives unrecorded. I would like to see them journal. Not for my sake, nor for my siblings. But for themselves. Neither one are reflective individuals. Perhaps if they kept a journal, they might find themselves free of past burdens.

Gallery Walk I. A. Keeping a journal keeps the mind engaged in recording a life, helps the writer to keep the craft alive, and provides a place for reflection, meditation and sheer pleasure. B. Tell the Censor Inside to go to hell.

Gallery Walk II.

The next book I will read with be either Writing Down the Bones, or Writing Toward Home, both of which seem to be extensions of the kind of reading I am currently engaged in.

Top Ten Ideas for Revision

Revision feeds the perfectionist in me

Revision helps me see what is central, what is peripheral

Revision allows me the freedom to salvage material that belongs elsewhere

Revision is like throwing ballast overboard so my piece can sail on

Revision gives me an excuse to keep writing

Revision forces me to slow down

Revision forces me to look more closely at the details

Revision forces me to untangle tangled language

Revision forces me to wax poetic

Revision is FUN!!!

The Sticking Place

We must grasp at every chance to engage our students with the public: author's teas, guest speakers, contest entries, projects that necessitate community input and response. Evaluators we have to be able to see that these are acceptable and viable means of assessment. "Going public" with a piece of writing is ever so much more difficult than stealthily handing it in to the teacher for a single reading and meaningless grade. Having the courage to stand behind your words is a huge lesson. Learning it is a sign of growth.

The line in bold type should stand out to us: students (and all writers) need to stand behind or beside their words.

The Chinese character for "sincerity" is formed by two radicals, one for man, and the other for word. Thus, the Chinese idea of sincerity is a man standing by his word. Perhaps we are not sincere enough.

Perhaps we don't demand enough of our students in this regard. Perhaps we need to be more demanding of sincerity in their writing. Perhaps we too easily accept work that is not entirely honest, written to get a grade rather than to be real.

When students know they will have a live audience, such as at a poetry slam or even a school assembly, perhaps they will reconsider the purpose and quality of their own writing. Perhaps if they know they are communicating to real people, perhaps they will be more real.

Further, perhaps the writing that teachers produce is also insincere. Perhaps we are not writing honestly ourselves, not standing by our words.

Perhaps we need to get real in order to set an example for our students.

Yeah, perhaps we need to just get real.

I Don't Grade Papers Anymore

"When students are not constantly exposed to the process of being judged, they are more likely to develop and trust their own standards and those of their peers."

This sounds true. I know it is true. Why do I know it is true?

I don't have to look any further than myself and my own writing to know that this is true. I came into teaching out of a career in which I was paid to write (for newspapers and magazines). My writing was never "graded" or judged. Certainly, it was edited in some part, but never judged the way we are tempted to judge student writing. In the world of professional writing, the pressure to meet deadlines was greater than that to be "perfect." Read any newspaper any day of the week and you'll see what I mean. Especially in the dailies, there is a level of perfection that one never expects journalists to achieve. In some regard, we expect more of high school students than we do reporters. But I digress.

When young writers are no longer writing for a grade (some are satisfied with a C--they just want to get by), but for the sheer pleasure of writing, they tend to be motivated to write for writing's sake, to explore, experiment, play. I have had students like that, though some sarcastically referred to them as "overachievers," or "suck-ups." No, not really. They merely loved to write. Grades were secondary or even inconsequential.

More importantly, they learn to trust their instincts. You can see the evidence of this assumption in their revisions. They are making writers' choices--they're moving whole blocks of text around, using stronger verbs, adding more details, paring down a sentence, etc. Of course, not all of our students operate at that level, but many do. And if I as a teacher can take off the pressure of grades in order to encourage them to write for the sheer pleasure of writing, I will have done my job well.

"I have a dream...."

Portfolios

In the section, "Setting up writing portfolios," the writer gives a practical outline for structuring the portfolio. In this particular model, the portfolio has a dual purpose: 1) to keep track of a student's progress; and 2) to encourage a final product. Thus, the brochure goes on to suggest weighting the grade heavily toward the former, and less toward the latter category. This makes sense to me and sounds fairly easy to manage, though time consuming.

The questions for me would be: How many pieces of writing would I expect my students to produce? What specific expectations would I have for each paper?

Letter to the Editor

The days of common sense and equal treatment under the law are over.

Recently, I traded business for the public school classroom. To become a teacher, I took a series of exams, was fingerprinted and passed a background check, and provide proof of identity.

Between graduate school and being hired by a district, I was fingerprinted three times. I had to show I was competent, trustworthy and safe. That's why I provided my work history, college transcripts and other documents as proof.

Barack Obama, "Leader of the Free World,” is responsible for exponentially more than teachers: setting foreign, policy, commandeering the auto and health industries, solving global warming—not to mention commanding our armed forces with all their personnel, equipment, and weapons…

Nuclear weapons.

Yet, Obama was neither fingerprinted nor subject to one background check. Not only has he refused to show his college transcripts, he's hired numerous lawyers to keep them secret. He hasn’t produced his birth certificate. (Sorry, that posted on the Internet is widely agreed to be a digital forgery.) And while Congress deliberated on John McCain’s citizenship status, Obama’s remains shrouded in mystery (so much for transparency).

I’ll be fingerprinted again in the fall when I start teaching for another school district. They'll want my transcripts, resume and birth certificate. Meanwhile, Obama continues to stonewall America about his African roots and other personal facts.

Think: Obama is neither qualified nor authorized to teach in public school, yet he has been given the keys to the White House and the cipher code to one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals.

Has he provided sufficient proof he is competent, trustworthy or safe? Would we let him teach our children?

Yet he is leading our country to God knows where.

Equal treatment and common sense, anyone?

Barry Lane, Ch. 14: "Befriending the Language" (on teaching grammar)

I am impressed by the ease with which I can adapt Lane's ideas to my own classroom. He has provided them in such a way that I can write succinct, focused lesson plans for a variety of objectives, especially in the area of grammar. His "Spinoffs" are truly nuts and bolts, the kinds of ideas I desperately needed during my first teaching year.

I also like the idea of contracting with my students to improve their own grammar, whether in their journals or for formal assignments. Only when they decide to take responsibility for their own grammar will they begin to improve.

This issue also leads to the idea of grading. Rather than grade students on the content of their writing, I see it beneficial for them if I grade them according to whether they are improving their own grammar through revision base on rubrics they have helped to create.

Barry Lane, Ch. 11: Giving students choices

I learned this lesson the hard way. Last year, I had my seventh graders write a short story. I established some parameters, which they very quickly either forgot or ignored. I think the latter was more commonly the case. But I digress.

I discovered that the ones who ignored my boundaries wrote far more interesting or risky stories. Some were downright hilarious. I also discovered that those who were more freewheeling about my requirements wrote more, rather than less. Not a few of my students wrote stories that took up 10-20 pages, far more than I expected. Of course, some rambled on and got lost in the process, but I was pleased that they were having fun with their writing.

From then on, I decided to give my students the permission and power to choose as often as possible. I will continue this practice into my second year.

After The End/6-8/Graphing a story

I found this particular section useful. Graphing a story seems to reveal more than using a more simplistic plot line. You can graph various aspects of the narrative, such as emotional states of the characters, action, even keep track of how a writer uses vivid verbs, appositives and other "brush strokes" (thank you, Warren). Right away you can determine a number of variables, and decide where the story needs more work. I suppose this can be applied to just about every kind of writing, whether poetic or transactional. I would relate it to a seismograph or an EKG.

My Stepfather

Snuck into my sisters’ rooms,
held their bodies down in the dark.
Clamped a hand over their
tiny pink mouths.

Whispered threats
of cigarette burns
and a fist. Crept away
with no trace of blood.

Twisted mother’s heart with lies,
stroked her fears with his coiled tongue.
Claimed the victim. Heard
the voice of devils.

Moved like a snake. Spoke slant.
Kept everyone spellbound
with his unblinking
yellow eye.

On Harper's Writer's Toolbox

It's obvious that Harper is not reinventing the wheel, but is giving it a good push up the hill. I really like her approach to making Lane's ideas accessible through the use of graphic shorthand. I'm with her all the way about having a common language,and symbols do the trick.

I'd like to carry this further and relate the same idea to Warren's presentation on teaching grammar: why not come up with some symbols for "ing", apositives, absolutes, etc.? I'm not sure what kinds of symbols I would use, but I think it's worth contemplating.

I also like her idea about color coding the text so that students can get a bird's eye view of their draft--they can see where the weaknesses or imbalances are very quickly.

Need to get that toolbox filled right away.

Warne on Teaching Conventions in a State-Mandated Testing Context

We all face the dilemma of having to "teach to the test," whether the ISAT for you Idahoans, or the WASL for us Washington teachers. As is typical, I had to prepare students to write two-point and three-point responses to a prompt. I hated it as much as my students did. But I digress.

I am encouraged with Warne's directive to use examples from the books that students are actually reading. In my class, for example, I certainly could have used passages from the Twilight series and other popular books. After all, that's where they were, and many of them might even be able to quote whole paragraphs from Eclipse. What a great way to get them to buy into conventions if they can see how their favorite author is doing it.

Sentence combining exercises have their place, and I would follow through with the same strategy: use their books for examples.

Lu Chi's Wen Fu: The Art of Writing

Team, here is the URL to read Lu Chi's Wen Fu. I think this is worth storing on your hard drive, or at least bookmarking for future use.

Enjoy!

http://www.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/LuChi.htm

On "What's Right With Writing" (Rief)

In his essay "The Art of Writing," ancient Chinese poet Lu Chi observed: "In making an axe handle by cutting wood with an axe, the model is indeed near at hand."

Like Lu and so many others, Rief suggests holding up models to students.

I have used models in the past, and am now convinced that I need to use them more extensively. However, I am also mulling over the idea of using short texts as models (suggested by Christy)--even as small as a sentence.

For example, when teaching students how to write a short story, I could take bits and pieces of good short stories, rather than a whole. My rationale for this is because some writers are great at opening lines, others are better at characterization, others have a great way of getting out. Thus, it will be imperative to choose the BEST examples of each to model the concept.

In regard to using DOL (e.g., grammar-based "Mug Shots"), why use a poor model? After all, it is by handling genuine currency day after day after day that tellers are quickly able to spot a counterfeit bill when it passes through their hands. They're so used to the real stuff that a red flag goes up as soon as they encounter falsehood. In the same way, if students are fed the "good stuff" regularly, they will tend to be more able to spot that bad or weak stuff in language.

I need to look into this more deeply when I am back in the classroom.

On "Conferring" (Calkins)

Among those ideas expressed in Chapters 14-14, I thought that the author's insistence that students be their own critics, that they trust their own judgment, was the most valuable to me.

Students naturally want to please their teachers. This desire to please can be counter productive when it comes to their writing. If they are always looking to their instructor for affirmation, they never learn to trust their own intuition, their own visceral reaction to their writing. They will always be second guessing themselves and, eventually, stop writing for fear that their writing has no value.

Likewise, writers need to learn to spot their own errors. They need to be aware of their own pre-writing and drafting strategies, and their own approaches to revision.
Such awareness should come as a result of an ongoing conversation between the writer and the teacher, and the writer and him/herself.

I appreciate the kinds of questions the author suggests to use, questions that help the reader develop such awareness. The questions are as much directed at the writer as at the writing. (Other authors have pointed this out.) This concept is a new one to me. I hadn't thought so much about the writer in the way I understand it now. In fact, it seems to me that the writer is far more important than the writing. I will modify my own approach to conferring with this in mind.

On "Helping Writers Find Power"

I was impressed with the author's suggestion to "flood the room with useful wall charts," and especially ones that the students have created to help their peers.

If we are going to model good writing, the models should be easily accessible. Middle school students, especially, tend to forget what they learned yesterday. Having models around the room keep them immediate throughout the year.

The author points to patterns rather than rules. Children can recognize and appreciate patterns, while they often resent rules. Rather than focus on the negative (rules), focus on the positive (patterns). Let kids use their own examples.

Writing Steps/Warne

"Some scholars argue that generalizations about writing processes are far too removed from real-world practice, inevitably turn into rigid rules, or create paralyzing self-consciousness."

Ouch! So much for my undergraduate training!

I'm thinking a way through the problem of teaching students concepts about revision without shackling them with more "rules"--perhaps there is an analogy from linguistics that would prove useful here.

Remember the debate over the teaching of "Eubonics" in the California public schools? I saw the solution as teaching "standard" English as one of many dialects or conventions. I would have encouraged speakers of "Black" English to consider "Standard" English as second language, and that by doing so one would be "bilingual," rather than increasing the suction power of so much racially charged quicksand. Better to teach the convention without forcing students to abandon their home speech and make them feel inferior about their particular flavor of English. After all, within the United Kingdom, there are numerous dialects of English, from Cockney to Cornwall.

So, in regard the subject at hand, students need to be aware that there is a "convention" attached to the ISAT, WASL and other state standardized tests. They need to know the expectations of such conventions, but should also know they have the freedom to use or not use such conventions (of the revision "process") in their own composing and revising. I think that if they are able to see and hear good writing, such standardized tests should not be something that they need fear.

Everyday Editing

I am reminded about a conversation I had with Rodney last Friday about the kind of questions to use to engage students in conversation. He mentioned the same one that Anderson does in his article: "What do you notice?" (Apparently both Rodney and Anderson are reading the same books.) Anderson's approach makes sense to me.

About the DOL...I was using something similar based on what my cooperating teacher used in the high school classroom. However, I see now how modeling GOOD prose is a sounder approach. After all, if we're to present models from which to learn, why use a "broken" model. For example, if I were to teach good fashion, I would not come to work in coveralls, manure covered boots and a sweaty old John Deere hat, expecting that my students would be able to learn about good fashion by pointing out what was wrong with my attire--NO! I would be wearing a three-piece suit and highly polished shoes in order to show the best of what fashion has to offer.

I'll have to experiment with the use of "reading eyes," "writing eyes," as well as "scientist eyes" and "poet eyes."

On Sommers: Student and experienced writers

Ah, the linear model: the college Writing Proficiency Exam (WPE), the SAT, PRAXIS, CBEST, WASL, ad naseum.

I remember having my first essay for the WPE rejected simply because it did not follow the 5-paragraph paradigm, not because I had nothing worthwhile to say--it just didn't fit the mold. Knowing the model is fine, but form can never substitute for content.

One idea in particular got my attention: "The predominant concern in these definitions [of revision] is vocabulary(emphasis mine). The students understand the revision process as a rewording activity...The aim of revision according to the students' own description is therefore to clean up speech..." (emphasis mine).

I confess, I am guilty of communicating wrong ideas about revision. I have done a disservice to those writers. Perhaps part of the problem in my own teaching is the pressure to get students ready for standardized testing, which includes two-point and three-point essay questions. (Love that WASL.)

Upon reflection of Sommmers' article, I see where I should reflect more upon my own revision process, and in such a form that I can apply it to my pedagogy. I am reminded of the workshop I attended with Kelly Gallagher, author of Teaching Adolescent Writers and other titles. He models the metacognative process for the students on his DocuCam, writing and revising, talking to himself aloud for the students' benefit. He does this often in order to keep the revision process in the forefront of their instruction. He also has an ongoing conversation with them about the revision process. He claims that since beginning this kind of teaching, he has seen amazing changes in the depth of his students' revisions.

As to the more experienced writers, I note the idea about "finding the form or shape" in an argument. I will make a leap here and relate this idea to Micheangelo's ideas about sculpture, that "every stone had a sculpture within it, and that the work of sculpting was simply a matter of chipping away all that was not a part of the statue." Just as finding the form hidden in the stone is a process of discovery, so too finding the form of an argument is a discover. Or, from another angle, as one writer Sommers quoted, ideas are "seeds." This perspective taken, it is the job of the writer to discover what kind of "plant" will spring from the seed of the particular argument.

On Stephanie Dix

It's no surprise that students have different ideas about what revision is. Jon's idea seems to be typical. However, Jon indicated that he did a lot of processing in his head before he put them on paper.

I am fascinated with Wirehu's and Ann's ability, considering their age, to articulate to some degree their metacognitive processes. Further, I am intrigued by the major difference in their approaches to revision between poetic and transactional writing.

For example, in his transactional writing, Wiremu "wrote and revised according to a given framework," and he "focused on the preciseness of language, correct punctuation and spelling."

What is significant to me in his case was that he "acknowledged the reader audience." This is certainly not the only difference, but I think a significant one. When I write with an audience in mind, I tend to revise differently, as well. I am more concerned about clarity and precision. However, when I am writing a poem, especially, I am more concerned about sound, form and figure. I often write more for myself than I do the "invisible reader."

Marti Mihalyi's suggestion to consider the latter was a revelation for me, and one that I can take into the classroom. It would be worthwhile to begin reflecting on my own processes from hence, making note of changes in my own approach to revision when writing poetic text.