Content and Purpose in Writing

When it comes to teaching writing, we've all done it wrong before.

Everybody, including you and especially me, has failed at one point or another.

An opinion piece, by Dean Shareski, points out the problems with the lack of authenticity in the way writing is taught. Jay Mathews wrote an article about a return to context and content in the face of what may be considered the mass outsourcing of a writing teacher's job to grading software. These two writers make a critical observation. We have a problem with meaning, both in the purpose of a piece and the subject matter written. 

Many of the writing assignments we give to students have no meaning to them, yet we continue to hand them work that they couldn't care less about.

So, how do we put purpose and meaning into our students' writing? I'm experimenting with a twist on an old letter-writing assignment idea in the personal narrative unit I'm doing now.

The Assignment: Students are to write a personal narrative based on a positive experience they have had with a staff member in the school building. Principals and teachers, as well as professionals from the guidance, custodial, secretarial, and cafeteria departments are all acceptable options. The staff member involved in the experience that generated this personal narrative will be given a copy of the final draft to read.

By tying the students' options of topics for their personal narratives to real people in the school building, I hope to achieve a few goals:

1. The experience will be real, or at least far harder to fake.
2. Students will reflect on a learning experience that happened in their school building, giving them a greater sense of ownership where they learn.
3. Students will be motivated to perform at a higher level knowing that the person who is a participant in the positive experience will be reading the final product.

While the writing process of this assignment unfolds, I'll have the opportunity to teach the essentials of the writing process, organization, figurative language, literary techniques, dialogue, etc. The difference is that now those elements of writing are tools to an end, not the sole purpose of an assignment.

Grammar. Spelling. Punctuation. Topic Sentences. Similes. Metaphors. These are tools, no different than what is found on a carpenter's belt. They don't define writing anymore than a wrench or a hammer defines your home.

Content and purpose define writing. As long as teachers ground writing tasks in the real world, we'll end up with more meaningful experiences for our students.

Planning and Preparation in Teaching and Writing

Planning and Preparation in Teaching and Writing  

Working within the Four Domains

Even as a Language Arts teacher, I felt completely overwhelmed when I first started writing. Researching. Plotting. Drafting. Editing. Revising. Re-Editing. Re-Revising. Proofreading. Re-Re-Revising. Formatting. Self-Publishing. Marketing. It all seemed like too much. Despite having a great writing partner on my first book, Captain James Hook and the Curse of Peter Pan, many of the steps seemed so far off in the future that It felt like I'd never get there.

I am fortunate that I have a framework in place from teaching that helps define poor and best practices. Charlotte Danielson's four domains identify standards and objectives as well as establish a set guideline for administrators to assess and develop their staff. The four domains are also generic enough to apply to most professions, even writing. The new author should also recognize these steps. The similarities between the two can guide an author and help them critique their work.

Planning and Preparation (Research and Plotting)

Good teachers are great planners. Lessons and assignments are as well spaced and ordered as the timing and pacing of the classes themselves. Although students only see the presentable result of our planning, they benefit from our logical progression of forethought.

Principals, vice-principals, and supervisors focus their evaluations on preparation because most problems in the classroom can be solved in the planning phase. Even though administrators have the unfair advantage of hindsight in their corner, that doesn't make the teacher's use of forethought any less important.

Novice teachers/writers need to know the content/research, student/audience characteristics, and what resources are available. Knowledge of this domain helps teachers/writers set meaningful goals, design clear instruction/writing, and develop methods of assessing their work.

Teaching and/or Writing Resources Include: iTunes University, Outlining Sites, Mind Mapping Sites

Classroom Environment (Your Writing Space)

This domain, which creates an environment of respect, a culture for learning, and the ability to facilitate classroom procedures, carries through to writing as well.

The use of physical space is important to teachers and writers. Optimal conditions to learn or write are as varied as the learners and writers themselves. Some can perform their best in the fevered buzz of a crowded diner or park. Others need complete isolation in order to keep a thought going.

Students play an unpredictable role in the way the class unfolds. Knowing this, effective teachers minimize the impact of student behavior by using the classroom space. Likewise, writers should set up their space in a way that best suits their style and minimizes outside distractions.

Teaching and/or Writing Resources Include: Classroom Organization, Classroom Environment, Setting up a Writing Space

Instruction (Writing, Editing, Revising, and Proofreading)

Crafting delivery is key in teaching and writing. This domain is third because clear instruction or writing can only happen if the first two domains are met. Once the planning and classroom environment stages meet a basic level of proficiency, the implementing of instruction can begin. Although some teachers have a natural gift, others need to be instructed on how to communicate clearly with their students and have flexibility and responsiveness. The aspect of designing effective questioning and discussion techniques should be handled in the planning stage. Nearly all new teachers benefit from instruction on how to engage students in learning or provide constructive feedback.

Teaching and/or Writing Resources Include: Free Word Processing Software (Like OpenOffice or GoogleDocs), Glossary of Instructional Strategies, Useful Instructional Strategies

Professional Responsibilities (Developing Your Talents as a Writer and Self-Publisher)

Since new teachers are often obsessed with difficulties in classroom management or test scores, the fourth domain of professional responsibilities is often minimized. An effective mentor will emphasize the importance of teacher reflection and accurate record keeping. Parent contact should also be stressed. It is advisable for the peer mentor to sit in on guardian conferences, since that is a direct communication with the larger community. New teachers often lack an attitude of service to their school or employing district. Administrators and mentors should encourage participation in enrichment activities that establish a stronger bond between the new teacher and their environment. Peer mentors should review standards for professional development and professionalism in the teaching field.

Writers, too, need to put time into the community. Whether an author publishes traditionally or independently, they will need to work with a variety of professionals. Networking skills are critical when researching editors, marketers, and publishers. Several blogs are dedicated to finding quality professional partners.

Teaching and Writing Resources Include: Meetup Groups, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Diigo, Edmodo

Is it ever over?

Teachers and writers are never truly finished. The mistakes you make in a first year teaching are not that different than those you make writing and publishing a first book. The way to become a professional is to recognize where you went wrong and take steps to correct those errors in the future.

Because, let's face it, there will always be another class and there will always be a next book.

Being the change... The classroom teacher as a reader and writer.

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”
Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political and spiritual leader (1869 – 1948)

For educators, making the decision to go public with your work can be terrifying. Gnawing whispers of doubt that paralyze any new author are made worse when you realize that you are labeled a supposed expert in the eyes of hundreds of students each year.  “What if no one reads my books or posts?” Worse yet, “What if a student buys a copy and hates it?”

Despite this, it is a teacher's responsibility to be an avid reader and writer. This doesn't just mean the English/Language Arts department, either. If our teaching goals include cross-curricular instruction, then all teachers from all subjects should showcase their literacy.

Effective educators model writing and reading skills in the classroom. Many do just that and stop there. That isn't to say that most teachers aren't voracious readers and writers. I know several who are. I know many more who don't take the small step forward to model to students how integral reading and writing is in their lives.

Don't misunderstand me, not every teacher has to write a book, post a weekly blog, or read a book a day. Some may be able to keep up that schedule, but I know I can't. Every teacher should, however, invest time in sharing their appropriate personal reading and writing interests with students. This isn't a request to deviate from your curriculum. Part of building a constructive classroom environment is to establish a culture for learning.

Every teacher should put their literacy on display. If not, are we really modeling the importance reading and writing?

The two most influential books of my teaching career aren't found in college curricula, nor were they written by theorists. These books on practice were written by teachers for use in the modern classroom. Each book contains methods and techniques for engaging students by being “the change” that our world of education needs to see.


The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child
Donalyn Miller
Book Summary from Amazon: Donalyn Miller says she has yet to meet a child she couldn't turn into a reader. No matter how far behind Miller's students might be when they reach her 6th grade classroom, they end up reading an average of 40 to 50 books a year. Miller's unconventional approach dispenses with drills and worksheets that make reading a chore. Instead, she helps students navigate the world of literature and gives them time to read books they pick out themselves. Her love of books and teaching is both infectious and inspiring. The book includes a dynamite list of recommended "kid lit" that helps parents and teachers find the books that students really like to read.

Writing for Real: Strategies for Engaging Adolescent Writers
Ross M. Burkhardt
Book Summary from Amazon: In Writing for Real, Ross Burkhardt offers a wealth of writing strategies--collected over his career as a classroom teacher and key figure in middle level education--that give kids real reasons to write. By keeping the strategies grounded in the real world and in students' interests, kids become more engaged than they would from canned exercises. Teacher/student dialogues introduce concepts in an authentic setting. The strategies are also designed to be developmentally appropriate for young adolescents. Throughout the book, examples of student writing represent a range of developmental levels and a variety of forms, such as free-verse poetry, interior monologues, and personal essays. Combining a deep passion for both teaching writing and educating adolescents, Writing for Real offers readers a window into a master teacher's classroom. Whether you work with struggling writers or kids who already love to write, these strategies will engage your students in meaningful tasks that teach them the thrill and power of good, effective, purposeful writing.

The 21st Century Teacher... Twelve Years Too Late

Technology is at work in your students' lives their entire day. It's the language they speak and the means through which they communicate.

In the August 2012 issue of Tech & Learning, Editorial Director Kevin Hogan wrote about the waning need to define terms like “21st Century Skills” or “BYOD” (Bring Your Own Device) in the not-too-distant future. In the Editor's Note, he paraphrases a CDW-G survey which concludes that “77 percent of teachers are using more classroom technology today than just two years ago, including laptops/netbooks, smartphones, or whatever students may have with them.”

On July 27th, 2012, Derrick Kyriacou (@DCKyriacou), my long-time colleague, tweeted: “‏We keep trying to get our tchrs/kids ready for 21C tchng/learning when we're 12 yrs in. We're so beyond starting. #edchat #edreform #edtech”

These statements show a growing frustration over the snail's pace of change in our educational practices. Having embedded myself with a group of teachers in my district who embrace learning-centered technology, I can't say that I disagree. We are among several professionals who believe that these practices should be so commonplace one dozen years into a given century that the need to define these terms is quickly becoming obsolete.

But are we wrong?

Is the idea of a tech-focused learning environment universal or are some educators marching forward without looking over their shoulders to see if anyone is following?

Which teachers are hesitating and why? What professional development strategies work best and what (preferably free) tools are available to the teacher on the verge?

Neither hesitation nor fear should get in the way of learning. A quote from Karl Augustus Menninger reads, “Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.”

When I taught a session of professional development in my district, I described this fear as being similar to watching your students in a race. They run the track that you have set them on according to your lesson plan. The goal may not be to outpace each other, but the objective is at the finish line of the day's activity. If the students are on foot, the pace is easily measured. If they are on horseback, the pace quickens, but not so much that a single teacher can't manage it. The introduction of new media techniques places the students in Formula One race cars. They may get to the intended goal much more quickly, but one sidestep or jerk of the wheel can cause a burning wreck that irreparably damages the lesson. Social networking sites have their share of hazards. Animated distractions, adult material, and instant messages between students plague most modern teachers' nightmares. No one denies this.

However, it's important to recognize that the fear of using technology in the classroom is only nearly as great as the potential benefits. Constructive professional development and an appropriate amount of lesson/unit planning is needed, but before that happens, you should take it upon yourself to do some research.

__________

Google Docs

One of the main resources I use in the classroom is the Google Docs suite. Google Docs is a collection of apps that mimic commonly known programs. Document is similar to any word processor. Presentation is a slide show creator. Spreadsheet is an Excel-like table and graph generator. What separates these apps from the Microsoft Office and Open Office programs is the entire justification for their use in the classroom. They are web based.

As long as a student has a Google account, either through Gmail or through a school account, their efforts on Google Docs are always saved, current, and password protected.

Have you every used a student's USB key to find that the document does not open on your computer? Every teacher has. The same thing happens with email attachments.

Has a student ever claimed that he or she completed an assignment and sent it to you? You don't have it in your inbox or on the USB key in your hand, but the student swears that it was done. 

With access to these apps, you can allow the student to sign on and resend their assignment. The answers to whether they finished their tasks or not are made clear in moments. These situations of ambiguity or document-incompatibility should no longer exist.

__________

Google Sites

My Language Arts website has a wealth of resources for students to access at all times. This site helps my students and their parents keep current on assignments and updates. I started it from a self-explanatory Google Sites template two years ago and built it up from there through trial and error.

__________

Diigo

The third free tool that I use is a web-annotator called Diigo. Using Diigo, students can bookmark, highlight, comment on web pages. All of the notes that they make are saved on their accounts, so they only need to log in and their whole body of work is accessible on any computer. Students then share their annotations with me so that I can assess critical reading or research-based assignments.

Collaboration is a major bonus when using Diigo. Students can comment on each other's notes and highlights, which is great when they are working in teams.

The teacher's first step is to set up a password protected educational account. Students create their usernames and passwords and apply to join a group that the teacher makes. If the student's username is not recognizable, do not accept them. Only people in the group can view and comment on each other's annotations.  This adds a layer of security to the process.

__________

This is just the start of what can be done with a wireless network and the will to take reasonable risks in the classroom. As with any new technique, planning and preparation is critical. There are many who know far more about educational technology than I do. Certainly there is someone in your building who can expand on what I wrote here.

Ask about your district's acceptable use policies and work with other teachers to infuse technology into daily classroom activities. Try to avoid making technology a "station" in your room and stay away from useless apps that do little more than distract or entertain. 

Most importantly, don't be afraid to show that you haven't mastered some specific website. Teachers who show that they are willing to learn new ideas model the way we want students to embrace learning as a process.

There is resistance to every advance in technology. An amazing blog by Laurence Sanders, another innovative colleague of mine, researched how people once thought that the printing press and pencils were bad ideas.

If Kevin Hogan, Derrick Kyriacou, and I are wrong and terms like “21st Century Skills” and “BYOD” still need to be defined as though they are new, let them be listed alongside the terms new teachers need to learn like “student-centered instruction” and “project-based learning.”

Hopefully this conversation will become obsolete sooner rather than later. I'm not willing to wait another twelve years for our practices to catch up with the world around us. By then, we'll be too late.

He who can, teaches.

It takes a lot to annoy a teacher. 

By trade, we are tolerant people who cope with hundreds of developing personalities in dozens of chaotic situations. Yet, despite our much-touted patience, there are a few things that rile teachers as professionals and they aren’t what you would expect. The kids are great, parents want what’s best, and administrators do what they can with the limited resources and power they actually have.

Even up against truly serious issues, one idea grates at our collective nerves. Put aside, for a moment, the complete lack of cultural follow-through regarding the causes of our national education gap [http://goo.gl/0dgnm]. Step away from thoughts of those who misunderstand tenure or attempt to roll back labor laws and union rights for public employees.

Regardless of state, district, or stance on school vouchers, one phrase rises above irritation and undercuts any possibility for discourse.

“Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

This phrase, and the thought behind it, reduces teachers to failures who aren’t fit to hold the recycled paper on which their taxpayer-funded check is printed.

Recently, I had to defend my chosen career against someone who used this quote. Worse yet, the person with whom I was arguing insisted that the term was not a criticism against teachers. It is bad enough that he said it, but the least he could have done was have the misaligned ideology to stand behind it.

So, for the good of all teachers, I tried to educate him about the phrase's meaning. I researched. I cited. I argued. I was wrong.

This isn’t to say that the person I was talking to was right. Few things could be further from the truth. (At one point he said that the whole quote was: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who do neither are at my school.” This version isn't even a close rip off of Woody Allen.)

No, I was wrong on a much deeper level. I fell into the same trap as many others who argue their passions: I simply didn’t know what I was talking about. Worse, I was as ignorant of the meaning (and phrasing) of the original quote as the people who commonly use it.

It is a crushing feeling for a teacher to experience, not because teachers always have to be right for their pride or egos, but because we know how much weight our words carry. When teachers are wrong, substantive and long-lasting damage is done.

The original quote from George Bernard Shaw's Maxims for Revolutionists reads: "He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches. A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance. Activity is the only road to knowledge." http://www.bartleby.com/157/6.html

It is only a few lines from the larger section on education in which Shaw rails against universities, college dons, and moral or religious instruction. The worst part of the whole experience was that the more I read, the more I agreed with it.

I was horrified. How could I agree with any part of it? This is the battle cry for those who wish to reduce my profession to a scripted, ideology-pushing, minimum-wage-earning, test-score-driven, part-time job that is forbidden to teach critical thinking skills [http://goo.gl/rqGYU]. Shouldn't I be outraged?

After a short break to collect my thoughts (and daughter from her after-school activities), I realized that I'd broken through a barrier in my understanding of teaching.

Teachers prevent the decay of our national intelligence and, in many tangible ways, we're losing. One of the most noticeable is the devolution of our country's ability to filter fact from fallacy. School is no longer the undisputed source of information and teachers no longer hold the authority to denounce foolish radicalization. Worse yet, attacks on teacher credibility have gone, for the most part, unanswered.

Many consider Shaw's quote an attack against teachers, but it reads more like a criticism of a failed system of education. In fact, a second reading of that quote looks like support for the model of experiential learning and problem-based inquiry that is present in most progressive classrooms across the country.

As annoyed as I was with this quote (and the person who used it), the encounter reminded me that I don't have the luxury enjoyed by so many radio hosts and cable “news” channels. False knowledge is, as Shaw warns, worse than ignorance. If activity is the best road to knowledge, then the practice and process of self-discovery is best learned from a teacher.

Teachers are authors, tutors, college professors, physical trainers, salespeople, and small-business owners. Many attend voluntary training sessions and actively engage in their own development. They do this work because they are passionate, have dynamic skill sets, and can bring these talents back into the classroom as professional educators.

At The Writing Teacher, I will continue my own self-discovery as an author and educator. On the site and through this blog, I will:

• Outline future book, short story, and lesson ideas.
• Review websites and news for writers and teachers.
• Comment on opportunities and hurdles for teachers and independent writers.
• Spotlight some of the dozens of my colleagues who do amazing work in and out of the classroom.

I won't commit to a posting schedule, but I will commit to a vision. It is a simple idea that is long overdue...

He who can, teaches.