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.
