I’m working on my final project for the common core course I’m taking, with Pandora playing nicely in the background. Jack Johnson’s song “Questions” starts, and I had to stop and think about the lyrics. Johnson sings about people’s internal need to be asked questions. We like to talk about ourselves and the people we love when given the opportunity to answer questions. Now, the goal of the core, is to get students to see that the world is run on questions. Without questions we don’t get improvements or knowledge. We stay stuck. Our new goal as a teacher is to teach students to ask quality questions, and then help them learn the tools to find answers to those questions. This can be accomplished in a variety of ways, but I really enjoyed watching the video about using the pinwheel discussion from teacher tube. This lesson challanges students to make connections between texts, back up their claims with evidence, and to ask insightful and meaningful questions — a common core dream.
I think I’d like to try this with my War Lit unit with the Juniors and my short story unit with the Seniors. I plan to flush out those details more fully in the next couple of weeks.
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A large part of the common core encourages students to ask their own, quality questions. Well, as teachers, when we are faced with writing questions for our students we turn to the old standard: Bloom’s Taxinomy. Why not give that to my students? So, as a cumulative project for my common core class, I made a wordle poster of some great “Bloom Verbs” to to share with my students. Enjoy!
Start Slowly — that was the mantra for today’s common core experience. We as teachers, especially high school teachers, need to remind ourselves that common core implementation is going to be a lengthy process. We will not have common-core-aligned students right away; we will still be fixing last year’s problems. In fact, in my case, I won’t see kids who’ve adopted a common core mindset from their early stages of education for TEN years. I do believe, however, that we will be able to see positive changes as soon as we start making positive changes in our classrooms. This, to me, is where to begin.
Today we did a couple of activities that I will gladly share more in depth later, but we also learned a few scary statistics. Current textbooks are watered down, as the sentences in K-8 books have decreased in length from an average of 20 words to an average of 14 words. The Common Core looks to make a shift back into challenging texts. Today we watched a video called “Shift Happens” on Youtube, and while I was trying to find that, I came across this video you might enjoy — go Iowa! I posted the video, but you may also find it here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMsNct4X_GU The most important thing I learned from this video is this: ”It’s the 21st century — we need to prepare our students for their future, not our past” — which is exactly what I feel the common core is striving to do. I’ll keep you posted as I learn more!
Interesting points. I hope they continue making this each year as trends change.
Today was my first day of Common Core State Standards training. It felt good for the presenters to admit that Illinois is behind most other states when it comes to implementation — which was nice to be reaffirmed. I was feeling like the kid who didn’t read the text when I spent June at graduate school. From what I’ve learned so far, most of my Iowa friends are well on their way to quality implementation. After today’s lessons I feel much better about it, too. It won’t be so bad to implement these standards — most of them are what we want from students anyway. Some of them will be “stretch goals” for many of my kids, but most of them will be attainable with a little bit of focused instruction.
That, however, is not what I want to talk about. Instead, I’d like to mention the things we might lose to the common core if we are not careful. One of the things we discussed today is the level of depth required by the Common Core. Rather than giving students a taste of everything, like English teachers prefer to do, our goals are now challenging us to dive far into depth with the things we teach, at the expense of teaching more things. We’re used to teaching a mile wide and an inch deep; now we need to participate in the inverse of that. The Core encourages us to dive deeply into teach text, making connections and measurable growth. A few lingering questions about the core remain, however. First, what defines “mastery”? and what level is proficient? Should 80% of students be able to do it? 100%? Since the core has no plans to make adjustments for students that are falling below the standards, or who are struggling learners, what level of proficiency can be expected? It did help to realize that the core isn’t some magical change in thinking. Rather, it is a version of what we do already with more focused instruction. The Core looks for students to be able to show their knowledge, not just regurgitate it in one situation. The qualitative depth of the core looks for levels of meaning — the students need to be able to understand the skills and then apply them in a variety of situations. Students need to participate in more questioning and self-driven learning, changing the current trend in classroom environments. Some of the changes in the core are a bit scary, though. I did feel like a few of my favorite lessons were flying out the window during some of the instruction. However, the more we discussed, the more I realized that everything has it’s place as long as it encourages authentic learning. My favorite parts of the core so far is the emphasis on higher level thinking and the encouragement of using sources to back up your arguments. The core constantly refers students back to the text to help form their opinions. That’s a summary of day one — I’ll keep you posted as I find out more. Please, leave your comments/suggestions to relate to the core and how you plan to implement them below. In this post I will be responding specifically to Donald Murray’s 1972 essay “Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product” found on pages 1-5 of the book The Essential Don Murray by Thomas Newkirk and Lisa C. Miller.
I’ve been reading a lot of articles by Donald Murray lately and the theme that keeps coming up is writing as process, not product. In the world of education, and I fear in a world of common core standards and formative assessments, writing is too often seen as a means to an end — as in if I write this well, I will get a good grade. Too often I find my students only willing to adopt a “one & done” mindset when it comes to writing. I encourage Murray’s vision of prewriting as a method of percilating, and I do believe students spend at least 85% of their designated writing time in this stage. I find myself doing this — especially when it comes to writing about books on my book blog. I read the book, toss the ideas around in my mind for a few days, take a few notes in my notebook, and then begin to respond to the book in paragraphs. The difference between myself and my students, however, lies in the next step: before hitting “publish” on anything I go back and reread, rework, and rewrite parts of my writing. Too often I feel my students get stuck before the “re” portion of writing. The one & done mentality so prevalent among high school students leads to poor writing and poor attitudes toward writing. I feel pain in my teacher-heart every time I read something from a brilliant student that is riddled with errors and poorly strung ideas. I know the brilliance is in there, but my students don’t take the time to polish the rock of the idea until it shines like the gem that it is. I’ve fought this problem for the past three years and I’m struggling to find the way to bring my students the joy of revision. I know I didn’t find it in high school — only in college, once someone else had already validated my writing as quality. I often meditate back to my high school self (bright & lazy!) to help me understand my high school students. I worked hard on things I cared for, worked hard enough to get by on things I didn’t, but I always had a second set of eyes on my paper before I turned it in. I won’t claim to not make mistakes (heck, my principal will be the first to point out that I misspell things on my whiteboard fairly often — sometimes the pen is faster than the brain!), but I tried–and still try–to catch those mistakes before they go out to the larger public. What I’m looking for is a way to show my students they should care about their final drafts the way they care about their facebook status. After all, both are projecting an image of themselves into the world. One way I’ve started to get my students to think about the writing process, as opposed to the writing marathon word-vomit, is to use journals. My senior students were my pilot project for this endeavor and they used it for a bit of prewriting, but seemed to forget it existed when they went to draft their papers. I often found a gem of an idea in their writer’s notebooks that did not make it into their paper and was disappointed when they couldn’t explain why it didn’t make it to their paper. In Murray’s article, he advocates for bringing life to writing. He points out that most teachers are taught to autopsy writing by analyzing literature and then told to go “teach” good writing. I know that I’m not a good writer on the first try; often I’m only an average writer by the third try. This can be discouraging for our students, so as a teacher it’s our goal to breathe life into writing when participating in that act with our students.Murray reminds teachers that “we have to be patient and wait, and wait, and wait. The suspense in the beginning of a writing course is agonizing for the teacher, but if we break first, if we do the prewriting for our students, they will not learn the largest part of the writing process” (3). I’ve found this to be a struggle in my classroom as well. My students want to be spoon-fed questions for analysis and act like lost puppies when I do not outline for them what I’d like them to say about the topic. Giving them an outline, however, results in reading the same paper 25 times. Outside of taking my class, I doubt all of my students have one thing in total common with each other, so I know that they do not all have the same opinion when it comes to a topic. My goal as a teacher this year is to listen to Murray’s advice and shut up and let all 25 of my students say what they want to say in writing, not regurgitate what they think I want them to say. The ideas in this article relate to Donald Murray’s article “Writing and Teaching for Surprise” originally published in College English January 1984.
Sometimes, when I write, ideas hide in the dark crevices of my subconscious unwilling to be coaxed out. Other times they jump to the front of my mind in a jumbled mess I can’t sort out. Sometimes an idea, an image, or a line sneaks up on me and I have to grab a post-it or the back of one of those annoying magazine flyers and jot it down until I can transfer it to my writer’s notebook to let it fester until it becomes something real. Those moments always take me by surprise and make me yearn to go to a writing place and figure out why that image struck me so. Murray’s article explores the idea of writing until the writing surprises you. Writing until the idea takes a life of its own and takes the writer to a place of surprise. The patient search for surprise keeps the writer coming back for more. This idea makes sense — when writing brings us joy, we’re more likely to keep doing it. An aspect of Murray’s article I see coming across in modern writing about teaching is the idea of the “public write.” Murray talks about going to the board and writing in front of his students–much the same premise both Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle have written about in their recent publications. I’ve purchased both of those books, but I haven’t had a chance to really dive into them so I will need to look into this farther later. In this post I will be responding specifically to Donald Murray’s 1972 essay “Teaching Writing as a Process Not Product” found on pages 1-5 of the book The Essential Don Murray by Thomas Newkirk and Lisa C. Miller.
“There are no rules, no absolutes, just alternatives. What works one time may not work another. All writing is experimental.” — Don Murray This quote stuck out to me in Murray’s work. It is Implication #10 in his list of things a writing teacher must believe to teach the process of writing and it makes the most sense in the classroom. During the haze of the school year I feel myself and my colleagues gravitating toward the “easy fix,” a solution that will work this time and every time. In writing this is impossible. Writing is a fluid, flexible process for those who are most talented at it, so we must hold the same expectations to our students. As a teacher of writing, it is our duty to provide students room to learn through writing. Murray goes on to point out that nothing about this type of writing requires special training, lots of new resources, or a reduced teaching load. Instead, it requires “a teacher who will respect and respond to his students, not for what they have done, but what they may do; not for what they have produced but for what they may produce, if they are given the opportunity to see writing as a process, not a product” (5). So, what does this mean for teachers? Well, to me it means making some changes to the classroom, starting with the ideas below. 1. Teachers must acknowledge the need for prewriting and percilating ideas and provide time for students to accomplish this. I can do this by providing in class time to work and taking a change to model my own idea-generating methods and writing process for my students at the beginning of the year and spend the rest of the year writing while they write while maintaining an openness to chat with them about ideas. Speaking of chatting… 2. Teachers need to provide a place for collaboration that challenges. Ideas are best after they’ve been bounced around a little. By giving our students a chance to talk about what they are seeing, thinking, and writing, it allows them to hear the opinions of others and it gives them a stage to solidify their own opinions. 3. Teachers need to spend less time thinking and talking about writing and more time writing. As Kelley Ghallagher points out in his book Deeper Reading, how can we expect our students to do something if we aren’t willing to do it ourselves? So, this year I’m going to close my mouth and write. Hopefully it will be one way I can lead by example. This blog is under construction. It’s birthday is July 1, 2012 so please be patient as I decide on a direction and theme for the site.
My goal for this blog is to create an online space to share my professional development reading, writing, & learning. This blog has been bouncing around in my head for some time and I’d like to bring it to the masses as a collaborative space for people to share thoughts and questions related to the elation and frustrations of teaching. I plan to use it as a personal sounding board for my own inquiry into the field of teaching, especially teaching writing at the high school level. Please enjoy. And please also note that the views shared on this site are my own; they do not belong to my employer, graduate school, grandmother, the parents of my students, my professional colleagues, your dog walker’s grandmother, or anyone else who may be offended by them. Simply put, these ideas and opinions belong to me, so if you take offense please share that with me in a democratic way. I am open to discussion, but I will not respond to slander of any sort. I encourage freedom of speech, but once your freedoms serve to hurt another, freedom ends (that’s why laws are so effective). If you’ve survived the disclaimer, congrats. Read on, my friends. Comment and question, too! After all, learning does not happen in a vacuum, but by sharing ideas and interests with others. |
The views on this blog are mine alone and do not reflect those of my employer or anyone else. AuthorKari teaches English I to 9th graders (!) and other electives in rural Iowa. Her husband is also an English teacher, and their friends have sworn to never help them move again because "even libraries don't have that many books." Archives
March 2017
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