New job!

Hello fellow NIWP friends! Exciting news...I applied for a part time 3rd grade position at the school my hubby traches at and where my daughter will be in 2nd grade, and I GOT THE JOB! I start tomorrow. I'm so excited. Thanks to my facilitators who wrote amazing letters of recommendation for me. Ill keep you all posted on my year!

My top 10

I’m not funny or witty. This is indeed boring in comparison to some of my fellow’s top 10 lists. Just warning you….

10. According to dictionary.com, revision is the act of revising. J

9. Revision is not the devil that I once thought it was.

8. Revision is not merely fixing little things here and there. To me, revision is restructuring the piece.

7. Revision in my mind was the last and final step before completion. Ha. Boy was I wrong. Now I understand it is a continuous practice that happens throughout the entire writing process.

6. Revision is re-working and re-writing.

5. Revision is not as scary as I once thought.

4. Revision is what makes the writing process move from stage to stage.

3. “Revision is much more than an error hunt, and it makes for a much better conclusion then THE END”  -Barry Lane

2. Revision requires open, critical eyes.

1. Every writer needs his own tool box. Mine started out like a small child’s tackle box. I've outgrown that small box these last few weeks. J

Rief, oh Rief.

What have we learned about writing and the teaching of writing?

Writing is a form of communication. It is a process that allows us to get our thoughts on paper. Writing requires thinking. What do you want to write about? Who are you writing to? What point(s) are you trying to convey? How do you plan to do this? Writing requires the writer to ask questions. It also requires teachers to help their students think critically and to generate the questions that will gear their students in the right direction. Writers need peer conferencing as well as teacher conferencing. Specific questions need to be asked, and comments need to be pointed towards a specific aspect of the piece. Being vague leaves students asking more questions and making assumptions. And like Rief says, writing is reading. All the research we’ve read says that good writers read. They gain so much through the literature they absorb.  I have also learned that we need to teach our writers all the “tools” in the tool box. Teach them the tricks, the different forms, and different ways to brainstorm. After they are comfortable with different tools, allow them to choose the tool that will help them to do their best writing.

Why does writing matter?

Again, writing is a way to get our thoughts on paper. It’s a means of communication. It also helps me to generate even more questions regarding my writing. Writing just to write is therapeutic for me. It allows me to get my feelings out, good or bad.

What do our students need to help them write well?

In order to write well, our students need a great space to sit and write. Plenty of resources, material and books. Our students need time to write. In a recent article that we read, this topic was discussed. Only giving our students an hour to write a paper creates a negative image towards the writing, drafting, and revision process. It would be impossible to do so in an hour. Students need us as teachers to model our love for, and the importance of writing. Our students look up to us and want to do what we’re doing. If we are writing and showing them our love for the craft, chances are they will feel more for their own writing. Again, students need peer conferencing and teacher conferencing.  These conferences give the writer things to think about and they may help the writer generate new questions or ideas.

What stands in the way of powerful writing instruction?

Time. It seems impossible to implement 60 + minutes of writing instruction in our classrooms per day. One article talked about cutting out unnecessary lessons or pointless activities. I’d like to think that none of my lessons or activities are pointless, but reevaluating our plan and map of the school day, and year, we’d be able to make it work.  After learning how vitally important writing workshop is, you couldn’t not make it work, right? Facilitators, I’d love to observe your classes. I’d love to get a sneak peek into how you do this on a daily basis!

Where I'm from

I am from PBS cartoons while sitting against the dinning room table leg,
From the scent of Folgers coffee and cereal with watery, non-fat milk.

I am from the “barn” on the corner,  the red house that many neighborhood kids called home, and the playhouse that held many secrets, with chalk written notes on the walls.

I am from the gigantic rhubarb bush, and the overgrown birch whose long wispy branches housed the numerous caterpillars that I quickly uprooted, put in an empty milk jug and made my pets.

I’m from Swedish meatballs and family prayers.

From soldiers of various wars and several generations of nurses.

I am from date nights and after school snacks, and from my oh, so dreadful weekly piano lessons.

I’m from “You’re my favorite” and “love you, love you, love you” and Jesus loves me.

I’m from Sunday morning church.

I’m from Boise ID, grandparents married for 62 years,  and a great- grandma of 100 years old.

I’m from scotch-a-roos, home-made popsicles, to tater tot casserole.

I'm from my sister throwing stools at me, to my Minnesota Twins pennant which after years of being hung on my bedroom wall is now safely tucked away in my hope chest as it harbors sweet memories of my dearest grandfather.

Jigsaw * Flower and Hayes

I loved this quote, “The writers themselves create the problem they solve. “

The article based its finding around a study done with different levels of writers. The task was to write a piece for an audience of 13-14 year old girls, for Seventeen magazine. While the writers wrote, they were to verbalize their writing process, which was recorded.

As writers, we need to be able to identify the problem that is to be solved before we can formulate questions. As teachers, we need to teach our students to create problems by asking critical questions.

When writing, two aspects of the rhetorical problem are:

1.       Information about the rhetorical situation

2.       Information about the writer’s own purpose and goals.

A rhetorical situation would be the audience and the given assignment.

Representing one’s purpose and goals has four different roles:

1.       The effect the writer wants to have on the reader.

a.       These goals can be small scale, large scale, or anything in between.

Some writers want their goals to have a direct personal effect on the reader as a person. Other times the writer may have a more general goal, making a point or having the reader simply comprehend the thought.

2.       The relationship the writer wishes to establish with the reader.

a.       Persona,  or voice

b.      This part of the process is usually found in the writer’s stored information, thus rarely heard in the protocol.

c.       Persona changes through word choice and tone rather than by a statement.

3.       The writer’s attempt to build a coherent network of ideas, to create meaning.

a.       Some writers may try to express an idea that has been formed, while other writers attempt to probe for contradictions and analogues and try and form new concepts.  

4.       The formal or conventional features of a written text.

After the study was complete, data was gathered and the following was determined:

	Analysis of rhetorical situation: Audience and Assignment	Analysis of goals Audience    Self    Text    Meanings	Total
Novice	7	0            0            3              7	17
Expert	18	11          1             3             9	42

The information shows that the expert writer made reference to his audience/assignment 18 times in the first 7 to 8 minutes of recording, versus the novice who only referenced back 7 times. Look at the “Audience” and “Self” section. The novice didn’t refer to either during the duration of the recorded study. The totals show that the expert writer referenced back to these purposes and goals more than twice the amount of times then what the novice did. That is so interesting to me. I would think that a less experienced writer would refer back more often making sure they have a good grasp on the “problem”.  Good writers, with experience, have learned the tricks of the trade, so I suppose that they reference back time and time again, not only to refresh themselves on the topic, but also to make sure they stay on task. Good writers also signify the problem at a deeper level.  In the process of continually identifying the reader and the situation, the goals become more specific and involve more detail. In contrast, a poor writer doesn’t change or revise their problem throughout the writing process. Referring to the goals and purposes is not done nearly enough, thus the poor writer lacks development and depth regarding their problem.

I enjoyed the example of the Seventeen magazine study, a novice writer whose piece was about steam turbulence in an electric generator. The topic was near and dear to his heart, but hardly appropriate for the 13 and 14 year old female audience of Seventeen magazine. This clearly shows that the audience/assignment and the purpose and goals got lost in the writer’s writing process. Maybe referring back to those 6 components would have geared him in a better direction?

The conclusion to this article was that good writers are simply solving different problems then poor writers. Writers only solve the problems that they represent to themselves. Determining how a writer depicts his problem through his writing, we may also be determining a part of what makes the writer creative.

 I agree with this theory. As I write, I very often pull from my own mind things that help me connect to my “problem.” I don’t feel experienced enough in my own writing abilities to be able to think like an expert writer. I find myself in the novice category. I think that also comes with lack of writing experience. The article ended with the question, would the poor writer’s performance change if they had a richer sense of what they were trying to do as they wrote, or if they had more of the goals for affecting the readers which were so stimulating to the good writers? I can’t answer that. To me, poor writing comes with lack of experience, and I wonder that if these poor writers knew the above questions, would they remain poor writers??? Then I suppose the point arises that great performance does not always follow knowledge. I know have a better understanding of the 4 purposes and goals, but with that in mind, would that necessarily make me a better writer? Now, or with more practice? Hmmm.

Damn...my stupid table didn't copy and paste correctly...

Britton, oh Britton. How you make my head spin!

After reading this article OVER AND OVER, I think I finally have my head wrapped around the content he was trying to convey.

Question.

How does poetic writing differ from expressive writing? I’m having a difficult time determining the difference. Would poetic writing reach more of an audience then expressive writing? What I get from this article is that expressive writing is more intimate. Poetic writing is written for its own sake. Would a love letter be expressive, or poetic? It seems to me that it would be poetic in the lovey-dovey poem sense, but in this literary sense, it must be expressive. I’m writing to a specific audience. It’s not meant for the greater population.  Now, how can we move from expressive to poetic and still keep the original meaning intact?

Visualize.

I visualize expression as a piece of writing geared for a particular audience, full of tone and emotion. I think of a piece written about a family reunion. Details of specific events and specific family members named by name. Probably details and information only a specific audience would understand. Inside jokes about grandpa, describing the change in the old farm, house, etc. Now, I visualize a poetic piece of writing about family reunions. It would be an overview of a typical family reunion. Nothing specific about specific people and places, but a general piece about family reunions.

Predict.

I predict that I will fail miserably upon trying to construct a poetic piece from my family reunion expression piece. J hehe. I suppose transitioning into a poetic piece would mean taking out the inside jokes and personal detail, and while stepping back, looking at the story as a spectator rather than as a participant.  I predict that I would have to write and rewrite several times, each time removing more of the personal details and make it more general.

Connect.

I feel like this article really connected myself to the text. I read this article and thought I had a decent understanding of it. Ha. Not even close. When it was time to, oh lets say, blog about it, I realize that I had nowhere near the understanding I thought I had. In the class activity of placing types of writing on the appropriate posters, I put things in the wrong category. After the group activity and presentations of each writing type, I feel I have a much better grasp on the information. :)

Respond.

Now that I have a better grasp, I think I would be better prepared to make an expressive piece of writing into a poetic piece. Yay! I'm gunna give it a shot....I'll let you know how it goes!

Emig Blog

I loved her statement that we were all born wired with the ability to learn to write.

I enjoyed this article as I found it much easier to read then Britton. I love the idea that kids work, learn, and process in nontraditional ways. In our class discussion I think there was some confusion upon what the author was trying to convey. I don’t think she was stating that the structure of a given genera should be altered or changed. I think she was saying is that the way the final product is produced doesn’t necessarily need to follow a formula or a guide. I think that teaching all the different tools in the tool box is important, and your students should be able to manipulate those given tools, but when writing, your students should be allowed to pick the tools they want to use in order to complete a piece of writing. Giving our students the chance to prewrite, brainstorm, web, or outline etc. in the fashion that best suits them, in order to create a final product.

I like lists. Lists are a useful device for me in my everyday life. With that said, I like her lists of the 7 “how it is” teaching writing techniques and her 7 “how it should be” techniques. They are easy to read and easy to follow. Straight forward and to the point…transactional I might suppose?? J

In order to move from the “how it is” to the “how it should be” teaching minds must change. A large paradigm shift is necessary for the “how it should be” to take root and flourish.