Thursday, June 7, 2012
Final Reflections...
Take some time to reflect on the LTT course, the course text, Write Beside Them, Class discussions etc. and think about how your thinking has changed. Read through all of the blog entries, yours and those of others, to see if you can track how your thinking has or has not changed. Reflect on your personal experience and how you hope to take what you have discovered with you into the future.
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I think a greater focus on writing is necessary and hope that we are able to come p with a rubric that van be easily asimilated into the exisiting curriculum. I know that we are all on the same page with this and will take what we worked on this semester and continue to emphasize writing on a daily basis
ReplyDeleteI adapted the final writing portfolio assignment that Penny included at the end of her book, and used it for my Journalism portfolio. I found it more meaningful in many ways than the portfolio assessment I had been using. I really liked the idea of having kids annotate the skills they had learned to use throughout the year. I also decided to have students choose one piece that they were not satisfied with and I asked them to revise it, with a paragraph to me explaining the changes. This resulted in real revision, rather than the fluff revisions students had previously done for portfolios in years past. Asking them to choose ONE, rather than revising all pieces in their portfolio, meant that they did meaningful work in doing so, some students choosing to rewrite almost everything about the piece.
ReplyDeleteI plan on working to incorporate the ideas on teaching argument into AP Language, as I think this will make them better writers, and I think I will be using her model text work for different rhetorical modes and rhetorical analysis as well. Students need to see examples of it in order to write it well, and I think this will really benefit them as they struggle to learn this new type of writing. I will plan on writing more alongside them as well, in order to provide some models, since I am unsure of how many mentor texts for this style of writing there really are. If I use College Board prompts, then I can use the exemplars provided as a model, and I think I will ask students to annotate what they see.
I think I will also be re-examining how I teach Against the Dying of the Light, my senior English elective. Many of the papers they write for that class are analytical, but now I’m thinking that they really don’t need to be—and they could be arguments, reflective essays, short stories/narratives, etc. I am planning on playing around with this course over the summer to see what I can do to change the writing focus. I still love the books I teach, though I’d like to add in a few other books as well—maybe ask them to do some outside reading that fits the theme of the class and that they can use with their 10 minutes of reading time at the start of each block.
Some of the class discussions allowed me to see what Penny meant with some of her activities (like the topic journals), and I wished we had done a lot more discussing of the specifics in her book so I knew what other people were trying in their own classrooms. It was interesting reading the blogs because that did give me some insight in this regard, but the conversations there didn’t feel as natural as they would in person—though I did enjoy reading about other people’s writing experiences.
ReplyDeleteI still wish I could steal from the Penny Kittle plan book of specific model texts that she uses for each assignment. In some cases, I was able to search and find what I needed; in other cases, I had to make my own. For example, when I taught a lesson on compression, I had no idea what texts she used to demonstrate this technique, other than the tennis match she had included in the book. I copied that, and then we used a montage of the training scenes from Rocky to show compression in film—which we all then tried to capture in writing. This allowed them to practice before attempting to use the technique in their “This I Believe” essays.
Penny’s book is a treasure trove that I will be mining all summer and throughout the year next year as I work to revamp how I approach my teaching.
On Reading:
ReplyDeleteI adored the Penny Kittle book, and as I’ve said many times, it definitely further emphasized all the things I learned from her workshop at UNH. I really enjoyed reading it with our particular crowd, however, as I’ve watched the inspiration fill my peers and start to be reflected in all of our teaching. When I talk about Penny Kittle and her writing to students or friends, I talk about the groundbreaking thought (for me, anyway) that she puts herself out there as a writer with her students. We are all writers, certainly, and we all have different perspectives and ways to share. Already we are natural storytellers, as English teachers, so why not put it to the page? The DVD modeling interactions in the classroom was also helpful, as it showed her strategies IN ACTION. I felt that this set her apart from other reading and writing book authors; so many sound wonderful on the page but don’t work in practice. This authentic experience really added to my enjoyment and understanding of the book.
On Blogging:
It was interesting to hear everyone’s perspectives on what had been going on with them – especially to hear their history as a writer. So many of us have similar stories and it’s such a wonder that we all gravitate toward to careers we do. It was also helpful to see people with the same questions and struggles as me; just as with writing for students, sometimes we don’t put ourselves out there enough with our own peers. Blogging at this school is difficult only because of the extensive firewalls, but once that was opened it was easier to accomplish. Also, while some were able to respond to each other in their own posts, I felt we may not have fully interacted enough to be useful to ourselves; there was more potential for discussion that we just didn’t access. I can say that for me this problem comes from being overscheduled with our SIG commitments, but in the future this could be easier.
On Class Time:
ReplyDeleteSometimes it’s nice to be able to sit together and read through a piece to hear each others’ thoughts. I loved the writing books with topics on the front. To pick up a preselected topic and contribute a story to it somewhat anonymously was fascinating. Each person’s interpretation was different and sometimes hilarious. It was a great way to compare voice and I hope to use it in the future. I also enjoyed the model texts we read together; I was pleased to start the class with the “Where I’m From” poem because I had used it in another way with my American Literature class – it’s always great to find new ways to read and interact with a text.
On Writing:
I pondered what to write about for this class for quite some time. It sat on the edge of my brain like a child on the edge of a pool, afraid to jump in. I had no idea what to write about and didn’t want to wax poetic as I often do. Then (as we discussed in conference), I was driving home one evening and saw four people fishing on the edge of lake – four people I knew playing out a scene I had once been a part of. The memory of that night came back so clearly, so tangible in my mind, that I went home and churned out a draft in three hours. Then I revised. And revised some more. And then felt brave enough to share it with a class. We sat in our campfire circle, lights dimmed around a single lamp in the center of the floor and I read it to them. They sat with pens in hand, listening and making edits – knowing only that it was a story I was working on and that I needed input. They certainly had no idea that I was the character in the story, that it was a memoir. They ate it up and practiced their literary skills dissecting and making excellent suggestions. They analyzed as if it was a piece of classical literature, bringing up what they loved and where the tone shifted and characterization and on and on. Our well-establish safe environment was important for the day but I still shook with nerves. It was an amazing experience. They were inspired and spent the next few days making their own stories, culled from their writer’s notebooks and transformed. I absolutely adored the experience and plan to use it with my creative writing class next year.
For me, I think the paradigm shift is the utilization of mentor texts. I have always taught writing through the analysis of text. It was part of my development as a writer. Yet, I never fully realized its potential. In addition, I always wrote with my classes and shared my writing. It just seemed logical. What really will shape my future lessons is the notion of reading as a writer and not only how that looks, but how it can help students access difficult texts. I enjoy the way Kittle teaches the symbiotic relationship between reading and writing and I think it is crucial to help developing readers as well as writers.
ReplyDeleteAs I reflect on my experience in LTT, I would say that my thinking relative to practice and pedigogy hasn’t changed so much as it has broadened and clarified. I've long used journals as a means to build a habit of writing, and I've tried to set aside the time to join them, and let them see that I am writing too. Through our discussions and armed with Penny's book, I've come to see that writing time as something that needs perhaps less structure, but more long term value. Quick writes are a great place to start any idea, but they may be of little value if one stops there. Revisiting a quick write is the perfect answer for the student who says (or whines) "I have no ideas for what to write about." Having students use their journals to find material for improvising a scene was a great success in the classroom. Sometimes a piece gets turned on its head, and it turns out that was the proper perspective for that piece. They are rough, energetic, and full of surprises, kind of like the kids themselves.
ReplyDeleteBy truly concentrating on process over product, I have become a better modeler as well. I see the value in sharing with students a piece that remains unfinished or somehow fundamentally flawed, and talking out the problems with the piece in front of them. It demonstrates to them the courage one needs to be a writer, and it helps to make me just another writer in a group of writers rather than task master.
As oters have stated, the book is and will remain a valuable asset to us as teachers of writing process. The discussions we have had as a result of LTT have been rich with ideas and exciting possibilities for the future. I genuinely appreciate and admire my colleagues for their willingness to share all that they have through this course.
Thank you all.