Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 24, 2008
Write in the Middle
Workshop 8
Linda talks about revision as ‘have I said what I wanted to say in the best way possible?’ I think that is a really good way to think about it. Of course, you’d have to deal with technical difficulties separately then. But I think it makes the process less intimidating for that age group. It’s changing the thinking from ‘I have to fix what is wrong with my paper,’ to ‘I need to improve the good things that are already in my paper’ and I think that’s a good thing.
Jack touches on another subject I agree with. I think it’s really important that the student understands that what they wrote in their first draft is not ‘written in stone’ so to speak. I think that sort of flexibility in writing is important to being a good writer.
I notice that the teachers ask a lot of questions instead of making statements about the papers. I think it’s a really good technique. You’re not saying this is what you should do, you’re asking them if that’s what they meant to do. Again, it forces the students to articulate what they mean, and then see if what they answer matches up with what’s in the paper. Also, questions help students develop their ideas further if they are struggling with that in their papers.
What I haven’t seen in the video is what to do when normal revision prompting doesn’t work. What do you do with the exceptionally struggling child? If your normal techniques aren’t working, what do you do then?
Jack is really good at telling the students what he expects from them. He guides them through discussion, but he’s firm, too, which is good. He teaches fifth graders, so I feel like a little extra firmness is required to keep them on task.
There is one thing that I don’t like about these Write in the Middle videos is the long unbroken times when you’re just watching them teach. I think it’s valuable to see, but I want to hear them talk about teaching more than I want to watch it. I start to lose interest after a while. I’d like to hear more from the discussions between the teachers.
February 25, 2008
Response Question to Write in the Middle Workshop 7
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 24, 2008
Write in the Middle
Workshop seven of Write in the Middle focuses on peer to peer responses to writing. I know from my own past experience that I feel uncomfortable doing peer reviews because I feel like I have no authority to criticize their papers because I’m not the teacher. What types of things can you teach students so they feel more comfortable critiquing each other’s papers?
Response to Developing Writers: Workshop 6
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 24, 2008
Developing Writers
A lot of what the teachers are talking about sounds like good sense to me. You know, be aware that every student is different, every student responds differently to different techniques. It’s very plain on the video from the student comments. One says positive feedback helps the most, another says negative feedback; and there’s a lot of gray in between those, too. I suppose the best we can do is try to expose them to as many different strategies as possible so they can find what works for them.
When is the most effective time for feedback? This one teacher talks a lot about getting to the student very early in the writing process, but I disagree, to a point. I say to a point because this is just like everything else; it will be different for every student. Personally, a quick check-in early in the process and one more in-depth review very late in the process, like right before the final draft, works best for me. As long as I know I’m on the right track, I just want to be left alone until I’m done with it. That’s what works best for me, but I’m aware that it’s different for everybody. Professor Emery breaks his students up into groups
What about the fragility of the student? Yeah, don’t hold with that too much. I suppose, as a student, I resent being called fragile. However, I agree with one of teachers who says that we should tell our students the point of our comments. I would definitely say to my students that I’m here to help them develop their skills and to do that, they need to know where improvement is possible. How can I correct something unless I tell them it’s wrong to begin with? And that’s also something I would explain to them. I’m not saying that we should just write whatever criticism we see on a paper without thinking about how we word it so it doesn’t come off the wrong way. However, I don’t think holding back criticisms is helping the student either.
I totally agree with clearly stating what is expected of students in a class, for an assignment, etc. I really think it’s a stress reducer. If I don’t feel like I know exactly what’s expected of me, then I feel a constant low-level anxiety that I’m not living up to those expectations, or I’ve somehow missed the point of what I’m supposed to be doing. However, if a teacher has told me what is expected, then I feel much more confident that I can accomplish what I’m supposed to. Letting the student know what you expect can be done a lot of different ways. In discussion, by saying directly, ‘this is what I expect of your papers,’ or, less directly, ‘…and that’s something I’ll be looking for in your papers,’ or ,’here’s what I’ll be looking for.’ You can give them a checklist, or a list of goals, like ‘you should be looking particularly at…’ or ‘in your paper you should…’
One of the teachers said that students should “develop a thick skin” and I agree with him. Students should have an understanding that whatever they write, not everybody is going to like it, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to make mistakes, not like somebody else’s writing, and to have your own disliked.
Oh man, I don’t like group work. Any kind of group work, and my classrooms will probably reflect that. My own opinion is extreme. I would rather get it wrong on my own than get it right in a group. I think it’s hard to make group-work, work well.
February 23, 2008
Response to Write in the Middle, Workshop 6
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 22, 2008
Informal response
Write in the Middle
This video is focusing on how teachers respond to student writing. I’m hearing from the teachers that asking the right questions is really important. They use questions to draw out the students’ thoughts. I think it’s a really good technique. I think it works on a lot of levels. It gets the students to develop their thoughts more fully and articulate those thoughts to the teacher. Too, the teacher doesn’t take over the paper, the student retains full ownership.
Several of the teachers have talked about ways they work around their own biases. I think that’s great. Students react differently to teacher opinions, but rarely in a positive way. Some of them feel resentful, ignored, undervalued, but some of them latch on to what the teacher thinks, and that’s just as bad, just as limiting to student writing.
I really like the teacher in the first one-on-one conference. She does what the other teachers in the video do, but I feel like she’s more direct about it than they are. I appreciate directness. She asks a lot of questions, praises the student when she can, and, I don’t know, she’s firm about what the student decides. Also, I think students benefit from that type of directness. If a teacher is soft or vague about their questions, then students get confused about what the teacher is asking.
Several times after a teacher asks a question and a student hesitates, the teacher has been quick to tell the student what they’re not asking for. I think it’s a useful strategy because the student is probably thinking you’re asking for more than you really are.
The one teacher, I think his name is Jack, talks about how when he has students read their papers out loud one of the things he listens for are things that can be extrapolated to the whole class, he calls it teachable. I think that’s great. I love things that serve more than one purpose, that accomplish several things at once, especially if some of the learning is indirect.
There’s a lot of talk about having students read their papers out loud to one or more classmates, and I don’t know how much I like that. I’ve never come across a class that was comfortable reading their papers out loud, even in classes with lots of really good discussions.
It’s so hard to say ‘this is how you deal with students’ because there are so many different strategies, and each student is different and responds to different things in different ways.
February 17, 2008
Response to Workshop 4: Different Purposes
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 16, 2008
Informal Response
Workshop 4: Different Purposes
How important is it to teach students to write for different purposes? Very important, I would think. Students need to know what to do with different writing expectations. They need to know when to and when not to use an illustration, or a statistic, or an anecdote.
Not really understanding what they mean by genres. I’m a reader, so to me genre means horror, fantasy, mystery and so forth. I think they mean things like a narrative, or poetry, or an article. This is a different way of thinking about genre for me. I’m coming across that a lot in this class. I would call form or structure what they are calling genre.
I think getting the students to use many different forms of writing is a really good idea. When I was in high school I remember only two assignments that weren’t in essay form. One was a short story, one was a sonnet. In fact, I’ve been thinking about ways to utilize different forms of writing in the unit lesson project for class.
I really like the monster exercise. I think it’s a really concrete way to get students to understand that writing for themselves and writing for others are really different things, and require different skills. The student comments in the video tell me that the exercise accomplished its goals well.
So far, I’ve been surprised by the student comments in the video. They’re more willing to be constructively critical of each other’s writing than I would have expected. Too, the student’s are asking, “what could I have done differently?” And I think that’s a really good thing. It means they’re open to improving their own writing skills, again, much more than I would have expected. I think it’s good for me to realize the students aren’t going to break if you tell them they did something wrong, or needed to do it in a different way.
One of the teachers talked about one of the core beliefs I have about writing. No matter what you do, you will have to know how to write well. It’s not something that’s been emphasized in my schooling experience, but I think it should be. Further, it provides a reason for the student to learn how to write well. What is the chief complaint about school? “I’m never going to use this in my life.” If we can give students a reason to learn, I think they’re likely to learn more, to internalize more of the writing skills they need to succeed.
Poetry as a microscope of language…that’s awesome. I connect to the truth of that statement without being able to articulate why it’s true.
Purpose is interconnected to genre…okay. I think I can see it. I want to explore the way you can use one set of facts or statements in many different forms.
I also really like the model exercise, where they built a physical model of an essay, generally, or referring to a specific piece of work. I think it’s a really good way to get them to think more abstractly than concretely, and further their understanding. It reminds me of the exercise we did in class where we drew ourselves as writers.
February 16, 2008
Assignment evaluation using TSW p. 552
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 16, 2008
Assignment revision
Unit Design Project: From Theory to Practice
1. The purpose of the assignment is pretty clear. It’s a learning exercise where we show that we can relate the theory of teaching writing to the practicalities of teaching writing. It’s a way for us to further develop our own pedagogy.
2. I think this part of the assignment could be better. I think I know what is expected of me, but there are parts that I’m unsure about. Really unsure about.
3. I don’t think there is too much to the assignment. I think there could be more structural guidelines included.
4. I think the assignment could be more focused, a sort of here’s what you’re doing…
5. I think this assignment could be very exciting. I definitely think that the student’s minds will be engaged.
Response to TSW 144-193
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 16, 2008
Informal Response
To begin, I want to point out that there was one rewriting technique that I was sorry to see was missing from this chapter, and that is to read each sentence of your paper in reverse. That is, read the last sentence, then the sentence before that, and so forth. I think it’s a valuable strategy because each sentence must be able to stand on its own, and reading it in reverse will reveal grammatical, structural and unity issues. Also, because sometimes a paper makes more sense to the writer than it does to the reader, this technique will help to offset that so the writer can see it the way a reader will.
For the most part, I agree that revision should be taught, and encouraged, but not required. I myself write recursively, editing and changing as I go along, so a formal rewrite doesn’t work for me because once the paper’s done, I’ve already done most of the needed editing. I read my paper a lot as I write it, constantly changing it to accommodate whatever new idea I get as I write, and to ensure that the paper works as a whole. However, I think it’s important to know different revising techniques, just in case. Also, I find that I take something I was taught in class, and while I wouldn’t use it the way it was taught, I find that with a bit of modifying, works well. Mostly, though, that applies to particular assignments.
Unity and coherence are essential in a paper, but I don’t like either the TRI or Christensen’s methods. I think they just overcomplicate an already delicate problem. I just can’t see, especially with the TRI method, saying to my class – okay, now we’re going to revise our papers, but first you have to learn a new method that involves you memorizing what particular letters stand for so you can label your papers. Nope, just can’t see it, mainly because I would have hated it. I would have thought it was just extra, unnecessary work that I could function just fine without.
I think the idea of using repetition to ensure unity is a good one, but again I think the text over complicates things. Allen Emery explained it quite well, I think. Use key words from your thesis throughout your paper. There should be key words in every topic sentence of every paragraph, and if you go more than a couple sentences without repeating any key words, you’re probably going off track. I like it; short, sweet and to the point.
Teacher student conferences can be very useful to those who need it, but I never found it very useful. I would say, if you’ve commented on their paper, and they are still having problems, then use a conference. I was able to go by the teacher comments to revise my papers, but didn’t need the extra guidance of a conference.
February 15, 2008
Interview/Response Essay
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 10, 2008
Interview/Response Essay
Are There Differences Between Trained and Untrained Writing Teachers?
We are going to school to learn how to be good writing teachers. As we go through our schooling we are being exposed to numerous ways of teaching writing. Our classroom experiences combine with our personal experiences to help form our teaching philosophy. Before we ever set foot in a classroom we have a good idea about what is going to go on once we get inside because we’ve been exposed to the different ways of accomplishing our teaching goals, and we’ve formed our opinions about which we think will work best. What about a teacher who had to learn how to teach writing on-the-fly, so to speak? What types of strategies would such a teacher develop, and how much would they resemble the strategies taught in the classroom before we are sent into classrooms of our own?
I was able to interview such a person, though it was not by design. I chose Allen Emery, an associate professor whose English 201 Introduction to Literary Genres course I took my first semester here at BGSU. He’s been teaching for thirty-two years, though not all of them here in Bowling Green, and he considers himself primarily an literature teacher, not a writing teacher. I started our interview by asking him how much time he spends teaching writing versus how much time he spends teaching literature. He responded by saying that in the one writing class he teaches the ratio is about sixty percent writing to forty percent literature, but in his other classes it’s more like eighty percent literature to twenty percent writing. If I were teaching a literature-focused course, I probably wouldn’t spend very much time focusing on writing either.
I thought that his assessment was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it really illustrates that even in a writing class, literature is a very important part of the process of learning writing. Second, his response tells me that in any given literature course, you are expected to know how to write well when you walk in the door. It makes me think about how effective or ineffective high schools are in preparing their students for college-level courses. The level of guidance through the writing process in high school far exceeds anything encountered in a college literature course.
How could high school teachers, especially those that teach senior courses, better prepare their students for the next level of independence in essay writing? I think it is important for high school seniors to have at least one writing assignment that accurately mimics a college assignment. In fact, high school teachers could get those assignments from local community college professors, many of whom would probably be more than happy to help. I think it’s important for students to know what to expect in college, and to know that they have the ability to perform.
In response to my second question, what is one thing every writing teacher should know, Professor Emery said every writing teacher should know what good writing looks like. “You got to have a sense of the ideal, so you can bring people toward it,” he remarked. I both agree and disagree with this statement. Of course, I do think it’s very important for teachers and students alike to know what good writing looks like, how it flows, how it’s organized. The part I disagree with, however, is showing a student a piece of writing and saying this is good writing, this is what you should be aiming for. Doing so could create a lot of unnecessary anxiety in students. Students may feel they are being expected to do things that exceed their abilities, whether they really are or not, even at the college level. I would give my students a lot of reading to do, pointing out certain techniques that were used well, but I would emphasize that there are many ways to put a particular technique to good use. I think that way students will be able to look at a good writing, know why it’s good, and yet not feel locked in to whatever way that particular author used a technique.
Another interesting response came when I asked whether Professor Emery had ever changed his teaching strategy. He said that eight or nine years ago he “began to use a lot of short informal papers in my literature classes and that’s been, I think, a successful technique.” Later, he adds that in his literature courses the papers get better as the semester goes on, even though he doesn’t give them any structural or grammatical guidance. “I think it’s partly just the writing practice, and also all the reading that they do” Professor Emery said as an explanation for why the papers get better. Another benefit he adds, is that “it’s kind of a sneaky way of getting them to write a lot of papers, so they have to come up with a bunch of different topics, and deal with a lot of different texts, and organize a whole bunch of different papers, and so forth.”
I think it’s particularly interesting because right now we are being taught how important it is to get our students to write, and to write a lot. Even Professor Emery’s reason for switching to a lot of short papers confirms the reasons why it’s so important to get our students writing. He said that he would go into a class, and there would be no discussion of the texts, but since switching, there’s always abundant class discussion. In other words, without those papers that accomplish many goals at once, there was no discussion, no exchange of ideas, and no writing practice, all of which, we are told, is very important to developing writers. I think discussion is immensely important to thought development. I think the best classes are those whose transcripts read more like a conversation than a lesson. Well, here is confirmation that messages about getting the students are one to which we should be paying attention. I think the most interesting thing, though, is that the papers get better in structure and grammar without any guidance. It tells me that reading has a direct effect on the quality of writing a person does, regardless of any guidance.
Having students write a lot of small papers ensures that they do the assignment associated with the paper, but that is the least of the goals of such papers. They also get the student to think about a topic, to develop ideas, and through reading and writing they develop critical thinking skills. Also, the whole time they are continuing to learn about writing itself and mastering the skills that go along with it. Really, it gets them to use an entire skill set that goes along with the ability to write well.
Another way that a lot of writing assignments work is because they don’t seem as intimidating as a longer, more formal piece of writing. Professor Emery said that they don’t take very long to write so “they’re not that daunting.” This is another topic that we have covered, particularly in the workshops in Writing in the Middle. They talked about making the writing process seem less intimidating, which was an odd concept to me at first, but I think I understand it better now, especially now that I see the concept applied to college literature courses. Four two-to-three page papers does seem a lot more doable than one seven-to-eight page paper, like there’s not so much riding on it that way. I think in my own classes I would do something similar with having many short papers due, but I think I would also have just one long paper due, to give them practice at really developing one idea as much as possible.
I also asked Professor Emery about the numerous handouts he gives to his English 201 classes, in particular, I asked him about his goals with those handouts. He said that while he covers the material in class, it gives the student something to refer to after that. Also, he said, it’s so if a student is having a problem, he can refer them to the proper handout without having to repeat everything again.
Personally, I found the handouts quite useful. There must have been about eight of them, and they covered particular structure and grammatical topics. For example, if I was having doubts about my thesis statement, then I could just pull out the handout and check my thesis statement against the checklist on the handout. I found it comforting to know that if I were having doubts about something I had the handouts to refer to, it made me less nervous about turning it in and having it graded. I do think handouts, when done right, can be a useful tool, but not one that we should rely on too much.
However, I think if a student still has questions about a topic covered on a handout it’s important to make sure the student’s problem is either covered in the handout so I can refer them to that, or, if it’s not in the handout, give the student the extra guidance the student obviously needs. This is not to say that Professor Emery just said look at the handout and left it at that. He was very willing to help students that needed extra help.
I also asked Professor Emery what he thought the biggest benefit of being able to write well is. He answered, “There’s two things. It’s very pleasurable to be able to express yourself to other people. Because otherwise we’re sort of imprisoned in ourselves. We feel good when people understand what we’re saying. I think there’s just a gratification for the writer in being able to communicate clearly. And then, writing can be very empowering, because you are often in a position in life to influence other people, to persuade them of things, to motivate them to act, to dissuade them from things, to get people to cooperate. There’s all kinds of goals that you might have.”
The first reason is the most obvious and one I hope is common to all writing teachers; enjoyment. I enjoy writing, and I gathered from Professor Emery, through his comments about his own professional writing, that he does too. I think how much we enjoy writing directly affects our ability to teach it effectively. I would be happy if I could transfer a little of my own excitement to just one student, it’s what I think of as the reward of teaching.
Second is the ability to communicate. I think, as human beings, language is the greatest gift and our most powerful weapon in life. And we do feel good when we are understood, when what we meant to convey is what we actually conveyed. Also, it ties into the other reasons he gives, all of which could be termed the ability to influence people. Interestingly, the ability to influence people comes with it an awareness of others’ ability to influence us. It kind of makes us recognize techniques being used on us, because we see it as something we would use ourselves. I think it’s important these days with the advertising and politics people are exposed to all the time to have an awareness of the purposes such writing has.
Later, I asked Professor Emery why he became a teacher, and more specifically, why an English teacher. He said that his family is full of teachers and he never really imagined doing anything else. However, he chose English for the simplest of reasons; he really liked it. As a history major working on his honors thesis he says he was running out of history courses to take and so took an English course to supplement his schedule, and his decision to change majors stemmed from how much he liked the English courses he was taking.
Professor Emery says he also thinks English literature is more diverse “because in English I can talk about history, I can talk about political science, I can talk about women’s studies, I can talk about ethnic studies, I can talk about death, religion, sex, you name it.” This diversity is something I enjoy about English literature and writing as well, and I think it’s one of the strengths of language. It’s also important for students to be aware that works of fiction are used to make relevant comments about society, people, government, life, or anything else you can think of.
I asked Professor Emery if he thought technology had affected his teaching. He lauded the invention of the word processor and basically said that technology has affected his teaching in a positive way although he does have reservations about online teaching. On the whole, I agree with him. It’s wonderful that we can do research now from home, even order library books online, and the ability of word processing to edit has saved a lot of trees. However, something must be lost in trying to teach an online course. I think it stifles the flow of ideas, how one person’s idea can enhance or complete another’s.
One of the final questions I asked Professor Emery was about useful materials that he would recommend. He mentioned one series of books in particular, called American Literary Scholarship. They review all the articles and books that came out that year on a particular author. He gave examples like Melville and Poe, and said before these books he would have to pour through a ton of journals to find the information that’s in this one series. I think this could be a valuable tool to teachers from the junior high level up. I remember doing a project on Emily Dickinson in junior high and I think it would have been extremely valuable to me to see what other scholars were writing about her then as a way of connecting her to my own time rather than just as a historical figure. Even more, it would have been valuable just to know that people were writing about her at all. It would have given greater relevance to the assignment, more meaning.
I was surprised to learn that Professor Emery doesn’t do a lot of reading for enjoyment, though he did cite lack of time as his main reason. I really enjoy reading, and I’m in the middle of at least one book at any given time, and even if the only time I have to read is while waiting in line, or in the few minutes before class starts I count it as time well spent. To be honest, I got that advice from Stephen King’s book, On Writing in which his main point is that if you’re going to write, you’d better be reading, too.
Overall, I learned a lot from my interview with Professor Emery. I think it’s valuable to know that the strategies we’re being taught in school now as standard methods match up with the strategies a teacher comes to on his own without the benefit of learning these strategies beforehand. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine these strategies at work in a classroom from reading a chapter about them.
February 13, 2008
Response to TSW 56-110
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 13, 2008
Response Question
In chapter two, teaching prewriting, Beth Neman discusses several different ways to do prewriting. She includes in that a short discussion on deductive and inductive reasoning. However, there’s only one short part about inductive reasoning. I’m really not clear on how the strategies are inductive at all. How do these strategies work within inductive reasoning?
February 7, 2008
Response to TSW 537-558
Jessica Sumpter
English 484
February 6, 2008
Response question
In chapter 14 of Teaching Students to Write, author Beth Neman discusses, among other things, focused versus unfocused assignments. The text leans towards always offering students focused writing assignments. I’m not sure that I agree with that. Middle school and high school assignments that are always focused do not prepare the student for the unfocused college response essay. Isn’t part of teaching writing teaching the student how to focus their work independently?
