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The Write Stuff

Cosmin-Munteanu-In-doubt

Writing to visual prompts is one of students’ favorite and most engaging things to do. It generates fruitful opportunities for a variety of perspectives, questions, mode (genre)  and forms (delivery system)  of writing.

To that end, I’ve been collecting visual prompts for years, and have fallen in love with Pinterest (late to the party, I know) as a means of collecting ideas:

https://www.pinterest.com/kellyclove/writing-image-prompts/

If you’re looking for a student interactive site, check out Write About and Writing Prompts. And I still add prompts connected to CCSS on my other writing blog, too: Up From the Gutter.

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Story power.

Someone was listening.
Someone was listening.

Stories are powerful, and make things stick.

And teachers: it’s okay if you tell stories. Your talk is important, too, when balanced.

Really.

I am a proponent of the well-timed anecdote, the personal connection that makes content relatable and relevant.

There’s been a movement, or perhaps a misunderstanding of the new standards, to make the classroom so student-focused it’s lost sight of the other human in the room: the teacher.

Consistent with these NAEP recommendations, the Common Core Standards for Language Arts now call for an “overwhelming focus of writing throughout high school to be on arguments and informative/ explanatory texts” and that the distribution of writing purposes across grades “should adhere to those outlined by NAEP” (NGA/ CCSSO 2010e, 5). This de-emphasis on narrative writing is a mistake.

Gallagher, Kelly (2015-02-28). In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom (Kindle Locations 1870-1873). Stenhouse Publishers. Kindle Edition.

 

But here is something we all know – we know we don’t start off in life as “teachers” (at least I didn’t, far from it) but simply ourselves. No matter what we end up doing for a profession, we have our stories first.

The best teachers, doctors, lawyers, salespersons, managers, nurses, CEOs, taxi drivers, scientists, football coaches, and politicians have one thing in common: the ability to connect with people through storytelling. Being able to tell a good story is not a school skill, it is a life skill, and as such, it should be given greater, not less, emphasis. If we want our students to be good storytellers, they need to read and write more narratives.

Gallagher, Kelly (2015-02-28). In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom (Kindle Locations 1873-1876). Stenhouse Publishers. Kindle Edition.

And if you need more proof that “yes you will use narrative writing in ‘real life,’:

Using Narratives and Storytelling to communicate science with non-expert audiences: Abstract:Although storytelling often has negative connotations within science, narrative formats of communication should not be disregarded when communicating science to nonexpert audiences. Narratives offer increased comprehension, interest, and engagement. Nonexperts get most of their science information from mass media content, which is itself already biased toward narrative formats. Narratives are also intrinsically persuasive, which offers science communicators tactics for persuading otherwise resistant audiences, although such use also raises ethical considerations. Future intersections of narrative research with ongoing discussions in science communication are introduced.

Keywords: persuasion, ethics
From Writing Narratives About Science: Advice from People Who Do It Well by Maryn McKenna: To me the most important tool for telling narrative is time. Not just time within the narrative, which is what allows you to tell the story as a chronology, but time for research and reporting before you begin writing. Really good narratives are grounded in memorable characters confronting difficult problems, and it takes a lot of research time up-front to identify them.

“Confronting difficult problems:”  the mothers who choose not to have their children vaccinated, or the husband who supports his wife during breast cancer treatment, or the teenage girl struggling with an unwanted pregnancy. Real stories, with wide implications. And as we share our own stories, consider the same parameters we provide students: audience awareness, risk taking, language, and intent.

Passing notes in class, 1944

There are many scholarly articles about the use of narrative in multiple professions if you need additional research-based rationale if you’re ‘caught talking during class.’  Balance, of course, is always the rule of the day.

What do you write about when you write as a ‘person’ and not necessarily a ‘teacher person?’

 

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The Write Thing.

We are having a grand conversation about the rigor of texts in our school, looking vertically both to the lower grades and the high school grades, to find appropriate, “rigorous” texts (as some define by high Lexile scores as the sole criteria).

As with many shifts, if I don’t do the reading and thinking on my own, I never can adapt or shift professionally. So, to the experts! Away!

Grant Wiggins defines rigor as being in the task (so therefore, not the teacher, and not the text).

So, what is rigor? Rigor is not established by the teaching. It’s not established by framing teaching against standards, therefore. Rigor is established by our expectations: how we evaluate and score student work. That means that rigor is established by the three different elements of assessment:

  1. The difficulty of the task or questions

  2. The difficulty of the criteria, as established by rubrics

  3. The level of achievement expected, as set by “anchors” or cut scores.

The blog post continues to discuss Webb’s Depth of Knowledge and rubrics for deeper thinking. This is so comfortable to me, and something I can wholly embrace. I feel that in my practice I have been doing this for years, but never had the clear light shining on the rest of the path.

And by now we are all familiar with this triangulation of text complexity:

common-core-in-public-and-school-libraries-21st-century-nonfiction-conference-15-638

But in the tug-of-war about rigorous texts, it is my mission to include writing. Deep, rich writing. I have been reading The Writing Thief by Ruth Culham: every so often we read an educational text that both validates and inspires. This is one of those. She masterfully balances the art of reading and writing, not an either/or.

How did I figure out that reading informs writing? Well, there’s a wealth of educational research to back up this thinking, which you’ll find in Chapter 2 . But mostly, experience has taught me that reading makes better writers. When I read poetry, I’m likely to try my hand at a poem or two. And while they may not be as memorable as those I’ve just enjoyed, writing my own provides me with a mental workout and a valuable learning experience. When I read a powerful nonfiction article, it makes me want to read more about that topic and find a way to weave that information into something I’m writing. When I see a campaign slogan, I think about how the candidate is saying a lot with a little. When I hear a song lyric that speaks to me, I find myself singing along, noticing the rhythm of the piece, and trying to replicate it in prose. I hear a powerful verb or phrase and steal it for my own writing. I’m a writing thief. It seems like every writer should be.

Culham, Ruth (2014-04-28). The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of Writing (Kindle Locations 185-192). International Reading Association. Kindle Edition.

My question is, is there a triangle of complex writing tasks, and moreover, should there be? Culham blasts the standard, formulaic “five paragraph essay” model, along with other rigid modes of writing. The writing for standardized test she views as just one small mode of writing, not the end-all, be-all.

If you could create a writing model, what would yours include?

Off the top of my head, here are two charts I created that in no way do I feel are complete:

What if writing was shifted or turned depending on the engagement of the writer?
What if writing was shifted or turned depending on the engagement of the writer?
What if the reading complexity triangle were translated to a writing one? What would it look like? How could it be managed?
What if the reading complexity triangle were translated to a writing one? What would it look like? How could it be managed?

Sometimes the simplest means to have students engage in more complex ways is the minimalist approach. Don’t put numbers or word count on the task, but put voice and thinking above all. I have enjoyed adding to my collection on my writing blog Up From the Gutter (my writing blog for students/teachers) and think John Spencer and his team have done a phenomenal job with Write About.

And we need great mentor texts, and refreshing and singular voices to hear with new ears, and old friends to listen to. Here’s a list of high Lexile books I’ll be revisiting and researching. Some I’ve used for years, and others I need to take a look at:

https://bpljrreadingsuggestions.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/high-lexile-1000-yaadult-titles-in-bpls-collection/

But over-arching, consider the highest level of rigor, and that is evaluative, real-world issues:

www.tolerance.org/blog/diversebooksspotlight

So, how would you describe the rigorous integration of writing and reading? Ultimately, we all agree we are guiding our students to find their voices. What say you?

 

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WIHWT: the beginning of The Graveyard Book

There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

The knife had a handle of polished black bone, and a blade finer and sharper than any razor. If it sliced you, you might not even know you had been cut, not immediately.

The knife had done almost everything it was brought to that house to do, and both the blade and the handle were wet.

The Graveyard Book  by Neil Gaiman Copyright 2008