Hello Ann,
Firstly, yes McCarthy can go on, but I agree that she had many good points in her article. I also enjoyed the idea of being a stranger in a strange land as far as different writing assignments. I took a playwriting class my last semester in undergrad and it was miserable. I had no idea where to begin and the professor thought it was alright to never show up for his office hours. I had never taken a writing course, so I was definitely in a strange land where I didn’t speak the language. This was a metaphor that I could relate to.
As far as writing being social, I like what was said on page127. Herrington, as I saw it, was saying that when you teach writing, the learning needs to extend beyond the classroom. Students need to learn for “real life” situations. What good is what they are learning if they can’t take it out of the classroom? Ann, as far as texting, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. Texting was not an issue when I was in grammar school and as far as high school, everyone was afraid that the nuns would take their phones away, so I don’t think that there was an excess of texting there. But I can see where you are coming from as far as it being a form of writing. My sister is in 6th grade and she can’t spell ANYTHING (and I don’t think it’s from lack of proper teaching). When I text her I spell everything out so she won’t be what I like to call a “lazy speller.” When I text my friends though, I barely spell anything correctly, opting for the number equals a word and any abbreviation I can possibly think of. So while I can agree that texting is a form of writing, I don’t think that it is teaching anything the way that Herrington and McCarthy saw it.
On to Bean, I suppose. I thought of you and your freshman the whole time I was reading this. I too learned all my grammar in elementary school. It makes me cringe to think of my freshman year English teacher trying to teach grammar. She could barely teach the novels we were reading. (As an aside, my 7th grade teacher used Mad Libs to teach us nouns, verbs and all that jazz.) I can understand how teaching grammar can be tedious, especially if that is not what you are supposed to be teaching. I thought it was interesting when Bean said, “Weak writers seem to make more progress in generating ideas, improving fluency, and organizing and developing arguments than they do in sentence correctness,” (p 54). After I thought about it I could understand that it would be easier for someone to come up with new ideas than to fix something they have been doing their entire lives. The only thing I can imagine helping is skill and drill. This is why I think that having students fix their own mistakes is a double edged sword. While it will be good for them to be able to recognize the mistakes they are making, will they be able to? That seems to be the problem in the first place. This also seems to be why teaching for the test is so dangerous.
See you in class,
Sarah
REFLECTION
I agree with Ann. I liked to hear what she had to say and while I appreciated her posting her blogs early, I felt guilty that I could not do the same. Someone else’s grade was hanging over my head and it is stressful. I liked this assignment and enjoyed reading what Ann had to say. It was nice to see the text brought to life in her classrooms experience. I wish she wasn’t having such a hard time with her students, but they really helped me out here. But really, the stress of Ann’s grade hanging on my posting time really unnerved me and I can only imagine how it made her feel having to do it twice.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Blog # 5
Dear Ann,
I was actually interested to read the Mike Rose article. I read his book “Lives on the Boundary” last year and it was very interesting (and I highly recommend it, if you ever have the time). However, it took all of my power not to through this article right off the back end of the ferry. I had trouble with Rose trying to choose a new word for “skill.” I have always functioned by assuming that writing well was a skill. Finally on page 358, Rose renamed it as an “ability.” I think I would have appreciated a little more if he had said this in the beginning, because as he tried to drive the reader away from using “skill,” I became more frustrated. However, once he said that writing is an ability, I thoroughly enjoyed the last two pages.
Earlier in Rose’s article, he was talking about writing tools. I liked his point that writing itself is not a tool, but what we use to write coherently, such as grammar and sentence structure, are the tools. The problem I had with this is that Rose seems to think that teaching writing is to simply teaching how to refine what we should already know how to do. I’m sure that you will have a problem with this as well, as you are trying to teach your freshmen what an adverb is.
I’m sorry, but that Rose article made me angry. I’ll talk about Bean now. I enjoyed this reading and I think Bean’s ideas about getting to student to see both sides of the argument they are trying to make because I agree that it will make a stronger argument. The thing is, I don’t think that Bean really gave a good example of how to do this. He gave an example of a student who has reached this point, but he doesn’t say how to effectively lead students out of their comfort zone. Did you see anything like this?
On a final, and hopefully positive, note Bean says, “Often students do their best work when instructional methods and assignments match the way they like to learn,” (p 39). He then goes on to say that every assignment cannot appeal to every student. I liked the suggestion of moving through types of assignments (concrete, reflective, abstract and active (p 41)) so that all students have an equal opportunity to do well. What do you think?
I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
Sarah
I was actually interested to read the Mike Rose article. I read his book “Lives on the Boundary” last year and it was very interesting (and I highly recommend it, if you ever have the time). However, it took all of my power not to through this article right off the back end of the ferry. I had trouble with Rose trying to choose a new word for “skill.” I have always functioned by assuming that writing well was a skill. Finally on page 358, Rose renamed it as an “ability.” I think I would have appreciated a little more if he had said this in the beginning, because as he tried to drive the reader away from using “skill,” I became more frustrated. However, once he said that writing is an ability, I thoroughly enjoyed the last two pages.
Earlier in Rose’s article, he was talking about writing tools. I liked his point that writing itself is not a tool, but what we use to write coherently, such as grammar and sentence structure, are the tools. The problem I had with this is that Rose seems to think that teaching writing is to simply teaching how to refine what we should already know how to do. I’m sure that you will have a problem with this as well, as you are trying to teach your freshmen what an adverb is.
I’m sorry, but that Rose article made me angry. I’ll talk about Bean now. I enjoyed this reading and I think Bean’s ideas about getting to student to see both sides of the argument they are trying to make because I agree that it will make a stronger argument. The thing is, I don’t think that Bean really gave a good example of how to do this. He gave an example of a student who has reached this point, but he doesn’t say how to effectively lead students out of their comfort zone. Did you see anything like this?
On a final, and hopefully positive, note Bean says, “Often students do their best work when instructional methods and assignments match the way they like to learn,” (p 39). He then goes on to say that every assignment cannot appeal to every student. I liked the suggestion of moving through types of assignments (concrete, reflective, abstract and active (p 41)) so that all students have an equal opportunity to do well. What do you think?
I look forward to seeing what you have to say.
Sarah
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Blog # 4
Dear Ann,
Fulwiler’s reading was actually the only reading this week that didn’t put me right to sleep. I really liked his idea of having his students write letters to him. However, I think he encountered the same problem that you brought up in that he just does not have enough time to have ALL of his classes write letters. You say that you have too many students, but maybe you have one class that is a little bit better than others or maybe you teach an advanced class that you could implement this in. Fulwiler says, “I would write letters with all of my classes if I had time and energy. I ask other classes to keep journals…” (p16). You mention later on that you are teaching all of the freshmen the same book. Maybe if you like this idea and want to implement it your class room, you could have each class write a letter on different chapters. For example, class A could write a letter about chapter one this week and class B could write a letter about chapter 2 next week. That seems, to me, to be the only way that this could be incorporated into more than one class.
I also like this reading because I thought it was interesting that Fulwiler asked his students to write a paper using the letters. I did not see that one coming. When I have a paper due, I usually write some notes while I’m on the ferry going to work and when I get home, I refine the notes. It occurs to me that writing a letter to a teacher and taking informal notes for myself is the same thing. If there was only a teacher responding to my queries all semester long, perhaps writing term papers would be a faster process, because I have most of my prewriting done.
In regards to the readings on Bean, I think there were some good points made; especially that critical thinking can be learned. On page 4 Bean cites a list from Kurfiss that “supports critical thinking.” I liked his idea about students having to justify their answers. Instead of giving basic yes or no answers, students should have to explain themselves. Not only will they help themselves in the long run, but they may also offer helpful insight to other students.
The Non-Designer’s Design Book, I think, is going to be very helpful for our theorist card. I agree that repetition will be helpful. It will make our points easier to find as well as easier to read. I need to let you know that I am very nervous about this theorist card, as well as the presentation.
I also found Britton’s reading very hard to digest. His two different types of reading intrigued me though and I made notes about them in the margin. Efferent reading seemed to be what is required while studying. You have to take something away from the reading. You have to have learned something. However, it would help if what you were studying was also aesthetic. Aesthetic reading is reading what you are interested in. Not many students are interested in their math textbooks, though and so they probably approach them with efferent reading. Math textbooks are there to teach you a method that can be used later on. Your mythology book might be approached with aesthetic reading. Hopefully, your students will enjoy reading them and the stories will appeal to them while at the same time, they will remember the stories to use on the Regents.
Good luck with your double period freshmen!
Sarah
Fulwiler’s reading was actually the only reading this week that didn’t put me right to sleep. I really liked his idea of having his students write letters to him. However, I think he encountered the same problem that you brought up in that he just does not have enough time to have ALL of his classes write letters. You say that you have too many students, but maybe you have one class that is a little bit better than others or maybe you teach an advanced class that you could implement this in. Fulwiler says, “I would write letters with all of my classes if I had time and energy. I ask other classes to keep journals…” (p16). You mention later on that you are teaching all of the freshmen the same book. Maybe if you like this idea and want to implement it your class room, you could have each class write a letter on different chapters. For example, class A could write a letter about chapter one this week and class B could write a letter about chapter 2 next week. That seems, to me, to be the only way that this could be incorporated into more than one class.
I also like this reading because I thought it was interesting that Fulwiler asked his students to write a paper using the letters. I did not see that one coming. When I have a paper due, I usually write some notes while I’m on the ferry going to work and when I get home, I refine the notes. It occurs to me that writing a letter to a teacher and taking informal notes for myself is the same thing. If there was only a teacher responding to my queries all semester long, perhaps writing term papers would be a faster process, because I have most of my prewriting done.
In regards to the readings on Bean, I think there were some good points made; especially that critical thinking can be learned. On page 4 Bean cites a list from Kurfiss that “supports critical thinking.” I liked his idea about students having to justify their answers. Instead of giving basic yes or no answers, students should have to explain themselves. Not only will they help themselves in the long run, but they may also offer helpful insight to other students.
The Non-Designer’s Design Book, I think, is going to be very helpful for our theorist card. I agree that repetition will be helpful. It will make our points easier to find as well as easier to read. I need to let you know that I am very nervous about this theorist card, as well as the presentation.
I also found Britton’s reading very hard to digest. His two different types of reading intrigued me though and I made notes about them in the margin. Efferent reading seemed to be what is required while studying. You have to take something away from the reading. You have to have learned something. However, it would help if what you were studying was also aesthetic. Aesthetic reading is reading what you are interested in. Not many students are interested in their math textbooks, though and so they probably approach them with efferent reading. Math textbooks are there to teach you a method that can be used later on. Your mythology book might be approached with aesthetic reading. Hopefully, your students will enjoy reading them and the stories will appeal to them while at the same time, they will remember the stories to use on the Regents.
Good luck with your double period freshmen!
Sarah
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