COMING UP...

How quickly the summer is passing by! It seems like it was just March, and we were being blindsided by the Coronavirus, and now it's already mid-July and we're thankful we have avoided being sick, so far.

Now, the talk is all about the reopening of school. What will it look like? Should I send my children? If you are a teacher, it's even more worrisome. Should you teach? Our hearts and thoughts are with all of you in making this decision. May you make the choice that is right for you.

If you do decide to go back, I'm thinking, at least at the beginning, you're going to have students who are eager to be back in the classroom and others who have any number of fears and hesitations about being back in school. Muriel and I would like to help you with creating community for all of your students whether in the classroom or on line. So, we are working on a series of blogs that deal with ways to make your classroom an environment where everyone is heard and everyone is welcome. A place where learning is valued, and there is space for everyone. A place where reading and writing become passions and outlets for your students.

Be watching for our next blog posts at the beginning of August. In the meantime, relax and enjoy the rest of a beautiful, hot summer!
Micki

RESPONSE: THE RIGHT TO FIND YOUR OWN VOICE

As I mentioned in an earlier response, I don’t know when I first became aware of voice in writing, but I certainly recognized when it was missing in my students’ writing.  By the time I encountered students in high school, many had learned to adapt their writing to fit the expectations of standards/assessments.  If our only purpose in teaching students to write is for a test, then I suspect that “voice” will be missing.  However, the most memorable writing, writing that really touches us, definitely includes voice.  “Voice is at the heart of the act of writing.”  (p. 76 in Inside Out: Strategies for Teaching Writing, 3^rdEdition, by Dan Kirby, Dawn Latta Kirby, Tom Liner)

The diversity of the classroom with the variety of experiences/cultures is a great resource for observing/developing voice in writing.  Think how you are able to quickly recognize a student – personality (choice of words, etc.)  Probably the best place to help develop voice is by having students keep journals where they can try different strategies.  These writing journals are usually not graded (except for maintaining) and often not even read by the teacher, unless the student offers or is asked to select an entry for submission. 

One activity I used with my students was to have them borrow (without permission) a friend’s car and have an accident.   Then they were to write a note to the friend – write a note to their parent – write a note to the police explaining the accident.  By comparing the choice of words, sentence structure, and tone in the notes, they noticed how purpose/audience determine voice.  This activity could easily be adapted to other situations/audiences.  Chapter 6: Different Voices, Different Speakers in the Kirby/Liner book contains excellent strategies for helping students recognize and develop voice in their writing.  

Even in writing academic papers, students need to be aware of voice.  It is extremely important to be able to control the subject matter.  I had a professor who recommended that we free write about a topic at least three-four times to determine our commitment to a subject and to discover whether we had a workable understanding of the topic.  Remember those warnings from your writing instructor:  Don’t use first person! Don’t use any contractions!  If we take a look at effective writing – writing that really has a purpose, I suspect that we will discover the writer doesn’t heed these warnings.  Have your students bring in examples of writing they find to be quite effective and discuss the characteristics in class.

As American short story writer and poet Raymond Carver shares, “I think that a writer’s signature should be on his work, just like a composer’s signature should be on his work. If you hear a few bars of Mozart, you don’t need to hear too much to know who wrote that music, and I’d like to think that you could pick up a story by me and read a few sentences or a paragraph, without seeing the name, and know it was my story.” 

This is a worthy goal for all of us writers!

9 THE RIGHT TO FIND YOUR OWN VOICE

Having a voice, being heard and having someone recognize who you are and what matters to you is a part of our human fabric today, and we need to encourage it in our writers. Spandel calls voice, "the human spirit."

The passionate voices today in the Black Lives Matter Movement speak to a topic they know well. Encouraging students to write from the heart, to talk about friends, vacations, celebrations and passions that they know well, will encourage them to write with voice. When we read a piece with voice in it, we suddenly know a little bit about the person who wrote it. We hear passion and compassion, disdain and anger, humor and regret.

So, how important is it to teach voice? Most students know how to write a passing paper that skims the surface of a topic, yet covers all the main points. Voice requires a deeper investment by the writer. They actually have to understand the topic and how they feel about it. They need to decide whether this is a topic they can become personally invested in. For voice to come out, there has to be a measure of caring about the topic and a willingness to put feelings down on paper. Conferencng with students about their topics can encourage them to really think about their relationship to the topic and their feelings surrounding it. Allowing students to choose their own topics helps tremendously or giving a range of related topics to choose from helps them as writers become involved with the topic.

Asking students to write about their relationship to the topic, to think about past situations of their own that coincide with the topic positively or negatively will help spark voice. "When we honor voice, we show profound respect for what students have to say." (Spandel) As we prepare for teaching in the fall, let's not forget to include opportunities for students to use their voices, for diverse opinions to be heard and for time to let students know that what they say and how they say it matters.

RESPONSE :THE RIGHT TO GO BEYOND FORMULA

With sheltering in place and social distancing, my husband and I have not had any opportunities to eat out, share meals with friends or have people to our home. I've always cooked for our family, and I think I am a fair cook, but I've had one disaster after another with baking in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bread-baking has been my nemesis. I have always gotten great satisfaction out of baking homemade bread - even at one time baked my way through The Bread Bakers Apprentice cookbook. Since the epidemic, I haven't baked a decent loaf of bread. The problem? I have only been able to purchase instant yeast, and every recipe calls for active dry yeast. Not understanding the ratios of one to the other, I doubled the amount of yeast the first time, and when the ingredients were very dry, doubled the water. It was one sticky mess, and when baked, our sharpest knife could not pierce its crust! Another time, I did not notice ahead of time that the dough needed to sit 12 hours or overnight before baking. I had the dough mixed and was planning on it for dinner. After 6 hrs, I baked it anyway and ended up with another dense pancake.

Baking and writing. How are they linked? One has a recipe. Do we need a formula for the other? Is it safe to go outside the formula, or like baking, does that spell disaster? Spandel in The 9 Rights of Every Writer says that "formulaic writing will take our young writers to the upper limits of mediocrity...it is devoid of complexity, passion, surprise or art." Are we teaching our students to be better writers or to write so that we can easily correct and read what they have written? I have always found that when I didn't impose formula on my students, they wrote much more interesting essays...essays from the heart. Hillocks alleges that formula doesn't support higher thinking skills and actually stifles critical thought. (The Testing Trap:How State Assessments Control Learning. New York: Teachers College.)

How do we let go of formula and what do we replace it with? One way is to expose students to quality writing and have them imitate it. Flood your students with well-written pieces and have them analyze their structure. Where does the author place her thesis sentence? How is the piece organized? Look at sentence structure and length. What types of sentences are used? How does the piece conclude? Finally, have them write in the style of the author. Students can easily critique each other after having analyzed the example and attempted the style themselves. You will be surprised at how the quality of writing will improve in a short time. Authentic voices will emerge and creativity will show itself.

Begin by trying it yourself. Take a paragraph like this one from "The Elegant Eyeball," an essay by John Gamel.
They aren't what most people think they are. Human eyes touted as ethereal objects by poets and novelists throughout history are nothing more than white spheres, somewhat larger than your average marble, covered by a leather-like tissue known as sclera and filled with nature's facsimile of Jell-O. your beloved's eyes may pierce your heart, but in all likelihood they closely resemble the eyes of every other person on the planet. At least I hope they do, for otherwise he or she suffers from severe myopia (nearsightedness,  hyperopia (farsightedness), or worse.

Find an object to describe and then create similar sentences using your own experiences with the object. I used to do something similar with my 8th grade students when we were studying Langston Hughes' poem, "Mother to Son." Students would write their own versions from different points of view -  coach to player or father to daughter, etc. using the patterns of lines in the poem. Some great writing was created. More than that, students began to understand that there was no one way to write a poem. They began to think about and incorporate new elements into their own poems.

Unlike baking, it is when we go beyond the formula/recipe that delicious writing happens.

8 THE RIGHT TO GO BEYOND FORMULA

I have to admit that I was involved in promoting the 5-paragraph essay as a way of helping teachers prepare their students for our state writing test.  In addition to suggesting the hamburger analogy, we (writing project consultants) also recommended the train as a way to help students understand the necessary components of an effective essay.  These were ways to demonstrate the introductory paragraph (top bun/engine) that included the topic sentence; the developmental paragraphs (meat/cars), the connecting ideas (condiments/couplings), and the concluding paragraph (bottom bun/caboose).  In addition, the student could strengthen the writing with an attention-getter, much as the train’s whistle that signaled the train’s approach.  We were able to be quite creative!  

The problem that occurred was students/teachers relied so heavily on this formula because it was so easy to follow (and to correct) that we failed to help students develop more genuine ways of writing. We should have been instructing students in ways to go beyond this basic formula. Rarely do we find five paragraph writing in the real world, except in essay tests. We needed to spend more time helping them develop effective writing that depends on audience and purpose.  As Spandel shares, “The most important reason to avoid formula – indeed, to run from it as fast as our feet will carry us – is that it stifles higher thinking skills.” (p. 125, The 9 Rights of Every Writer)   

As they craft their pieces, writers should consider purpose, audience, and format. One way to investigate possible options is to do an activity such as RAFTSin class. Here’s a sample:

Role	Audience	Format	Topic	Strong Verb
student	administrator	action plan	school issue	persuade
(Who)	(Reader)	(Product)	(Focus)	(Purpose)

Create (instructor/students) multiple options and then mix and match possible writings. Such an activity should generate interesting possibilities and help to develop more authentic writing.

Throughout all writing various types of assessment occur – whether for class, school, state, college, etc., and these assessments all include the same features: clarity, focus, organization, development, conventions.  Often a rubric(a set of scoring criteria) is provided to explain the possible score, from below passing (1) to exemplary (5) so that students will know what is expected and how they will be evaluated.  In addition to the rubrics created by institutions, I liked to have my classes create their own rubrics for various assignments.  In addition to providing an exciting class discussion, the task of creating the rubric gave students a better understanding of the assignment’s components, and of what was expected.  

Writing that follows the five-paragraph formula tends to discourage voice.  I’m not certain the first time I heard about voice in writing – I know that it was well into my career as a teacher.  I certainly understood voice in music, but no one had introduced me to this component in writing until I became involved with the National Writing Project.  I knew that I found certain writing more effective and enjoyable than other writing, but I didn’t identify it as the voice in the writing. The writing assignments using the five-paragraph formula become virtually cookie-cutter pieces with little evidence of the writer (personal voice).  How refreshing it is to read a student’s creation that “sings” with clarity, focus, organization, development, and control of conventions.

Response to: THE RIGHT TO BE ASSESSED WELL

Yes, I agree with Spandel about her concerns with a writing test; however, having a test as a requirement for graduation in Minnesota did have several positives.  I think it was the first time in my teaching career that professional development (when districts could offer it ) focused on ways to improve the teaching of writing.  In my district we worked together to create rubrics for various writing assignments, as well as shared ideas/strategies for instructing.  We investigated writing from our classes and determined characteristics of strong to weak writing.  One activity that we used for such a task was RAG (read around groups).  In case you aren’t familiar with this activity, here is a quick overview:

1.    Code papers.

2.     Group participants and distribute collection of papers.

3.     Each participant receives one paper and reads for one minute (not necessary to complete

reading the entire paper, but long enough to get a strong feel for the paper).

4.     At signal, pass paper clockwise to next reader; repeat reading.

5.     End of reading, group determines which paper is “best.” (two minutes)

6.     Repeat with each group until all have read all papers.

Groups share which papers were identified as “best.” Why?  Discuss implications. This procedure can be used for a variety of purposes from determining scoring criteria to implications for future instruction.  I also used it in my writing classes to involve students in evaluating/focusing on different features of writing.

Looking back through my files when I was the Minnesota Writing Project Director, I discovered a letter written to the Commissioner of Education about the elimination of our state writing assessment.  I cited benefits that have occurred because of the state writing assessment: 

·     increased awareness of the importance of writing

·     more attention paid to the teaching of writing

·     better articulation of writing criteria

·     focus on staff development

·     more breadth of writing introduced and covered

·     improved writing program evaluation by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of writing instruction

and my hope that the department would

·     encourage districts to institute or maintain in-house writing assessment

o   offer strong staff development opportunities

o   provide opportunities to examine student work, to focus instruction, and to identify students who need more individual support

·     identify resources/agencies that can provide quality staff development 

o   to design and deliver writing instruction

o   to design writing assessments and conduct scoring

·     provide opportunities for districts to share ideas

Finally, I would recommend taking a look at the Position Statement on Assessing Writing (https://ncte.org/statement/teaching-writing/)published by NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English).  It begins with “(a)ssessment of writing involves complex, informed, human judgment” and includes several factors that teachers need to understand.

7 THE RIGHT TO BE ASSESSED WELL

"One thing that happens in an assessment-heavy environment is that inordinate amounts of time are devoted to preparing for 'the test.'"

From the moment I stepped into my large, public school district in 1992, the importance of testing to the writing curriculum became readily apparent. We had a writing test that needed to be passed before graduation. As a result, the test was given each year from 10th - 12th grade. Once passed, it was no longer necessary to take the test. Not passing the test could result in one being denied graduation.

The test was basic: a. Write a business letter complete with correctly formatted headings, salutations, spacing and closings. Errors needed to be minor in the body of the letter. b. Write a formal essay related to a prompt. Again, errors needed to be minor to pass. Both essays needed passing scores for graduation requirements to be complete. Students might pass on the essay and continue to fail on the business letter mainly because of formatting errors.

A few years later, a state test was developed and for a short time, students were required to take both tests with district graduation requirements still based on the district test. Gradually, we moved to only requiring passage of the state test for graduation. Again, it could be taken a number of times. Because of the competition between districts for numbers of students passing, teachers felt coerced into spending inordinate amounts of time teaching the format versus the content of a passing essay.

Today, there is no state or district writing test. What have we learned? Vicki Spandel carefully lays out the problems of writing tests in this chapter from The 9 Rights of Every Writer.  First, there are times when test preparation for writing becomes a curriculum unto itself. Second, test prep often doesn't honor the writing process. In other words, because they want their students to pass the test, teachers often resort to formulaic teaching of writing like the use of the 5 paragraph essay, and they never go beyond what is expected on the test. And, because test prep is formulaic, students often are denied the experience of the complete writing process.

Having spent countless hours on writing teams, grading writing tests, creating writing prompts and working with a variety of rubrics and teaching writing in the classroom, I have no easy solutions. Yes, it's important for students to know how to write a coherent essay, but do they all need to be in the same format? Where does idea development and the writing process come into play?

What is your experience with evaluating writing and helping students to grow as writers? How and when should we judge proficiency?