Teachers of Writing and Writings of Teachers

I find it amazing how some teachers will do nearly anything to try to avoid writing, both inside and outside of the classroom-how ironic! Research shows that writing teachers (and the students they teach) experience more success in the classroom if they are writers themselves and have little writing anxiety. It seems that for those who have participated in the National Writing Project, they are very enthusiastic about writing and see how important it is to do everyday.

Grossman et al.'s article, "Transitions to Teaching: Learning to Teach Writing in Teacher Education and Beyond" discusses how teachers develop their understanding of teaching writing through their first years of teaching and how their understanding affects the way they teach writing. It was also found that perhaps too much time was spent on learning the theory of writing and not enough on the actual practice of writing.

Another important piece about teachers who teach writing is reflecting in their own teaching practices. Sometimes teacher reflection brings a new light to the students' writing struggles and/or abilities. Writing teachers must remember to model writing. It is extremely important to let students see the teacher writing and to see the many stages of writing. It seems that students sometimes think that adults may have the "magical" ability to initially write something and it is perfect the first time. Students need to see the process that teachers and other adults go through to improve their writing. They also should understand that different writings may require different types of revision and that it does not necessary need to be done at that particular moment. It is okay to put the writing piece down for awhile and come back to it at a later time!

What's the Big Idea about Blogging?

Even this late in the game, I am seriously thinking about changing my topic for the paper in the Seminar in Writing class. Originally, my thoughts were to involve family literacy and early writing skills of children, but now I am thinking I should shift a little and move towards the idea of blogging within a family literacy program. (I'm still thinking and open for suggestions.)

I have had the unique opportunity to teach in a family literacy program, which has provided me with a chance to try out a variety of teaching methods. I have been trying to find ways to motivate my students to enjoy reading and writing (at least somewhat), not just to make them guinea pigs for my research. I just think (and research backs this up) that there is a definite need to break the cycle of illiteracy and not pass it on to families' future generations. I try to point out to students that reading and writing is everywhere and that all of us have to "deal with it" in some way EVERYDAY!! So, why not enjoy it, right? Well, not so much for students who have had negative experiences in school and come to class hoping to find a family literacy program different.

Recently, as you may know, I have tried blogging with my students, in order to change things up a bit-or at least that's how I saw it. We were reading a rather lengthy book and completing literature circle activities after every few chapters. Activities included things they said were more fun (and some even admitted a little more beneficial) especially compared to traditional book reports they have done in the past. My students completed various roles such as Artful Artist, Word Finder, Discussion Director, etc. that they selected themselves and completed the tasks as they saw fit. These were then shared the following class session and seemed to go quite well. In fact, to back up a bit, before we began to read this particular novel, I heard groans of "I HATE reading!!" turned to "This isn't so bad, I kind of like this. . ." (Hearing that they hated reading was hard for me to swallow since luckily I was born into a family that adored reading and it filled our house! However, many of my students now are not so fortunate and do not see it as a fun activity, but rather something they have to begrudgingly get through because someone (in authority) told them they must read this and be ready to discuss it or regurgitate (what the teacher is looking for) back on to a book report).

One week I decided to change things a bit after I watched the students texting in class and so eager to look up information on the Internet. I told the students that for this session of our literature circle we would be blogging about the book. I was shocked by the responses and the amount of resistance I received! I thought the students would be really enthusiastic to begin to combine what I thought was the best of both worlds-texting and using the computer. NOT SO MUCH!!! I am still trying to figure out what went wrong on that day, but I may have an idea.

I waited a couple of weeks again before I brought up the subject of blogging again. I asked colleagues and brainstormed possible reasons. When I tried it the next time, we were at the very end of our novel and went back to writing and/or drawing our responses on paper; we then transferred them to our blogs. I am not sure if they were thrilled, but the responses were a little more enthusiastic and there definitely wasn't any resistance. Mystery solved? I'm not sure! Perhaps, the first time was just a bad day?? Perhaps, the writing out ahead of time helped?? Did the students not want other people to see their writing?? Perhaps, they realized I wasn't there to tear apart their writing?? Maybe it wasn't so bad afterall, even though I was told it is so much different than Facebook because there the students are free to write whatever comes to mind. Here in the blogs, I was asking for the students to write on something about our book we were reading.

For me (and the students) this is still a work in progress!! But I do know this-the big idea for blogging (with my students) isn't the blogging itself, but to make writing fun for them and to just get students to write because the more you read and write, the better you'll read and write!!

Got Reader-response Theory?? It's Everywhere!!

As I have begun to develop my Critical Theory Today wiki page, I am finding that many (if not all of the categories) have overlapping issues. For example, my particular area was New Historical and Cultural Criticism and I have found Reader-response items within this area as well. I guess this makes perfect sense since I, as an actively engaged reader, am making meaning of the piece of literature I am reading. So, my understanding is that really each of the chapters in Critical Theory Today has to do with a portion of the Reader Response Theory. (The "Reader-response Criticism" chapter is the one that I focused on this week.) After all, the Reader-response theory ". . . maintains that what a text is cannot be separated from what it does" (Tyson, 2006, p. 170).

It seems that Rosenblatt's transactional reader-response theory pertains especially well to reading graduate school material. Often times, I find myself reading graduate school homework and I have to stop and go back because I am not sure what I just read. I may start out with one idea in mind and as I continue reading, I change my thinking as I realize I may have missed the author's main points. "This process of correcting our interpretation as we move through the text usually results in our going back to reread earlier sections in light of some new development in the text" (Tyson, 2006, p. 173). I find myself reading and rereading to fill in gaps or clear up confusion that occurs. Rosenblatt refers to this as figuring ". . . determinate and indeterminate meanings. . . " (Tyson, 2006, p. 174).

Although Tyson gives the reader five different categories of reader-response, it seems there is a fine line between some of them. Affective stylistics became a little more clear when I read Stanley Fish's questions, ". . .'What does the sentence do to the reader?' and 'How does the reader of the sentence make meaning?'" (Tyson, 2006, p. 176).

Overall, I felt that the one of the most important points made in the "Reader-response Criticism" chapter, is for teachers to have an awareness ". . . by helping them [their students] decide if and when to try to replace those strategies with others; and helping them take responsibility for the strategies they choose to teach instead of hiding behind the belief that certain ways of reading are natural or inherently right because they represent what's in the text" (Tyson, 2006, p. 187). It seems that this social reader-response theory is extremely important for our students. It is definitely important to never assume that students know certain reading strategies that we, as teachers, may take for granted.

Using a Critical Lens to View New Historicism and Cultural Criticism

This week I have begun to closely examine Lois Tyson's chapter entitled, "New Historical and Cultural Criticism." I will begin by defining new historical and cultural criticism in order to keep these two closely related concepts somewhat apart. Although often it may be necessary to keep new historical and cultural criticism together. New historians do not understand history ". . . simply as a linear progression of events" as traditional historians seem to do (Tyson, 2006, p. 283). New historical criticism is a using a different lens to look at history, which is quite different than how traditional historians look at history. New historians may ask questions like ". . . 'How has the event been interpreted?' and 'What do the interpretations tell us about the interpreters?'. . . "(Tyson, 2006, p. 282) as opposed to more traditional historians that may simply ask ". . . 'What happened?' and 'What does the event tell us about history?'. . . " (Tyson, 2006, p. 282).

New historians believe that readers/listeners are only getting a piece of history-the piece the author has chosen or was told to write or tell about to a particular audience. The piece of history that a particular author(s) felt was worthy of being told. This often leaves out some very important people and events as voices become marginalized. It seems that new historians are left wondering what else really went on, at whose expense, perhaps, and what impacts did the events have on ALL? In other words, what was the whole story, not just the 'cherry picked' details? Indeed new historians believe history should involve what Clifford Geertz refers to as "thick description" to not leave anybody out.

Cultural criticism is a belief that all should have a voice and that there should not be a hierarchy among those voices. All voices are equally important. The dominant class should not dictate what is considered valued. There is ". . . no meaningful distinction between 'high' and 'low' forms of culture" (Tyson, 2006, p. 296). Cultural critics also believe, ". . . a culture is a collection of interactive cultures, each of which is growing and changing, each of which is constituted at any given moment in time by the intersection of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic class, occupation, and similar factors that contribute to the experience of its members" (Tyson, 2006, p. 296).

Keeping the ideas of new historical and cultural criticism in mind, imagine how differently you might read the next social studies or history textbook, especially within your own classroom. Think of how differently you may read the next piece of literature, especially ones that are portraying certain aspects of history, as in historical fiction or nonfiction that detail events. Are we really seeing the entire picture through our rosy colored glasses or are the lens slightly (or maybe totally) fogged up not allowing us to see how things really are?