All Writing is Writing 101

Whenever I think about student writing, I recall a girl who was in the writing program at Sylvan a couple years back. This young woman, either a 10th or 11th-grader, was also in some kind of "advanced composition" class at her high school. At the center we generally teach writing within the confines of the standard five-paragraph essay. What I remember so clearly about this one particular student is how she proclaimed, almost in a condescending tone I thought at the time, that she and her advanced composition class were "way beyond that." What I remember with equal clarity is that she was not a very good writer. Her class assignments, a couple of which I saw and found very confusing, may have been convoluted and may have required all manner of rhetorical devices and organizational forms, but this girl could not put together a concise, natural-sounding sentence. My experiences with her reinforced my strong belief that there is no such beast as "advanced writing;" there is only writing. And the more we can simplify the teaching of it, the better our writing instruction will be.

Writing hasn't changed since its inception. We write, as we always have, to instruct, differentiate, explain, argue, persuade, describe, inform, entertain, clarify, analyze, shock, make uncomfortable, or any one of several other verbs I could list. The general framework we use is similarly unchanged: we introduce our subject, put it in some kind of perspective, state our opinion, support it with details or evidence, and tie it together in some kind of conclusion. And, hopefully, we accomplish all of this with precise, sophisticated diction, appropriate tone, distinctive voice, originality, and maybe a bit of panache. There are many ways, five-paragraph essay and otherwise, in which we can organize our thoughts and our words to meet these criteria. Writing can be called advanced only to the extent that it impacts the reader in a new or significant way.

Whither the Bard

Discussion topic: Should Shakespeare be a required component of sta0ndard high school curricula? Permit me to step into the devil's advocate role (perhaps). Having witnessed far too many ninth graders completely turned off by the often impenetrable verse of Romeo and Juliet, I have to say no. And I don't want to hear about the dumbing down of American education. I would suggest that by substituting a rich, more relevant, much more contemporary work of classic American drama for a 500-year-old essentially foreign-language relic peopled with stereotyped, outdated characters we would be substantially upping the quality of secondary education, not diminishing it. Even Shakespeare's most accessible play says next to nothing to the vast majority of today's freshmen. Think about the ludicrous plot: two 13-year-olds (13, mind you) from rival families that fight openly in the streets consult with, among others, a batty nurse, a friar, and a ditzy friend who speaks of tiny fairies; conspire to elope; then decide quite literally to kill themselves when their plans go awry. And all the while they are speaking in some strange kind of figurative code. How many modern-day kids can relate to that?! This is American language arts we're talking about. Our students should be learning about the joys and struggles and themes of contemporary American life; and they shouldn't need extensive bottom notes to do so. Let Shakespeare be an elective for upper classmen; or better yet, let him be tackled in college. Here's a place to read about one possible replacement:

http://www.augustwilson.net/navigate.htm

Parting ways with the Bard will be sweet, but not sorrowful.

A willy stratagem

I see a lot of what I would consider bad instruction in vocabulary development. The title of this entry comes from a vocabulary sheet for The Color of Water that one of my students was working on today. Her English teacher had, as is so often the case, merely handed out a fairly lengthy list of words and told the class to look up the definitions. This is what she had written for "ruse." I asked her if she knew what a stratagem was, and she said she didn't. I casually mentioned that "wily" was misspelled, but I assumed that she didn't know what that word meant either. This was just one of several problems with the student's sheet. But, she was perfectly willing to turn in--and probably receive significant credit for-- an assignment that really didn't cause her to learn and understand any new words at all.

Vocabulary is difficult nowadays because so few students are doing substantial amounts of outside reading. However, I consider it to be the single most important aspect of reading comprehension. There are, of course, many other facets of comprehension instruction, but a student can't get very far with any of them if he or she doesn't know what the words mean. We need to start spending more time with vocabulary. In fact, many of us need to rethink the way in which we teach the subject. Vocabulary should be a DAILY concern in English class. It needs to be embedded in all of the other work we do. Unless we are willing to go through the sheets with the students and make sure they have accurate definitions for each word, we need to do away with instruction by vocabulary list. The Reading Rockets site,

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/9943 ,

has many great ideas about vocabulary instruction, but perhaps most important is its assertion that vocabulary is best learned in context. Ideally, it is learned through varied and multiple contexts. We as teachers need to use our expertise and show through direct instruction how new words are used in contemporary writing. We see and know the words, our students don't. If you are one who wants the students to do more of the work, Joseph Pettigrew has a terrific idea that reverses the traditional model.

http://people.bu.edu/jpettigr/Artilces_and_Presentations/Vocabulary.htm

Pettigrew starts with the definition or synonym then tells students to find in a given passage a word that has the same meaning. His site has many other clever strategies, especially for use with younger students.

Vocabulary can't be left to student chance or to willy stratagems. Don't be lazy; get out there and teach it!

the blog is up and running

March 9, 2008 is the start date for my new blog, which is devoted to ruminations on my work as an Englisher teacher.