Teaching Writing: Methodology January 17, 2007
Posted by waldrup49 in English310.trackback
If some of you that are in both the 310 and 311 classes you will see that I am pretty much writing about the same type of thing. Only in 310 it is about writing instead of reading. We have already delved into this subject in class when we talk about the writing process.
I have mixed emotions when I hear us discuss the writing process or I read something like the Murray article “Writing as a Process…”. It all seems well and good in theory and I am sure that with the dedication of enough time it will work but does it play out with success in the classroom. Murray talks about rehearsal to draft to rewrite to revision that is the beginning of another rehearsal and so on. Sounds solid as you read it. The question is will you get students to buy into it and even if they do will they stay committed to it. High School Student A has got to learn all about integers, the Battle of Trenton, the Bill of Rights, run a mile and half for gym, has practice after school, followed by practice till 5:30 and guess what we want you to do. Write this way. I am just not sure it works in practice.
That is why I am blogging about methodology. I really want to know different methods and where these methods are in practice or at what stage of development they are. I want to say before i end that I am not an English Major, I am a Social Studies major. I also want to admit I know very little about this subject but I hope to discover a little bit about my beliefs through this process.
Hi Wade!
I must admit that your blog topic concerning the methodology of teaching in the classroom caught my eye immediately. The topic is one of the more intriguing ones, and I am almost jealous I didn’t think of it! This topic won’t only be useful to you, a social studies major, but it will be especially useful to those of us who are becoming English teachers. During our last class session we discussed the teaching methods of four very different personalities, and that particular exercise really woke me up. I think it is important for each individual to fine his/her own style of teaching, and the topics you address on this blog could really help with that.
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search on Google Reader because I was curious as to whether or not you will be able to find a decent variety of articles for your blog, and tons of great articles came up. Some of which include various methods of teaching students how to write fiction, non fiction, poetry, research etc. I noticed one feed (from CCC Online) addressed research writing methods from other disciplines and cultures. I don’t know if that helps at all, but it might be an interesting spin for your blog in the future.
Your blog is going to be a very interesting read throughout the semester. I am looking forward to reading about your discoveries as you research this topic further, and I believe it will contain very beneficial information for the people taking this course. Best of luck!
Thanks for commenting Megan. I, like you, have been “woken up” by a number of things that have been said and discussed by Dr. Rozema and (to a further extent) everyone in class. It is really interesting to me to see what they think as they read write. I appreciate the CCC idea. I will check it out.
Hello Wade,
Thanks for taking interest in my blog, It took me awhile to think about a subject that would be interesting to write about for the entire semester!
OK regarding your questions; I very much enjoyed me creative writing class which I took last summer, however I don’t think I would say that my writing suffered up to that point. I was very fortunate to have teachers in highschool who helped me build a strong foundation in writing skills. One teacher in particular tried to incorrporate creative ideas as writing assignments for us in class. For example, instead of simply writing a 5 paragraph essay, we would write a synopsis of a novel in the form of a newspaper, or try to explain a theme of the story by creating poetry. We still learned the structure for writing, but I think that using these different ways to write(newspaper style, poetry.. etc) we were forced to thinking about writing in a different manner.
I think that if I would have taken a creative writing class in highschool, I would have regarded the class I took in college a but differently. It was at first a bit difficult for me to acctually write a creative story of my own choosing, at Grand Valley I am usual required to turn out 5-8 papers a semester and those proffs would deffinetly not accept poetry as a form of writing…
As for the last question I think that you must teach the intro/body/summary way of writing as a base for all the other types of writing. Students must know how to write in this 5 parahgraph way for future classes, and esspecailly college. I do however think that there are better ways to have students express themselves in writing besides this style however. I hope to discover some of those ways through this blog!
I am interested in seeing the articles you find for your blog as well. I think that it is difficult to get students interested in writing, however I do believe it is possible for those students who are uninterested in writing to become great writers. I’m looking forwards to your posts!
Wade,
I’ll use this comment to address both your 310 and your 311 opening posts. First, kudos on spreading your wisdom around: as I’ve reviewed both 310 and 311 blogs today, I’ve seen your comments on many of them. Thanks for starting to create our “networked text.”
Your blog looks good and includes most of the necessary requirements thus far. Be sure to include complete blogrolls for each course. This takes a little work, but by the end of it, you should be good at adding links.
I’m a little concerned that your 310 topic may be a bit broad, but comforted that Megan found a rich variety of articles. You might consider a slightly more narrow focus–say, writing for standardized tests, since this is shaping methodology more than anything else right now. Be sure to identify the feeds you’ll use to inform this blog, too.
Your 311 topic, reading methodology, is quite promising: it is, after all, the subject of the course as a whole. The whole language v. phonics battle is really pitched in elementary schools but has ramifications for secondary English instruction as well. Jeff Wilhelm, for example, draws an analogy between the phonics approach in elementary school to the way literature instruction happens in middle and high schools. This topic should yield interesting information.
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