Guest Blogger: Linda Stine
Like everyone else, I've been moaning and groaning my way through midterms this week. And, like perhaps at least some of you, I've been wondering if my grammar explanations have been doing more harm than good, as I note fragmented ideas and run-on sentences and commas popping up in locations that just seem to belie any rational explanation.
On a listserv for writing teachers recently, a good conversation has been taking place on the whole issue of grammar instruction, student writing, and transferability of writing skills. We know that learning a new concept causes temporary backsliding as students struggle to fit the new knowledge into their existing sense of language structure and begin questioning everything, even concepts that they had previously mastered. (I like to think that's the reason for all those inexplicable commas...). We know too that the same backsliding occurs when students are asked to write on more complicated issues or in other classes with different content matter. We know too that teaching grammar directly and explicitly does little to improve student writing.
So given that, I was wondering what ways you have found that help your students learn, internalize, master, and transfer effectively to other classes the basic concepts of academic grammar and mechanics? Do you discuss grammar rules and then ask students to practice them in exercises before applying them in their own writing? Do you start with the students' own writing and work mainly on getting them to clarify their thoughts, trusting that grammar issues will clear themselves up without formal instruction simply as a side effect of clearer thinking and wider reading? Do you note grammar errors on papers? How? Where? When? Why? Do you have any techniques that work well for you that you could share with the rest of us? Or do you have questions about the whole pesky "good grammar” issue that you keep wrestling with without finding a good answer?
What should we all be doing, I wonder, to ensure that we are graduating students who can write clear, standard, academic English?
Showing posts with label writing to learn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing to learn. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Monday, October 11, 2010
The Mission of the Writer's Studio: Your Help Requested
Guest blogger: William Donahue
My goal in this post is to involve the Lincoln University community in writing the mission statement for the Roscoe Lee Brown Writer’s Studio. Located in University Hall B-3 with hours this semester on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 until 6 p.m., the RLB Writer’s Studio is based on a writing center model—a collaborative place to create better writers. We offer non-evaluative, one-on-one consultations on any writing matters, for any student at any level, as well as specialty workshops for groups. We also house the English Department’s component of the Humanities Tutoring Program in the core.
Let me start with an anecdote from a class in that core:
In yet another English Composition II class, this first day of midterm week, I explained my “revision” midterm assignment. Students need to take their short story analysis essay, write a revision, then write a meta-cognitive reflection of how they attempted to revise each graded entity on the rubric (thesis, support, etc), and finally address grammar and punctuation issues by writing the rule for their particular pattern of error as well as demonstrating application of that rule to their own writing.
No Scantron here. We are quickly climbing Bloom’s taxonomy and addressing numerous SLOGs.
The students are writing, revising, engaging in critical thinking, and learning about their writing process. But a finer point escaped the students—the difference I was trying to elicit between “editing” and “proofreading.” Even after my powerpoint and class discussion, a student response to the midterm assignment was to “fix the errors” as if there was nothing more to revision than fixing a mistake. That a thesis, although “somewhat effective” on the grading rubric, could not be revised further.
As I discussed with my students today and as I talk about the RLB Writer’s Studio as a “writing center” at Lincoln, I am often reminded of Stephen North’s 1984 essay in College English titled “The Idea of a Writing Center,” which was the basis for a “new” model of writing center that differed from the “basement, fix-it” shop approach to writing (VISIT US IN THE BASEMENT OF UNIVERSITY HALL!) Instead, North argued, “it represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (438) as opposed to the “older” model where “instruction tends to take place after or apart from writing, and tends to focus on the correction of textual problems” (439).
Writing centers focus on creating better writers through collaborative, dialogue/question driven, non-directive measures. The goal is often a better writer, not necessarily a better written text. The analogy I often use is teaching people to fish so that they will never go hungry.
The more recent criticism of the process approach to writing, which developed in 60s through the 90s, comes from post process scholars such as Kent (2003) who assert that writing is social—a situated, public, and interpretative act. The product cannot be ignored.
So the Writing Center is stuck in the middle—which is right where we want to be.
After all as North stated, “if writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms, as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers” (446).
So I now enter into a dialogue with you. Help us create our Mission Statement. What do you see as the mission of the Roscoe Lee Browne Writer’s Studio?
My goal in this post is to involve the Lincoln University community in writing the mission statement for the Roscoe Lee Brown Writer’s Studio. Located in University Hall B-3 with hours this semester on Tuesdays from 3:30 until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 4 until 6 p.m., the RLB Writer’s Studio is based on a writing center model—a collaborative place to create better writers. We offer non-evaluative, one-on-one consultations on any writing matters, for any student at any level, as well as specialty workshops for groups. We also house the English Department’s component of the Humanities Tutoring Program in the core.
Let me start with an anecdote from a class in that core:
In yet another English Composition II class, this first day of midterm week, I explained my “revision” midterm assignment. Students need to take their short story analysis essay, write a revision, then write a meta-cognitive reflection of how they attempted to revise each graded entity on the rubric (thesis, support, etc), and finally address grammar and punctuation issues by writing the rule for their particular pattern of error as well as demonstrating application of that rule to their own writing.
No Scantron here. We are quickly climbing Bloom’s taxonomy and addressing numerous SLOGs.
The students are writing, revising, engaging in critical thinking, and learning about their writing process. But a finer point escaped the students—the difference I was trying to elicit between “editing” and “proofreading.” Even after my powerpoint and class discussion, a student response to the midterm assignment was to “fix the errors” as if there was nothing more to revision than fixing a mistake. That a thesis, although “somewhat effective” on the grading rubric, could not be revised further.
As I discussed with my students today and as I talk about the RLB Writer’s Studio as a “writing center” at Lincoln, I am often reminded of Stephen North’s 1984 essay in College English titled “The Idea of a Writing Center,” which was the basis for a “new” model of writing center that differed from the “basement, fix-it” shop approach to writing (VISIT US IN THE BASEMENT OF UNIVERSITY HALL!) Instead, North argued, “it represents the marriage of what are arguably the two most powerful contemporary perspectives on teaching writing: first, that writing is most usefully viewed as a process; and second, that writing curricula need to be student-centered” (438) as opposed to the “older” model where “instruction tends to take place after or apart from writing, and tends to focus on the correction of textual problems” (439).
Writing centers focus on creating better writers through collaborative, dialogue/question driven, non-directive measures. The goal is often a better writer, not necessarily a better written text. The analogy I often use is teaching people to fish so that they will never go hungry.
The more recent criticism of the process approach to writing, which developed in 60s through the 90s, comes from post process scholars such as Kent (2003) who assert that writing is social—a situated, public, and interpretative act. The product cannot be ignored.
So the Writing Center is stuck in the middle—which is right where we want to be.
WE DON'T FIX STUDENT WRITING (but we can help students fix their own writing).
WE DON'T DO REMEDIATION (but we can help remediate student writing).
WE WANT STUDENTS TO COME TO US (but any encouragement to help students find us will be accepted).
WE WORK WITH ANY WRITING ISSUE (believe it or not there is more to writing than grammar).
WE WANT TO PROMOTE WRITING (we want to promote writing).
After all as North stated, “if writing centers are going to finally be accepted, surely they must be accepted on their own terms, as places whose primary responsibility, whose only reason for being, is to talk to writers” (446).
So I now enter into a dialogue with you. Help us create our Mission Statement. What do you see as the mission of the Roscoe Lee Browne Writer’s Studio?
References
Kent, T. (2003). “Introduction.” Post-Process Theory: Beyond the Writing Process Paradigm. Ed. Thomas Kent. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP.
North, S. M. (1984). “The Idea of a Writing Center.” College English, 46(5), 433-446.
Friday, January 29, 2010
How Do You Write?
Guest Blogger: William Donohue
This year marks my 10th anniversary in the “Writing Industry.” Since I graduated college in 2000, I have been drawing a paycheck from something I wrote. (Of course like most writers, I have had a slew of part time jobs too!) I have written for nationally published magazines and weekly, local newspapers. I have written feature articles on the “Top Ten Best Running Cities” that landed me radio interviews, and I have covered local zoning board meetings (more sleep inducing than a class after lunch).
Through it all I have developed and redeveloped my writing process. As Donald Murray asks and answers “Why do writers write? To inform, to persuade, to entertain, to explain, but most of all to discover what they have to say” (3). (Spell-check says that is a fragment sentence, but breaking grammar rules just might another reason that writer’s write.)
When someone asks me what I am writing now, I know they are looking for an exciting answer. Have I written a memoir about my 1,165 mile, month-long bicycle/camping trip from Philly to Boston and back? Maybe I started that “Great American Novel,” or finished the screenplay about teenage angst.
“No,” I disappoint them. “Most of my writing is ‘Academic’ now,” which allows me to sneak away to refill my drink as they divert their eyes to the floor, both of us feeling inadequate—them because of an incorrect assumption of their intellectual inferiority and me because of my intellectual inferiority. But what is it that I do spend my time writing? And more importantly, how does what I write inform my teaching as a writing teacher?
When pressed about my “Academic Writing,” I bring up the latest paper submission to a conference or periodical. This year I have both. (Commence shameless plug.) A soon-to-be-published book series and Creative Commons shareware entity entitled “Writing Spaces: Readings on Writings” (http://writingspaces.org/) has accepted a paper jointly written by myself and Lincoln University colleague and creative writer David Amadio. The essay entitled “The Voices in My Head: An Experimental Essay with Multiple Authors and Voices,” was also accepted at the College English Association Conference (http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm) fittingly themed “Voices.” I learned more about writing from that experience than any single writing event in my life. Of course, it helps to when all I had to do was take notes as David sounded off on voice in creative writing then fill in some spaces as the representative “academic voice” in the essay. Here come the insecurities again. Luckily, David is a brilliant editor too, which says much about his popularity among the students.
Beyond that, most of my day-to-day writing is classroom related, specially writing comments on student essays. I joke and perhaps how I rationalize my procrastination to start that novel or finish that screenplay is because my writing is so bad because all I do is read bad writing. This week, I am in the middle of grading and, more to the point, commenting on 50 narrative essays. I have 25 more narrative essays coming in on Monday. Then, next Thursday, assuming every one of my students turns in the essay on time, I will have 107 essays to grade. Every single essay is a teachable moment, but what is my process for writing those comments? How can I solve such problems as indicating a poorly written sentence while not shattering a student’s confidence? How can I teach that student to develop a personal writing process, while not over-steering the writing to the “correct answer” (the way that would earn the student a better grade).
Murray breaks the writing process into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Students are often amazed at the time breakdown Murray assigns these three stags. Prewriting, everything before the first draft, “takes about 85% of the writer’s time” (15). Writing the first draft is a mere 1%, which leaves 14% of the time for rewriting. Next Thursday 107 essays that are handed to me will hopefully have gone through this process in close approximation to Murray’s breakdown, or at least in a way that works for each individual student. The very last step in the rewriting phase that all 107 of those essays will share is a reflection paper.
They will reflect on the writing process. They will list the steps that they took, and they will comment on those steps.
“This is the corpse pose in Yoga practice,” I will try to entice them. “It locks in the practice.” This is my way of tempting the students to “know thyself.”
During my “prewriting” this week, I read Dr. Dade’s essay “Forwarding the Legacy of Horace Mann Bond” asking the faculty to reflect on the curriculum and “know thyself.” As a composition teacher at Lincoln University during a time when the subject of student writing is often discussed and there is a movement to take writing “Across the Curriculum,” I welcome your own “reflection comments.” As Murray suggests in an essay written in 1970, “more scholars, using information from the social sciences and the sciences, should be encouraged to contribute to the study of the writing process” (7). Do you write along with your students as my narrative essay/blog posting has allowed me to do this week? How do you approach writing instruction in your classroom? How do you write?
Works Cited
Murray, Donald. Learning by Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Boyton/Cook, 1982.
This year marks my 10th anniversary in the “Writing Industry.” Since I graduated college in 2000, I have been drawing a paycheck from something I wrote. (Of course like most writers, I have had a slew of part time jobs too!) I have written for nationally published magazines and weekly, local newspapers. I have written feature articles on the “Top Ten Best Running Cities” that landed me radio interviews, and I have covered local zoning board meetings (more sleep inducing than a class after lunch).
Through it all I have developed and redeveloped my writing process. As Donald Murray asks and answers “Why do writers write? To inform, to persuade, to entertain, to explain, but most of all to discover what they have to say” (3). (Spell-check says that is a fragment sentence, but breaking grammar rules just might another reason that writer’s write.)
When someone asks me what I am writing now, I know they are looking for an exciting answer. Have I written a memoir about my 1,165 mile, month-long bicycle/camping trip from Philly to Boston and back? Maybe I started that “Great American Novel,” or finished the screenplay about teenage angst.
“No,” I disappoint them. “Most of my writing is ‘Academic’ now,” which allows me to sneak away to refill my drink as they divert their eyes to the floor, both of us feeling inadequate—them because of an incorrect assumption of their intellectual inferiority and me because of my intellectual inferiority. But what is it that I do spend my time writing? And more importantly, how does what I write inform my teaching as a writing teacher?
When pressed about my “Academic Writing,” I bring up the latest paper submission to a conference or periodical. This year I have both. (Commence shameless plug.) A soon-to-be-published book series and Creative Commons shareware entity entitled “Writing Spaces: Readings on Writings” (http://writingspaces.org/) has accepted a paper jointly written by myself and Lincoln University colleague and creative writer David Amadio. The essay entitled “The Voices in My Head: An Experimental Essay with Multiple Authors and Voices,” was also accepted at the College English Association Conference (http://www2.widener.edu/~cea/conference2010.htm) fittingly themed “Voices.” I learned more about writing from that experience than any single writing event in my life. Of course, it helps to when all I had to do was take notes as David sounded off on voice in creative writing then fill in some spaces as the representative “academic voice” in the essay. Here come the insecurities again. Luckily, David is a brilliant editor too, which says much about his popularity among the students.
Beyond that, most of my day-to-day writing is classroom related, specially writing comments on student essays. I joke and perhaps how I rationalize my procrastination to start that novel or finish that screenplay is because my writing is so bad because all I do is read bad writing. This week, I am in the middle of grading and, more to the point, commenting on 50 narrative essays. I have 25 more narrative essays coming in on Monday. Then, next Thursday, assuming every one of my students turns in the essay on time, I will have 107 essays to grade. Every single essay is a teachable moment, but what is my process for writing those comments? How can I solve such problems as indicating a poorly written sentence while not shattering a student’s confidence? How can I teach that student to develop a personal writing process, while not over-steering the writing to the “correct answer” (the way that would earn the student a better grade).
Murray breaks the writing process into three stages: prewriting, writing, and rewriting. Students are often amazed at the time breakdown Murray assigns these three stags. Prewriting, everything before the first draft, “takes about 85% of the writer’s time” (15). Writing the first draft is a mere 1%, which leaves 14% of the time for rewriting. Next Thursday 107 essays that are handed to me will hopefully have gone through this process in close approximation to Murray’s breakdown, or at least in a way that works for each individual student. The very last step in the rewriting phase that all 107 of those essays will share is a reflection paper.
They will reflect on the writing process. They will list the steps that they took, and they will comment on those steps.
“This is the corpse pose in Yoga practice,” I will try to entice them. “It locks in the practice.” This is my way of tempting the students to “know thyself.”
During my “prewriting” this week, I read Dr. Dade’s essay “Forwarding the Legacy of Horace Mann Bond” asking the faculty to reflect on the curriculum and “know thyself.” As a composition teacher at Lincoln University during a time when the subject of student writing is often discussed and there is a movement to take writing “Across the Curriculum,” I welcome your own “reflection comments.” As Murray suggests in an essay written in 1970, “more scholars, using information from the social sciences and the sciences, should be encouraged to contribute to the study of the writing process” (7). Do you write along with your students as my narrative essay/blog posting has allowed me to do this week? How do you approach writing instruction in your classroom? How do you write?
Works Cited
Murray, Donald. Learning by Teaching. Portsmouth, NH: Boyton/Cook, 1982.
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