End of semester

As the semester slowly comes to a finish I find myself running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Only three weeks left if finals week is counted. Just wanted to tell everyone to keep up the good work and that it will all be over soon.

More on Open Court

I feel compelled to continue the brief discussion we had on the Open Court reading curriculum for elementary schools. For those interested in teaching the primary grades, familiarization with Open Court will put you one step ahead of the game. I've never actually taught using Open Court, so I'm putting that caveat out here right now. However, I have experienced the stress of learning the system vicariously through my wife over the last four years. After our discussion last Thursday, I asked her some more questions.

Dr. McNenny mentioned that some scholars and critics accuse Open Court of creating "non-professional teachers." This is probably due to the step-by-step, scripted format of the lesson books. I asked my better half about this, and she agreed (along with Garrity) that there is a whole script, in quotes, of what the teacher should say. However, she also challenged any teacher to actually try and use this script--it is patently ridiculous.

The thing is, if it isn't Open Court, it's going to be another, similar broad-based curriculum. For a district like LA Unified, there has to be some sort of standard between schools. If a first grader learns to read using Open Court, and then transfers to a different school in second grade that uses another reading system, he or she will instantly fall behind. In that way, a standard curriculum in the state-wide public school system has advantages. And whether or not you agree with the methods of evaluation and standardized testing, it is a political reality. Wouldn't it be more effective to evaluate a student population using the same curriculum?

I would challenge any critic of Open Court to actually go into a classroom for a month and watch it being taught. I would put all of my money down that their opinion would change. Much of the criticism has actually come from the teachers' unions, where older teachers were annoyed that they were being forced to adopt a new system.

Open Court has many faults, but any teacher worth their salt is able to separate the good from the bad and personalize the curriculum to best suit their style of teaching as well as their specific group of students. Those teachers who can't shouldn't be teaching at all; thank God there is a scripted curriculum out there, otherwise their students would be left out to dry.

I'm probably sounding very Marxist here, and I'll admit I was totally against this type of forced, broad-based curriculum five years ago. But after experiencing first hand (well, actually second hand) the trauma of inner-city teaching, I think I end up coming down in favor of Open Court, for all its faults.

De-stressing not Distressing

I'm going to ignore my better judgement and just be honest. The best finals stress relief I've experienced is a combination of three things: Exercise (a quick run or yoga), followed by Massive Attack's Inertia Creeps (or Radiohead's Amnesiac) set on repeat, and a steady flow of Yerba Mates. You might prefer a different type of music or hot drink, but the ground work is there. For me, investment is a crucial factor for getting work done. And if I'm enjoying myself--like when I'm listening to ambient music and enjoying a caffeinated drink--then it's much easier for me to be invested in what I'm doing. That way, I don't view the last few weeks of a semester as being so arduous.
I also love to make to-do lists. Nerdy as that may be, it's also quite helpful. I include as many things as possible on the list that I have to do. Not just my assignments, but also a number of menial tasks (like paying bills, cleaning, writing emails or making phone calls.) All of the menial tasks are things that I know I'm going to get accomplished during the course of the day anyway. Nevertheless, I put them on my list. So, when I take two minutes to pay my phone bill online, I have something to check off the to-do list. The same goes for sending an email or cleaning my room. All of a sudden, I haven't spent much time at all. However, activities are getting checked off the list. So it all seems more manageable.

Dealing with End-of-the-Semester Stress

I just read Katie's post about dealing with the overwhelming stress at the end of the semester, and I think it might be helpful to talk about strategies for dealing with all of the work due at the end of the semester.

One key strategy is to suspend the Critic, activate the Creator, and dive in! Take the inspiration that you want to explore and write as much as you can without being critical of yourself. I think you'll be amazed at how much more you know than you thought you knew! There's also something magical about writing. The act of putting your thoughts on paper helps you figure out what you want to say, and even if you decide to revise what you've written beyond recognition, you've still given yourself a starting place. The other advantage of writing out your thoughts on a required project is that you now have a first draft. Think on paper through outlining. Speculate about how you can develop your paper. Write down questions you need to answer. Keep a running Notes file with a Works Cited page at the end of the file. That way, when you find passages that help you think about your research area, you'll have the citatation and research material already at hand. Share your work with a friend.

What are some strategies you use to cope with all the demands for the end of the semester?

"Writing Across Borders" Film

I really enjoyed the film we watched in class on Tuesday. Prior to seeing this film, I had not given a lot of thought to how I would approach tutoring and/or teaching a writing class for international students. Like Amanda, I am also a strong advocate of grammar. It was wonderful to see how the professors interviewed for this film approached the subject of grammar: as a Lower Order Concern. These professors explained that, when it comes to evaluating an international student's writing, a tutor/teacher should ask the following questions:
How comprehensible is the writing? Is the grammar affecting the message that the student is trying to relate to readers? When it comes to correcting the grammar, how many errors really detract from meaning? It is important to hold international students to the same level as others in terms of quality of meaning and other Higher Order Concerns. It is also important to remember that writing is a process, one that will improve with practice and meaningful, encouraging feedback!

Response to Video Shown in Tuesday's Class

This is just a short note for now, but I found the video that we watched in class very useful in understanding the varying writing styles/forms/processes utilized in different cultures/languages/countries. Being a strong advocate of grammar, I found the interview with one of the Oregon professors to be quite enlightening. For the first time this semester, I felt that I understood how grammar can take the back burner, especially in terms of the organic process of writing. The professor said that as long as she understood the idea the student was trying to convey, she was able to overlook the grammatical errors. Although I would still argue for the importance of correct grammar and punctuation, in this international setting, I felt I understood how the traditional, rigid lines of grammar could be bent in order to prevent a classroom full of discouraged writers: Confident students = Successful students.

Erica at the Huntington

I've spoken of my daughter Erica in class pretty often, and I thought you might enjoy getting a better idea of what she looks like. I have to say that I have all the failings of a mom. I can't speak highly enough of her and at times my praise can seem out of proportion to the possible. Somehow I was gifted with a daughter who loves to read and write. She is constantly picking up anything she sees and reading it, and she even keeps her own electronic journal every day, that is, when she isn't exhausted from school work. Right now she's reading The Chronicles of Narnia, The Claudie Chronicles, and more recently, a book of criticism on the Harry Potter series entitled Mapping the World of Harry Potter, which is just a great book on various aspects of the books, including chapters like "Harry Potter and the Young Man's Mistake," "Neville Longbottom: The Hero with a Thousand Faces," "Harry Potter and the End of Religion," and "Why Killing Harry Potter Is the Worst Outcome for Voldemort."

Knowing a young person so intimately has changed my understanding of teaching writing. More than ever, the importance of authentic reasons for reading and writing are apparent to me. When a young person actually chooses to pick up a book on literary criticism, that just astonishes me! Just the fact that millions of young readers plough through Rowling's 800-page novels tells us something about the power of appealing to children's imaginations. And then, when they willingly, indeed fanatically, contribute to blogs on Harry Potter and his mates, visiting sites speculating on whether Dumbledore is really dead (see dumbledoresnotdead.com) by the millions, I know there's a hook there--in the mythology and in the psychology of the hero that they identify with so easily.

Have you had the opportunity to interact with and get to know young people in such a way that they've changed the way you see yourself teaching?

Being the Learner as Well as the Teacher

Over the past few weeks, I've been reading your observations of tutors and teachers of writing, and the one thing that intrigues me is the description of the teachers you've observed who take on the role of the learner, right alongside students, as well as that of the teacher. Many of you have written with wholehearted admiration for those people who dive into the learning and demonstrate their love of exploring new topics and having new insights by being there with their students, thinking about real questions, analyzing texts together, wondering out loud, and in the process enjoying the journey.

This, to me, is the only viable way to really enjoy teaching, and this goes back to the root of authenticity. Are the questions we ask authentic in their inquiry into unresolved issues? Have we looked for those aspects that go beyond the black and white of right and wrong and instead delve into the truly rhetorical, indeterminate, unresolvable grey areas of real issues?

This is why I like to assign in-class writing prompts and write along with everyone else. I like to share what I've written and read what someone else has written in response to the same question. I like to hear the endless variety of possible responses, especially when I consider the many nuances of their responses.

I know, of course, that there are many levels of comprehension and that content questions confirming students' understanding of the key points made in a text and various methods for ascertaining students' grasp of the material are necessary. Still, we need to be able to prepare for our classes with genuine wonder in the questions that we pose to our students.

What about you? Have you experienced classes where inquiry was more than just a way of checking to make sure your comprehension of subject matter matched that of the instructor? Have you worked with an instructor who really challenged you to think and made the opportunity to find out about a new topic an occasion for authentic discovery?

Inside the Huntington Gardens

If you haven't made it to the Huntington Gardens, Tea Room, and Galleries, you really should treat yourself to a day of wandering around the beautiful grounds there. You can make reservations to enjoy high tea in their richly appointed Tea Room, and you can drift through the lovely art collections there. My favorite is the collection of seventeenth and eighteenth century portraits in the Grand Manner. These include portraits of wealthy patrons of Gainsborough and his contemporaries that are impressive in their posturing and their dimensions! Very grand indeed!

The picture above was taken inside the conservatory there. Children's gardens with a misting system that creates an unworldly fog of clouds seemed to be the favorite of quite a few squealing youngsters. The Huntington also has a lot to offer for the scholar of literary texts. Their library there contains some original literary manuscripts, but I didn't have time to check them out.

Altogether, this is a wonderful part of southern California that you should definitely experience. If you plan to go, make sure you make reservations for the Tea Room! And take a pen and pad to make notes on the many splendid varieties of roses there.

What does this have to do with writing? Field trips! What a great way to get people to focus on vivid writing. Another great use of photos of trips in the classroom is asking students to compile a visitor's guide to their area. Each child can contribute a description of a place they've been to, including their tips and advice to friends visiting the area. You can then have them combine their descriptions in a tour guide, complete with their own photos.

Grammar as a Lived Experience

During our discussions about grammar, I've noticed that people are really quite passionate about the formal study of language. From what I can surmise from the many comments people have made, the lived experience of grammar instruction instills a perspective on grammar that gives us all different and often very vehement perspectives on the relationship of grammar and writing instruction.

These are all valid. The lover of the French language who thereby discovers and better understands the underlying linguistic system of English knows that the experience of learning French unlocked an awareness of language that would not have been there otherwise. Learning to speak and write a language different from our own really teaches us a lot about language, and by doing so, we gain a whole new understanding of language. The key point here, though, is that linguistic awareness was gained through actually trying to speak and write in the target language. Thus, the writer learned language through the agency of communicative competence-an active effort to communicate meaningfully in the target language. Stephen Krashen and other linguists would tell us that this is the key: grammar is learned best in situations in which the writer engages in meaning-making--writing or talking for real audiences and purposes.

At the same time, we have decades of studies that carefully track the impact of grammar instruction and its impact on writing proficiency. In one study, students who studied grammar over an entire year with an increasing emphasis on correctness ended up writing more poorly than they did at the beginning of the year. Their obsession with correctness discouraged them from taking risks in writing. As a result, their writing became more labored and monotonous. In effect, it was worse. Does an overemphasis on grammar simply encourage our students to play it safe and to equate good writing with correct grammatical structure? Does it create risk-averse writers?

I also wonder about the other experiences that people have with grammar instruction that have an impact on their writing. What are some of the experiences you've had with grammar? What impact do you see grammar having on your ability to write? Has a foundational understanding of grammar--of the key features of language structure and usage, as noted in Kelli's handout on Thursday--played a key role in your writing?

Welcome to The Writers' Cafe Blog

Welcome to the Writers' Cafe blog. I've started this as a venue for all English 480/580 students to give them the opportunity to share perspectives on their future careers in teaching. My hope is that this will provide a forum for us to carry on conversations that we begin in class that we just don't have time to finish. This blogging space should give us that freedom to really explore what it means to think about teaching writing.

Some of the questions we can explore include the following:

• What goes into being a good teacher?
• What attitudes toward teaching will carry you forward in ways that make teaching a pleasure and a meaningful pursuit throughout your career?
• How can we resolve the many different perspectives on grammar and the teaching of writing that we hear in our class from various class members?

This will be a space in which to share our views on these issues as well as a place to share resources for and approaches to the teaching of writing. So please feel free to contribute and to share your thoughts on any issues that strike you as we continue to study writing theory and pedagogy. Let the games commence!