Gosh, the conversations about writing were great. They segue perfectly into discussion of summer institute demonstration lessons. We all were wondering about some aspect of our teaching practices. That is exactly what good teachers do and it is the foundational piece to the demonstration lesson - "inquiring minds want to know."
I've been to workshops at conferences where I have gotten great ideas to try out in the classroom. But that is exactly what they are - great ideas. I tried them out and kids had fun. So what? I didn't ever really examine the rationale for using them - I just glommed on and used them. I think the most important difference between this "make-it/take-it" workshop approach and the demonstration lesson is that whole idea of rationale - The who cares? Where's the meat? The depth? The demonstration lesson digs into the what's and why's and how's of promising and effective practices in our teaching practices. So . . . where is this all headed?
Got me! That's what we need to blog about! Actually, what do you think about this idea of creating a body of knowledge from our demonstration lesson? A theory? Art Peterson talks about that in his article "Digging Deeper: Teacher Inquiry in the summer Institute Demonstration." In some ways it seems presumptuous to think that I am creating a body of knowledge or adding to the body of knowledge, but I kinda think that is what I do when I stumble upon something that is successful with my students. Thoughts . . . wonderings . . . I don't get its . . . ? Let's muck around together!
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37 comments:
Since I was late to the party last week I thought it right to start this one off. I like the idea of creating a new body of knowledge. I have always been activity focused. I think as a young teacher this was really important but now I see that if I can establish a theory that supports my practices I can be a more consistent teacher. I always spent more time obsessing over failed lessons and accepted the successful ones as "more fun". I like the idea that we are going to examine our successes to see if we can find commonalities that can be kept in mind as we plan new lessons.
I felt bad for Nick Maneno. I am sure all of us have come up against this type of rigid thinking within the school. I think that his response to become a model teacher is probably the best solution. With so many educational policy changes over the years there is little wonder why teachers are so reluctant to change. A lead by example approach seems to be the most likely to make sustainable change in an institution.
My comments didn't seem to show up from our last session, so I'll jump in too. I can't operate without theoretical underpinnings. If I don't have a reason/rationale and a question--something I wnt to pursue with my students--it's not worth any of our time. Digging deeper as Art Peterson says is that... finding the grit and muck to mess around in while were learning along the way. It seems as though teaching, as a crisp stylish presentation, might and does get in the way of learning. How can I look with new eyes? Take what I know, what I wonder about and then move it into a chance for all of us to engage in learning together. That seems to me to be the heart of inquiry.
and another thought... I remember a time when I was teaching 6th grade. My students and I were all reading--the old SSR thing--do you still do that out there? A colleague walked by my class and hollered in, "Do you call that teaching?" I hollered back, "As a matter of fact, I do." We so often are stymied by what we imagine the work of teaching is--presenting, assessing, covering... I don't think learning happens very easily under those conditions, not the real stuff of learning. I want to be surprised, I want to go away from every class I teach with a sense of wonder, of something new.
If anything the demonstration lesson and the whole MWP experience helped me to realize a couple of things about my methodology when teaching not just writing but anything.
1. Building a community of learners is key.. "teachers teaching teachers", there is no point in trying to create a valuable, lasting experience if your focus is not an honest look at what works, why it works and how to engineer it again. In a community where learning is the focus, not product, a lot can be achieved, most notably personal growth which transcends to student success. Letting everybody in on how AWFUL you are as an editor, helps clear the pathway for the real cognitive challenge of writing. Writing in a way that defines your voice. YOUR VOICE. Hopefully my commas are placed correctly. If not, I will live and so will the person correcting my paper.
2. My notion of "successful" writing developed into a more process oriented retrospective. It is now more important for me to have students who want to write versus students who can write really well. How do I get them there, I am still trying to figure it out, no day or group is ever the same. The one commonality I have found for me is that observation, reflection and trial are always part of the process. Also, take time to listen, a really hard thing for a brown who likes her folders neat.
Hello everyone!
The more I read, the more I realize that I 'neglect' my teaching of writing because I really haven't thought about what I did that made one writing project more effective than another. I'm with you Sean, I obsess over the 'failures' and the 'fun and interesting' tag is always present in my lesson planning. The question starting to crop up in my mind more and more is,"What made me believe the lesson failed?" as well as what I believe made the lesson successful. What DO I want to find out when I 'grade' or examine a student's work?
You make an important point, Eileen, when you extend your methodology of teaching writing to teaching anything. I just finished up MAPP testing with my 2nd graders, and was absolutely astounded at their gains this year. I'm sure some of it had to do with my teachingI couldn't tell you what! I suspect it has to do with your first point of building a community of learners.
Another pressing issue is the classroom management train wrecks that can happen when we are all supposed to be writing, creating, editing, and sharing and we ALL aren't.
OK, this thing is givin me fits when I try to edit, so LATER
Man, I go away for a week and come back to 41 postings on the last topic. Way to go! What an interesting conversation.
You know, I used to think that at some point I would have "the answers" when it came to teaching. Now I have finally come to accept that teaching, and life, is all about the questions. Rilke wrote: "Live the questions...and maybe someday you'll live into the answers." It hasn't happened yet, and the questions keep coming...and at the end of every school year, I think, "Okay next year I'll have it--" Yea, right. But I've finally learned to see that as part of the fun of teaching--and of life. And thinking of it as fun instead of failure has made all the difference.
I really love the digging deeper article. Thinking about our questions, connecting them to our larger reasons for teaching, investigating while we are in the thick of teaching, having the mindset of connecting it all together and understanding why some things work and other things don't is why teaching is such a joy.
In my class this week, students gave a 20 minute presentation that was intended as a "pre-write" not a performance. We all thought of it as a chance to work something out--not wing it--to come prepared with some ideas, having done some inquiry in answer to a question of interest, gathering some information from resources, and trying something out to see if it fit.
The result was a stunning array of in-depth, thought-provoking inquiries and "field tests" of teaching. Nothing was set in stone, but well-grounded, thoughtful and exhilerating because the questions were real ones for each teacher/learner. We all were dizzy at the end of class with the new ideas and pursuits presented during these inquiry demonstrations. That is how I see SI demonstration lessons developing--around real questions of interest and concern, developing from inquiry and pursuit of new knowledge in ways that come to surprise all of us.
This is the second time I have struggled writing a coherent post only to have it evaporate into the cybersphere. I was sure I had hit publish, but guess not--so here goes again.
It looks to be an interesting summer institute with the questions and inquiries people are already making. I enjoyed the articles last week as I believe the inquiry method is the way to go for all educational endeavors, not just for the writing process. "The emphasis upon the why as well as the what... (MWP Demonstration Lesson Handout) is what makes teaching students a real challenge. Just when I think I have found the strategy that works, the students or the administration, or the environment, prove me wrong. I feel much like Nick Maneno feels in his article, "Teaching After the Summer Institute" when he stated, "I find myself in the difficult position of being at odds with many people with whom I work." However he maintains that an open classroom, and enabling colleagues to write and share their work is a way to overcome the barriers.
Another key to the week's articles is terminology introduction. For example, best practices was tossed out there, and that's what SI encourages; however, we call them promising practices now, so as not to suggest these research based ideas steeped in anecdotal evidence are some pinnacle of knowing--perhaps they're not best, but they promise success since they are strategies that produce efficacy again and again; these ideas are not fads that will disappear, although they will get tweaked as inquiry continues. Promising practices involve student-constructed knowledge, cooperative work, change, refining, and reflecting, as the Maneno article suggests.
When we reflect on our currect teaching practice, sometimes it is frightening to wonder, "Am I doing it wrong?" Perhaps not wrong, but we can improve. I know I have room to grow, to reach new understandings and to learn new writing strategies to provide access and relevance to a diverse group of learners. I am always asking questions. Where I see students struggling, I ask why. I look carefully at student work and formulate questions that will inform inquiry, just as the Peterson article advices.
So, the Summer Institute invites us to give over some time to reflection and research. We encourage one another to try on new ways of knowing, to grapple with ideas that provide some tension with practice, to connect to an area where you want to learn more, to link to a question you have about teaching to what the promising practices research says.
I noticed two things while I was reading this week’s material: teachers need to focus on what works and why it works in their classrooms rather than what didn’t work for them, and the idea that teachers need to share their “best practices”. First, I agree with what Sean said, that we, as teachers, just accept that the lesson that worked were “more fun”, yet we never really question what made them fun/successful. I loved the notion that Nick Maneno came up with to have teachers teaching teachers, but I have come up against the same administrative road block. Who has time? Who wants to? How would this better my staff? So, of course, we didn’t and we won’t.
Another topic I would like to embark on is one that also troubled Maneno. I have an administration which wants to be able to successfully assign grades to student learning. So, my question lies in…How do I instill student based inquiry, when my school wants me to teach “writing skills that are going to be useful to students in the “real world””. My school is not very responsive to the five paragraph essay because “the kids don’t need it” when they are out looking for jobs in a few years. I do question whether being able to form a coherent sentence is applicable in the "real world" and being able to think about a topic and construct a reasonable argument is valued, So, I’m at a stand still because poetry, literature, vocabulary, and the likes are not held in high regards because most of my students will not go on to college, or higher education.
Now, so what? What am I to teach students after attending MWP? Yes, my students will become better writers, but are these skills anything that will help them in the “real world”?
Response to jamie feeley and others.
Aha---the "real world". How do we define it? What the "real world" means to me does not seem to mesh with administrators and students "real world." I think that should be the "why" of teaching writing. What exactly will our students lives be like in the future? I think Jamie is right in saying that we can make students better writers but I am not sure that concept is "valued" (another word that needs defining) in many educational systems. I think Brenda? mentioned last week that she was doing a lesson using cell phones. I wonder how that turned out? Cell phones are banned in our classrooms as, heavean forbid, students might use them to communicate (but do the phones make students "better writers?")
followup to N. Glock
that is "heaven forbid". (I did not want to lose my message again, so I failed to proofread carefully. I was referring to the the students' use of text messaging in relation to cell phone use.
followup to N. Glock
that is "heaven forbid". (I did not want to lose my message again, so I failed to proofread carefully. I was referring to the the students' use of text messaging in relation to cell phone use.
followup to N. Glock
that is "heaven forbid". (I did not want to lose my message again, so I failed to proofread carefully. I was referring to the the students' use of text messaging in relation to cell phone use.
I am in the middle of reading a fabulous article written by Sheridan Blau, Director and others involved in the Southcoast (California) Writing Project in Santa Barbara in April English Education. This is an excerpt on inquiry from the article: "Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1999, 2001) offer a vision of professional development as developing an inquiry stance. Understanding professional development as inquiry entails breaking the traditional distinction between formal knowledge and practical knowledge as separate; instead, "the knowledge teachers need to teach well is generated when teachers treat their own classrooms and schools as sites for intentional investigation at the same time that they treat the knowledge and theory produced by others as generative material for interrogation and interpretation" (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 2001, 48). Engaging in inquiry means not only learning practices recommended by others (those promising practices to which Donna spoke in her post) or perfecting the practical execution of a set of teaching strategies but, rather, theorizing about teaching and learning in a way that then frames future interpretation and decision-making. In an inquiry stance, teachers "make problematic their own knowledge and practice as well as the knowledge and practice of others and thus stand in a different relationship to knowledge" (Cochran-Smith and Lytel, 2001, 49). Professional development then positions teachers' learning as "challenging their own assumptions; identifying salient issues of practice; posing problems' studying their own students, classrooms, and schools' constructing and reconstructing curriculum' and taking on roles of leadership and activism in efforts to transform classrooms, schools, and societies" (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, 278). I think this focus on inquiry provides a response in-kind to how we approach naysayers be they parents or teachers or administrators... teaching students to write well means teaching them to think well... if we are able to stitch together rationales based on inquiry into our own work that support what we do by explaining why we do it, it seems to me that the naysayers will say less nay.
Just as Heather said in a much more professional way, sometimes we have to teach kids to think. "Stitching together rationales" is a constant challenge. Always start with something they already know and then build and stretch those ideas. This week my students wrote thematic statements about Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. They all had wonderful ideas about the message of the book, but at first they sounded like cheap greeting cards. We reworded and edited on the SMART Board until the statements looked to be written by a college professor. It took collaboration and a lot of teacher guidance, but they were very proud at the end of class when I told them they were writing like AP or college students.
Creating an atmosphere of passion and trust is what I credit that lesson to. We couldn't have accomplished the risk-taking editing process on the first day of class. It took awhile to build that atmosphere. I love teaching!
Back to references to our readings..."Why did it work?" is the recommended question mentioned in "MWP Demonstrations and Peer Response"
The cell phone grammar lesson will be much more productive the next time I teach it. I asked for special permission from the principal for students to use their phones for the period only. He is as willing as I am to try anything that will intrigue the kids. We raced to complete messages in t9 and word, then we compared the uses of each. We discussed texting etiquette and audience appropriate language. I told them the "old" people of the world are concerned that text lingo will interfere with standard English, but they assured me that while kids now have to learn an extra language, standard English is still very necessary. I was quite honest with the kids and told them they were the guinea pigs of my first cell phone lesson. How does this relate to writing? audience, clarity, punctuation, language acquisition, persuasive organization...
This test run was fun for the students and me and next time I'll have it more organized and include a written (or texted) reflection. Any kind of thinking skills that evolve into communication skills should start with what the student is familiar with then stretch and build on those ideas.
I really enjoyed the Digging Deeper article by Art Peterson. I now find myself thinking a lot about the writing projects I assign to my students. Why did it work? Why was it successful and why did they enjoy it? Or if something didn't work, asking myself what I could have done different. In the past I tended to dwell on the lessons that failed instead of finding reasons why they did and change them so that in the future they were more successful.
Nick Maneno made some very good points about the resources we have in our buildings. I often think about what I could learn from some of the teachers in this school. However, I would say that it isn't so much the administration that stops us from participating in each others lessons so much as it is our peers. Some teachers would not welcome other teachers into their rooms to participate in an activity. I think that this is out of fear. It is human nature to feel as if we are being judged. This is not how all people feel, but a lot do.
I have not read anyone's comments yet, and will try to simply respond to the prompt: Lately I have had a few writing lessons that I have been very excited about as I planned them, but they fell flat -- or at least were not too successful -- when I tried to share my enthusiasm with the kids. I spend a LOT of time thinking about WHAT to do in my classroom, but I almost never think about WHY I should do things in a particular way. In other words, I think I am good at designing writing projects that develop a certain skill or that serve to help kids communicate an understanding of this or that, but the choices I make do not relate to a body of knowledge, a shared understanding of what effective writing instruction looks like. This relates to the first set of writings we did; writing as a series of jobs, not a process of continual self-expression and growth. My kids do well at their jobs, mostly, but they are not really writers.
In my masters program, we were required to conduct action research in our classroom and I loved the discipline of evaluating my teaching choices. I can only imagine how powerful this scrutiny might become when we are all in it together! It will be incredible to have the combined results of all of our inquiry questions to inform our teaching in '08-'09 and beyond!
OK, now I have gotten as far as the second comment and I have to respond! I appreciate what Heather says about teaching getting in the way of learning. This succinct statement clearly communicates what I was thrashing around with earlier: I recognize that I spend too much time planning and envisioning lessons (that excite ME!) and not nearly enough time evaluating the engagement of my students, their perception of themselves as writers, their transfer of enjoyment of literature to self-expression...all the things that make a writing classroom successful. I think we are supported in this "surface vs. substance" classroom practice by how we are evaluated as teachers: one stand-alone lesson and a follow-up discussion. It would be cool to be able to present a principal with a comprehensive writing plan based on our shared inquiry! Impressive.
Follow-up to Joni’s comments---done correctly this time, I hope.
Joni’s comment from Nick’s article that we have lots of resources in our buildings that are underused is so true. There are many professional books in our school that seldom get checked out. Teachers keep many of their professional materials to themselves and never think to share them with other teachers. I am probably guilty of this as I do not feel others are particularly interested in what I have to share.
I can also relate to Joni’s alluding to the fact that some teachers dislike “intrusion” into their classroom, perhaps out of fear of being judged harshly. I think we become “our own worst enemy” because we do not think we are doing as well as we should (or conversely, that we are doing just fine so “leave me alone”). How to overcome these attitudes is a challenge. Often teachers are willing to share ideas but they are not often given the time to collaborate with other teachers. Rethinking how time is scheduled during the school day is a first step.
Responding to Wendy's comments about plans falling flat...Well, this is my first year teaching, and I'm already beginning to formulate next years outline. I do have some lesson which fell short, but before I chuck them, I began to think that maybe I should try them again next year. I may have different students, different approaches, or different expectations. So, maybe I have to try again in order to see the value of my plans. Only then can I genuinely figure out what worked and why.
NOTE FOR ALL: THE TRANSFORMATIVE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ARTICLE FOR NEXT WEEK'S READINGS WAS NOT INCLUDED IN YOUR ORIENTATION PACKETS AND I FELT THE THREE YOU HAVE ARE GOOD ONES THEMSELVES TO GENERATE CONVERSATION, SO DO NOT FRET ABOUT NOT HAVING THAT ONE.
This is in response to Jamie Feeley. I have trouble with the teaching students to write in the "real world". Actually, I struggle with teaching writing period at times, as I'm not a developed writing. I really think about the article that Nick Maneo writes about teaching the "five-sentence formula in the shape of a hamburger". I'm embarrassed to say that, that is me most of the time. How do I get away from that? I don't know. I definitely need to take a long look at the way I plan writing projects. I hope that this summer institute will help me face my fears of writing so that I can be a better writing teacher.
Comments tonight for Jamie and Joni.
As a first year teacher, Jamie, you are absolutely on track. It will be exciting next year to tweak previous lessons and see improvements and to see how different students respond. This summer's reflection and asking "Why" things work will only improve the tweaking. I'm already looking at why things work more than I have in the previous eight years teaching.
In response to Joni's worries of teaching the hamburger format: it's a good starting point for those kinds of students that like structure. But, like any structured teaching program, it only works for most kids, never all. And then we ask "Why" do these things work? This ought to be fun. This goes full circle back to Sean's first comment of the successful lessons being "more fun."
Joni - the hamburger comment got to me, too; our district does a lot with Step Up to Writing, and successful teachers of writing are ones whose kids have the "reds, yellows, and greens" down pat. (If this makes no sense, I'll explain in June!) We just came off of two days where all middle school teachers in the district got together and graded writing samples, and it was interesting to me, in the light of looking so critically at my own writing instruction, to see that many, many teachers' "best" papers were ones that fairly bored us to death: how-to paragraphs that were a lock-step to a finished product, business letters with no flair or spirit, discriptive paragraphs with a laundry list of sensory information ("I smell the salty water, I feel the warm sand, I hear the sound of the waves...zzzzz!). What was even more disturbing was that when a paper came along that may have had, despite the constraints, unique voice or zestful perspective, some teachers were disdainful of the variance from approved format. I think I am having premonitions about the same thing that Nick Maneno experienced: the conflict that will arise between enthusiasm for what helps kids write expressively and the comfort of "rubrics, writing prompts, and the mechanics of writing." I suppose supporting one another in that conflict is one of the underlying purposes of this Institute!
What I’m hearing is quite a bit of “how do we get away from the five sentence or five paragraph writing style?” On one hand, teaching the five paragraph essay is important, students need to know how to organize their thoughts logically, and where, everyone else who has been taught the five paragraph essay, know where to look. It isn’t a bad system; however, it isn’t the only way to teach writing. I was saddened by Wendy’s comment of how teachers were disdainful of student writing when the child didn’t respond the way they were supposed to from the prompt. We, as teachers, should be rewarding students who think outside of the box. Yet, again, there is something to be said about following directions. I’m wrestling with this idea in my own classroom.
Heather's post mentioned "challenging our assumptions..." That's one place where I struggle. I'm constantly trying to eliminate my assumptions about one aspect of teaching or another, only to find that I've replaced one assumption with another.
That's one reason why I think collaborative learning like what we're doing here is so helpful. You are all challenging my assumptions to some extent or another.
I was taught the 5-paragraph essay format in college by a professor who thought I needed the help. From that point on I was able to BS my way through papers--helpful for my grades, but I don't know that it was helpful to my writing. This memory is brought back by reading Wendy's posts. It didn't matter if it (my writing) incorporated new ideas or a unique point of view, as long as it was organized. This allowed me to stretch the boundaries of laziness, as I could avoid reading assignments by organizing the heck out of my writing.
I'm ashamed to say I wasted a lot of time and education, and the 5 paragraph essay helped me do it.
Casey,
I, too, took the path of least resistance through my schooling. I think that the five paragraph essay was the tool that made this possible. Which is sad but maybe also speaks to the importance of that structure. Now that I am in back in school - of my own accord and out of my own pocket - I have come to see my education as more than just a collection of grades. However from ages 13-22 school was a minor inconvience in my pursuit of happiness. Anyways, I was just thinking until we change the thinking of the decision makers and gatekeepers of higher education it might be really important to make sure our "late bloomers" have a firm comand over the 5p format. This way they can survive until they realize what it is they actually want to study.
I hear what you are saying, Sean. I've always wondered though if there was another way to engage students like you and I that would result in something meaningful, not just format and organization, that would result in a higher percentage of engaged and literate students. Not just young people putting in seat time. What would that classroom look like?
Hey All,
First of all, I think that in the mayhem of finals week and my own forgetfullness, I'm coming really late to this conversation. I apologize for not getting my posting done until now--I'll be on it next week!
In response to the readings this week, I think that I was struck, again, by "Digging Deeper" and its insistence that all of our activities, no matter how successful or unsuccessful need to be in the service of something--theory or rationale. I think that this is a really salient point. In class a few weeks ago, a student was talking about how we focused too much on the "theory"--with big hand sweeps outward--instead of the actual "practice--bringing those hands into a tight ball. This reading suggest, though, that the activities come OUT of the theory or fit in with one, and we ought to be mindful of what that is.
I, too, sympathized with Nick Maneno. There is nothing worse than coming to something with fresh ideas and enthusiasm and finding out that people either aren't excited, or just want the new ideas to fit in with the old models. I think that this is an interesting connection between the two articles. It seems like the school wanted Nick's fun lessons, without being willing to examine the ways that they might inform or require a change in the overall culture or curriculum.
Again, sorry that I'm late, everyone. Hope that you're all having a great week, and I'll look forward to being more a part of this conversation next week.
All my best,
Elliot
Yep, I'm a week off, too. I wish it was because I took a week off or something fun, but that's not the case.
The concept of working with "why" something works in my classroom doesn't feel new since that was certainly the focus of many of my course with the MAT, but I am also not afraid to be open about exploring why what DOESN'T work, doesn't work.
I am afraid of failure, but I don't see it as failure to have a lesson bomb or my kids really not "get it" unless I am not honest about the lack of success at the time. My mother was (sorry, Mom...is...) wonderful about helping us see "mistakes" in our art projects or sewing attempts as opportunities to go a different direction. This was not the case with missed curfews or no-account boyfriends, however. :)
Connecting with others on staff who are TERRIFIED but HIDE when it comes to admitting the need for improvement is the #1 goal of my teaching team this year. You can hear it at our staff meetings. In this case, we want to explore advisory time connections, but I can see it in Lorrie's eyes that she hopes the MWP will help us connect and dispel the writing fears also! ~ Beth Ann
I think we become “our own worst enemy” because we do not think we are doing as well as we should (or conversely, that we are doing just fine so “leave me alone”). How to overcome these attitudes is a challenge. Often teachers are willing to share ideas but they are not often given the time to collaborate with other teachers.
I agree with this statement fully, because I have seen it in almost every school situation I have encountered Teachers do not like to share what they are doing either out of fear of looking foolish or not "smart" or not doing the job they are supposed to be doing. As a Librarian, it is sometimes hard to get teachers to share their plans and team teach their subjects with them. It is a question of who is in charge? Or is it who knows more? I am not sure, but it is difficult to give up the keys to the kingdom and share and work together. It seems odd when we expect our students to do that.
The contrasting images in “The Burning of Paper instead of Children” make me think deeply. It took me a while to decide whether readers were being asked to question the response of the neighbor, the scientist and art collector to his son’s school-end mathbook burning. While his sick feeling at the significance of book-burning is worth affirming, his technique of encouraging the same from his son may not have the intended affect. In the end, it is nice to be reminded that despite Joan of Arc’s impoverished life and lowly speech, she remains admired and written about, even in discussions about books and writing themselves. I wonder why it is that Adrienne writes that in America we have only the present tense. I understand the fear in regards to a society’s not learning from the past or being concerned about actions’ implications for the future. I do not share the opinion that we are living only in the present, but I do believe that often mistakes are repeated as individuals and societies. I believe some do this unwittingly, but many others do recognize the cycles and simply seem not able to completely break them if at all. Also, I believe much of the past is worth repeating. Although America has changed drastically on the technological front as well as through the minds and choices of people individually and collectively, I do not believe that people hundreds of years ago were less intelligent or capable of empathy than people today.
Like Bomer and Bomer stated in their introduction, I too have thought at times about allowing my core beliefs drive my teaching more than conventions and form. Certainly, if students know how to spell and organize ideas, but have no ability or desire to communicate these in a socially relevant format, then what good is their knowledge? I believe they would still have the tools to be powerful, but the choice is theirs to make. I think the problem with teaching according to our beliefs is the question of whose beliefs we allow to be taught. Certainly, under the umbrella of character education and encouraging acceptance and tolerant school environments, we can screen some teacher beliefs out of the classroom and allow many in, but I think the lines between personal morals and societal need for universal respect and “societal morals” is easily blurred.
In the discussion of choice and freedom and its effects in the classroom, I found myself pondering the extent to which my classroom is democratic, and how often the group of students makes the determination of how much choice I can allow. Time, and its limitations, is also a consideration. While I do not think giving choices rather than assigning writing prompts is simply a “romantic notion that adults shouldn’t interfere with children’s development,” I also find myself landing at more of a middle ground . I usually write three or four writing prompts for each essay assignment, each exploring a different major theme we have discussed within the text. I always like to leave the last prompt blank, as I do like to encourage kids to develop their own topic when they are able and have the interest. However, the time it would take to ask each student to do this for each writing assignment seems prohibitive. The other limitation I experience in relation to a truly democratic classroom is that for choice to work, the idea of choice has to be taken seriously by the students. For a democratic society to truly “work” as devised, those with the choice have to be willing to exercise it (by voting, expressing views to legislators, etc.). For a classroom to work democratically, students have to buy in to the idea of choosing assignments/writing prompts for their own benefit and growth, not simply by which one will be easiest or fastest to complete. At an even more basic level, students have to at least buy in to being and working in a classroom environment for the democratic element to work. I’m sure all teachers face those whose choice would be to do nothing. In my environment, the students often do not want to be at our school, at least for the first part of their stay. So, winning them over to simply engage for benefit of a grade, let alone for the intrinsic value of learning, is at times daunting. Then, in the same group, there are those kids who surpass my expectations in their earnest desire to work and use higher level thinking skills to critically engage with the material. So, it comes down to the challenge to motivate each student where he/she is at for me, and then to be able and willing to differentiate tasks and assignments at times once students buy into the process of working to learn.
Analyzing why a particular practice worked in a class is important. If you understand the "why," you can better expand your method to a variety of audiences. Different students learn in different ways and we, as teachers, need to be able to adapt to that reality.
Comment to Jamie
I can better explain the "real world" for you. It's the business world where our students apply for jobs. As anyone who does hiring will tell you, the application (which can include prehiring tests with essays) that is fraught with errors is tossed into the garbage.
Comment to Sean
The 5p format is important in college for just the reasons you stated. It can be modified and expanded into 3, 5, or 10 page papers if the students understand its basic format. I think students can be wildly creative in the 5p format if we give them the encouragement and green light to do so.
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