Chapter 4

Creating lessons for students to write, and to write for REAL audiences, is so much more concrete, authentic and memorable when teaching kids to write, right??? lol! Anyhow, while I looked at the different activities Dean uses when teaching consideration and application of writing to audiences, as well as, recognizing reasons that then create the audiences, I decided I really like the use of the book, The Secret Knowledge of Grown-ups by Wisniewski. This idea of a genre set up like an investigation file sort of hits a little close to home for me right now. I am going to do my Genre project around something similar to this. But what I really learned from this chapter is that teaching purpose and audience to students, and letting students know that I (the teacher) am merely a bystander to their writing - reader relationship, is what is most important. The freedom this concept allows students to govern their writing by, is truly empowering!

Chapter 2

When I read about the A-Z list in chapter two, I thought "Okay, that's a cute activity and something different that will help students think of ideas. I'll keep that in mind." After I applied it to our genre assignment from class, however, my opinion of the strength of the activity changed. The letters I was assigned were obnoxious, and I was entirely surprised with how many ideas I came up with. This activity will help students focus and come up with things that they didn't even know existed in their heads.

In addition, I have read the book Joyful Noise, and I loved it! It was a lot of fun to try and coordinate voices. It gives the poem more meaning when certain words are said alone and others in unison. Having students write a poem like the ones that are found in the book will really make them question what is important to them and their topic of choice.

Chapter 3

I have honestly never put much thought into genres before; I know the ones I like to read, and the ones I like to write. In this chapter Dean writes about students needing a variety, but they also need appropriate models to show these varieties. Page 57 states, "individuals can only draw from genres that they know... the more genres they know, the more potential antecedents they have for addressing new situations". I have never been required to write more than a few genres which include research papers, essays, poems, biographies, and a few short creative pieces. After reading this chapter and after our lesson in class I realized that I have been exposed to many different genres I was just not aware. I had a very limited definition of what genres were and I did not even realize how big of a range there really was. I wish now that I had been given the chance to explore a variety of genres and been able to see them and practice them. I feel like that knowledge and practice would have allowed me the skills to be a better writer. Dean reminds us again about the importance of modeling different strategies to detect these genres, so that students can gain a better understanding. It takes more than an example text, there has to be a knowledge of structure and purpose as well.

Sure, use it against me!

I think it's all summed up by the "I do, We do, You do" philosophy. I know that's not in the chapter, but it's relatable since we all took the education block already. Dean is telling us to workshop with the students and show them how to develop strategies, apply them to their writing, and enjoy the writing process. We have to demonstrate how we think during a response to a prompt we've been given. How do we brainstorm, start writing, develop the paper, have tone, etc? We walk through all the processes with our students and help them feel comfortable enough to do it on their own. Everything we read in the Reading and Writing connection, as well as Dean, told us to help students become independent in reading and writing. We need to show them how, show them that it's possible to write and read well. Once we've shown them, then we help them along until they can walk by themselves. We need to push our students just enough that they delve into a higher level of thinking. Once we have them there we teach them how to explore and find the hidden treasures. The collage was a good idea, as well as reading other authors before writing. Dean mentions one student that was comfortable writing in a specific genre if he could see an example of it done first. All in all, we just need to believe in them and help them walk the process and find the strategies that are available to them and that work for them.

Chapter One

I thought this chapter had a lot of good advice and ideas to follow when it comes to writing and thinking. Dean gives multiple tips that I think would be beneficial to any writer. Students often read different genres, but how often do they actually write using a variety of genres? If we want students to think about their writing then we need to give them opprtunities to write in styles that they like. First, they would need to experience writing varieties, then they should reflect on their writing. Without that they would not be able to decide which strategies work for them. I think that students will become thinkers before they are writers if they are given an assignment for example, that requires them to use different strategies and approaches. If teachers continue to give the same type of essay question, for example, while using the same strategies then students do not have to think, they just write how they always have. Most of the time that requires them to write about facts and add their own interpretation. However, if a teacher gives a new assignment requiring a new strategy to be used then thinking will have to take place. Dean writes about the assignment she gave using a collage as a strategy to develop an idea. Her students had to think about what pictures they were going to use, and how those pictures related to their topic. This meant that they had to think about the pictures and their meanings before they even had to think about writing. I think that this strategy would require more thinking because the students were doing more than reading a question and preparing an answer. Using pictures meant that they had to make personal connections and made their own interpretations; all requiring a new level of thinking. I do not know if this is what was meant by Kelsi's questions but I think that is just one small example of getting students to think more in regards to writing.

Strategic Writing

So...I really hope I'm doing this right. I feel completely illiterate when it comes to blogging...

Anyway, in response to the first chapter of Strategic Writing, I have to say I think it helped me solidify everything we learned in class this week about the different types of knowledge and what it has to do with the writing process. It's given me a whole new way to look at writing. I agree with what Dean said about how schools focus too much on the cookie-cutter "prewriting, drafting, and revising" writing process. That's what I learned in school, and that's what I tried to take with me to college. It wasn't until one of my upper-division writing classes that I realized that that process doesn't always fit what you want to write. Like Dean says, writing takes thinking, and a whole lot of it! I loved the quote on page 8: "If thoughtful inquiry does not lie at the heart of writing, then our students become little more than amanuenses. They cannot be writers unless they are first thinkers" (and for those like me who had no idea what "amanuenses" meant, according to Webster's, it is: a literary or artistic assistant, in particular one who takes dictation or copies manuscripts).

So, my question is: how can we get our students to become thinkers when they are so used to regurgitating information on demand? Do they want to become thinkers? Maybe they already are and it's just us teachers who aren't.

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