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.
2 comments:
I, too, agree with what Dead said about the focus schools place on the cookie-cutter format. We are constently hearing that teaching is a profession--well, I feel that writing and reading should be discussed in the same fashion. There is no absolute way to approach writing, yet we try to teach students that there is.
It was my gravitation to Dean's comments about thinking that caught my attention. Simply thinking about writing makes the writer active in the process. Perhaps an answer to the question of "how can we get our students to become thinkers" is to use prompts and questions that have a variety of responses with no real incorrect answer. Also, I believe that all students are thinkers, but that they do not always have the means to show that they are thinking, recognize that they merely need to answer the question posed, or are not always confident enough to share and explore their thoughts.
From what I've seen -- and my experience here is limited -- I've noticed that classes, like people, have different personalities. What works for one group will not work with another. Hence, the cookie-cutter format offers inconsistent results.
Absolutes can give us a nice, warm feeling for the first few minutes after the new curriculum package arrives in the district office.
Please tell me no one still believes in the black-and-white thinking of "This is how we teach writing!" The creative process is so much more slippery than that.
Post a Comment