Link to my Digital Story

Link to digital story that may or may not work

Testing, testing... can you copy and paste this to view my digital story? :)

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B4MWHjsaNYDeYTA3MTIxMjYtNjg4YS00YzFjLWFkYjgtZTcxZTBlMzBlNDU4&hl=en_US

What's Right With Writing

Rief’s article, “What’s Right with Writing,” brought up many of the same points we’ve been reading about in other articles. The Writing Project is a club, it turns out, with ring leaders , named Elbow, Atwell, Romano, Sommers, Caulkins, and Graves.

What have I learned about writing my teaching of writing?

I’ve learned that what I’m doing really isn’t teaching writing. It is expecting students to be able to write and organize and draft and revise just because they’ve heard those words before. They’re in high school now; I think I’ve been assuming that makes them capable of producing good, or just decent, writing without much guidance. I believe every teacher in my school is working under basically that same principle. I don’t think much writing or teaching of writing is happening at the high school level in my area.

I have learned that I want to break this trend and get to the bones of it this year. I understand that is going to be a huge process complete with road blocks, missteps, and blunders, but I also understand it will be worth it.

Why does writing matter?

Writing matters because it helps people think. Because expressing ideas and thoughts is important. Because communication and communicating through writing, in particular, sets us apart from so many other forms of life. Because what we have to say and how we say it gets us places in life.

What do our students need to help them write well?

Yes, they need time. I need time! Students need a little freedom of choice. I’ve assigned very few writing assignments where choice factored in. I pretend that they have a choice in who they select to do their research paper on—but they must choose from a list because the librarian only has so many sources and topics, and they have to choose someone whose contribution has been “positive.” The narrowing of choice goes on and on from there.

Students need explicit instruction and many opportunities to practice writing about things that interest them (read choice). They need to be exposed to good writing, different genres, and they need to have an in depth understanding of audience. I thought these things just sort of sunk in over time or something. I thought audience was easy to address—I’ve never spent time teaching it.
Finally, for this blog at least, I believe students need feedback al throughout the writing process. I’m guilty of rough draft/final draft comments. I want to conference and peer conference much more in my classroom. Kids need input and feedback before they consider it a done deal.

What stands in the way of powerful writing instruction?

I think ignorant teachers are partly to blame. I grew up thinking of writing as one thing during school and another thing when I wrote for pleasure. I accepted that school writing was hoop jumping and that personal writing was where I got to explore, take risks, and find pleasure. I think I’ve been teaching under that same assumption. The article mentions “lack of tools” and I guess that goes along with my thoughts. That and the fact that there is such a lack of professional development dedicated to writing instruction. The article blames testing a lot—I guess so. I’m not sure why teaching good writing wouldn’t translate into decent test scores though. Maybe it’s the pressure to do well on tests that makes us feel like we need more direct instruction that deals with grammar, syntax, and the “process” of writing—without actually writing?

A lot needs to change within my own classroom. I wasn’t raised using writer’s workshop. I learned to write, somehow, in college (Due to pressure? Opportunity? Professors? Maybe it was just “my time?”). This year is going to be hectic and transformational. It’s intimidating, but like we’ve been learning, I have to understand that I won’t be able to change a million things that first day of class. I need to find a few ways to implement more of NWP’s philosophies and see where that takes me and my students.

Top 10 Thoughts on Revision

10. Read more = write better

9. Stalk sentences: use examples of what good writing looks and sounds like. We read enough “bad” writing as it is

8. Skinny to steroids

7. Ask good questions of the writer to help him identify what needs revision. In the absence of good questions, ask “What do you think?”

6. Conference! Deliberately conference and address revision

5. I have a long way to go as a teacher of revision

4. Teaching revision is one of the most important components of writing—but it is among the least of the components that is explicitly taught

3. Revision is in the eye of the beholder (however selective)

2. Good writers revise well…

1. …or, Good revisers write well?

What He Could Do

What He Could Do
(For my husband on our anniversary)

Strip the finish off old, ugly furniture and
make it new and beautiful.
Replace countertops and cupboard doors and
make them new and beautiful.
Honor tradition.
Create art out of a salvaged beam and
make it new and beautiful.

Hold all of my hand, autumn yellow oak leaf, in his.
Hold all of my body, winter log on the fire, in his.
Carry his beaming baby girl along with him
to feed the chickens, depositing fresh eggs in his pocket.
Plant raspberry starts. Pit cherries.
Thin rows of carrots, spinach, chard.

Sing with bravado, speak with reason.
Weigh options, consequences, possibilities
against the backdrop of all America.
Love his wife, laugh with his children, and
stand at the stove patiently stirring a pot of soup.

--Kathryne Keinert
16 July 2011.
--with thanks to Elizabeth Holmes for her inspiration,
“What She Could Do.”

Britton's Mind-Freak

This article, this class, has turned my life into a series of case studies. I was in the car driving to Sandpoint over the weekend with my 13 year old step-daughter and her best friend. They were sharing stories back and forth and, this day, rather than tune them out, I decided to eaves drop using Britton’s article as a framework. How much of what we say is expressive? And under what sort of circumstances are we prompted to move from the expressive to the transactional or poetic?

H started off by describing a dream she had. I suppose this was expressive talk, though I’m not sure even her best friend, B, was in on the story. Such is the nature of dreams that they are very abstract and emotional—they are tricky to express and I suppose they require a speaker to use the transactional and poetic even to make “real” stories out of them. They are very hard to convey and H did a bad job of it. The delivery of the dream information trailed off and, without prompting from B, neither became transactional nor poetic. B began a new conversation as if H had never mentioned her dream.

B’s “story” was about how annoying her mother had been all morning. Annoying, unfair, and demanding. She used great details—still maintaining a mostly expressive dialogue, though occasionally, for her own satisfaction (or perhaps vindication), B allowed her language to travel into the poetic—using parallelism, alliteration, and emphasis on the most terrible parts of her mother’s behavior.

H listened, I think, and when B had finished her story, H said, “Oh, lame,” or something along those lines, and entered an entirely new diatribe about how her I-Pad had locked her out for 7 hours because H had impossibly set the password.

This sort of non-communication between the girls lasted the duration of the trip. I don’t know if all teenagers are like this, or if my girls were especially unaware of each other’s efforts, but it was mind-blowing to listen to. What would Britton say to this? If we no longer prompt, question, or challenge each other to move from expressive to transactional or poetic, what writing do we expect from our young people? If they don’t speak in this manner, is it any wonder they are not creative when it comes to employing either modality in their writing?

I tested (oh you BET I tested!) H later on and throughout the day—prompting her to clarify, expand, expound, and give details. And she did. She tired of talking to me, but I’m not sure that outcome can be avoided under any circumstances these days. The important news is that she had no problem giving me transactional and poetically driven speech. I considered that to be a step in the right direction...

As far as teaching: You know, this weekend was one of the first times I felt like my life as a teacher and my life outside of teaching were melding together. I had a professor tell me, “Whatever you do, make sure your avocation and your vocation are the same thing. Make sure what you do for work is not too far strained from what you do for love.”

What I observed and cared about in the car ride is what I want to observe and care about in the classroom. It made me feel empowered, important, a part of things, a learner of life, a teacher, as I thought and drove, thought and drove. That is a good feeling. That makes me think I’m more meant for this job than I had been feeling previously. Have I mentioned yet that SI 2011 couldn’t have come at a more important time in my life?

Where I'm From...

I am from a loaded, freshly run dishwasher
From an overflowing ashtray and my father atrophying in his oversized leather chair.
I am from the bright yellow paint, the torn, vinyl barstools that scratch little legs—
From the gnocchi dough rolled off the back of a fork and the fresh pasta
drying on racks throughout the kitchen. From the pile of freshly grated parmesan that stunned the neighborhood kids who recognized that cheese only as powder. Sneak a pinch and the taste would bite you back.

I am from diseased Aspen, planted at an elevation too low to survive.
The dandelions no one could kill, the tulips and daffodils that sprouted defiantly each year through the choking Kentucky bluegrass, large and bright and happy, eventually chopped up in the lawn mower.
The enormous, lightening stunted Blue Spruce, gray, round top, spanning the front yard from sidewalk to bedroom window—unforgiving needles scraping the pink, puffy skin of a desperate child trying to retrieve her swallowed toy—
Those long limbs I remember
As if they were my own.

I’m from long car rides to visit family across the western states and wine drunk red faces laughing deeply, laughter that could dig beneath the pain of everyday oppression—
From mother sewing our clothes and Halloween costumes
And dad standing on the front porch, watching his children piled into the car for another night at a hotel.
I’m from a TV blaring from dawn till dusk and eating our meals around it
And from the continuous traffic of footsteps in and out of the house throughout the day and night.

I’m from “Go clean your room,” and “Good. Fine. I don’t know.”
And “Daylight in the swamps.”
I’m from no good fishing in Utah—all the trout are in Idaho.
From spacious suburbia South Ogden, massively wide streets, white sidewalks, hornets nesting in the entryway
And from Sienna grandmother who sang to and cursed at us in Italian and a Bohunk great grandfather Hroneck who loved women and sugar free candy—
Eggs in everything. Lamb on Sundays.
From a little sister who fractured her jaw, broke her arm twice, swelled from mosquito bites, and did whatever you said—
Who jumped from the top of the slide, had seizures you could never see, did handstands during soccer games, and could never remember rules.
Beachwood TV trays, folding laundry rack, heavy oak table we used at Thanksgiving or when mom and dad were making up, steel wool and Ajax—
I keep my own supply of it all,
Here in North Idaho,
Only we sit at the table for everything, and the TV trays serve as extra counter space
to cool cookies.

An Emig and an Emu walk into a bar...

Oh, Emig. This is not the first time something I’ve read or learned during NIWP SI 2011 has felt more like a “calling out” than an informative discourse. I’d be read, read, reading along, and then BAM, a quick list of “What we do’s” vs. “What we should be doing’s” would smack me upside the head (heart?) and make me search my memory for moments when I’ve been guilty of teaching the ineffective, unproductive, even harmful way… Argh!

And I say teaching, I guess, because that’s the word we use to describe any actions teachers take in front of a classroom of students, right? That’s our verb. Teachers teach, students learn. But what if neither is happening? What if neither happens for a really long time? Entire months, quarters, school years? When will someone come along and say, “Oh dear, you haven’t been teaching at all! And look at those students—they haven’t learned!”

So, here. Here is a list of things teachers of writing should be doing, if good teaching of writing is to take place:

1. Write yourself! A person who doesn’t herself write cannot sensitively help others to write.
I can’t think of the last time I’ve written anything more complex or substantial than a greeting card. When I began teaching, I had a strong conviction that English teachers should read and write regularly. Somewhere during the…oh, first week of my first year, probably, I lost sight of that philosophy. Lost sight of it somewhere in the sea of grading, planning, and side-bar committee obligations I got caught up in.

2. Observe other writers and teacher-writers regularly.
Living in Priest River, this isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish. However, authors share their work pretty regularly in Sandpoint, which isn’t an impossible drive. I need to be more in sync with opportunities to listen to other writers.

3. Be conscious and adjust to attitudes, constructs, and paradigms of student writers.
I know I am weak here. I do my best to get buy-in from kids, but often when that buy-in is tough to procure, I resort of pleads or promises that, like, it won’t hurt too badly or that it’s “almost over.” I need to be more gentle in my approach to teaching writing. I need to understand that for some kids, it’s as pleasurable as a dentist visit. That is as much my problem to deal with as it is theirs. And I’m the one with the tricks and the ability to help them change their ideas about the writing process.

4. Assess growth in writing against its developmental dimensions (recognize growth and distinguish that from mistake)
I think this will be perhaps the most difficult goal for me to reach. I am such an objective grader (rubric is my middle name) that I’m not sure how to identify, specifically, what amount of growth is taking place within a student’s writing. This section earned a question-mark annotation, and even now, several days later, I’m not sure what that will look like as far as grading goes. And then the proficient, even prolific, writer comes to mind—how do I assess growth from a student who already exceeded grade level expectations the first day of class? I’m not saying this is impossible. I’m just leaving it floating out there for a while. I need to marinate in the potential of this goal and talk with others who practice it. I like what Emig wrote, “Developmental errors forward learning while mistakes impede it.” I think that is a good focal point.

Emig’s article was enlightening and left me much to ponder. Along with Moffett and Brittan, I’d say these three articles made the entrance fee into SI 2011 totally worth it.

Don't Forgets: Week One

Querencia
Important person/place
Life of Literacy (early reading memories)—similar to impact book
Writing marathon
“Chalk Talk” (example: community)
Gallery posters (on 1st third of Writer Mama)
Writer’s notebook (Barbara Crumb’s presentation)
Structuring class
Britton and Moffett
Write before you talk (level playing field)
Choose 1 sentence, few words, and share (better than summarizing!)

Jigsaw: Edelsky and Smith

I loved this article! Because I am blogging post-discussion (and, by the way, it was very fun to get to talk and work with both of you Shiao-Wei and Susan!), I am going to summarize the key differences between “authentic” and “inauthentic” writing.

Inauthentic is pretty easy to see: The stories aren’t their own, the kids fret over topics, overly-probe the teacher for clarification, listen to and steal each other’s ideas, include false information, add things that “teacher might want to hear,” write to comply, and can’t tell for themselves if a piece is finished. Furthermore, there is no sense of pride or ownership in the work produced. The kids won’t use, keep, look at, or discuss work produced inauthentically.

Authentic is also pretty easy to see (just more difficult to encourage, I guess): Kids feel ownership and take pride in this type of work. They want to share, they want feedback, they want to provide clarity through revision and discussing the work. This work is student-driven—they are interested in their own findings, their journey, their discoveries. I love the example from the article that depicts the authentic journal writer as being more secretive and protective of their thoughts as they write.

My big takeaway from this article is that I WANT my kids to behave as authentic writers and to produce authentic writing! I believe we do quite a bit in the education world to sabotage a young person’s desire to engage through writing. Inauthentic writing won’t and can’t translate magically into authentic writing, and we’re doing a huge disservice to our students when we assume it will.

Moffett's "You, I, and It"

6 July 2011

The fact that this article was published in 1965 blows my mind. So much in the article sounded really new, progressive, and refreshing. Did this kind of thinking go out of style for a few decades? During our small group discussion, I was relieved to find the same sort of surprised faces on my neighbors.

I suppose my response, at this first reading, should to be to the two “abstractive progressions—one in which the speaker’s audience becomes more remote and diffused over time and space, and another in which the speaker’s subject becomes less and less matter and more and more idea.” This article is so deep and dense that I feel like a phony trying to do more than summarize and make sense of the four stages of discourse (inner verbalization, outer vocalization, correspondence, and formal writing) and of the four stages in the processing of raw phenomena (what is happening, what happened, what happens, and what will, may, or could happen).

However, this blog is about exploring, however sheepishly, and so I’m going to take a face plant into a couple fledgling thoughts I had in reaction to this article.

First: Chekov is a master at getting away from the chronological and the what happened. When I find a moment to sneak into to a Chekov short story, I am impressed over and over again by how able and willing he is to tell what happens and what could happen. How can I consider myself a Russian winter in the middle of an Idahoan summer? Easy! I can feel the shame, pain, hope, desire, and humiliation of his character despite the fact that, for example, I am not an awkward, young, male soldier whose only experience of affection occurred when a female stranger momentarily mistook him for her lover in a dark room and gave him a sigh-filled and eager kiss on the cheek.

How do I strive to write like that? How do I get my kids to strive to write like that?

Second: I am guilty of what Moffett described as “failures of teachers”—I ask my kids to compose constantly. And I often ask them to compose in response to either a prompt or idea I’ve presented (and, again, often that prompt is attached to a reading assignment!). Disgusting! Because it will take some time for what Moffett has presented to sink in, I look forward to marinating in the potential of the ideas presented in this article over the coming days and weeks. It will take time to wrap my head around this new perspective. I had many question marks annotated in the margins of the article—not representing confusion, but to remind myself that I want to think more about what Moffett is really saying and what that will look like in the classroom.

Feeling enlightened! Well, moreover, I’m feeling like enlightenment is just around the cloudy corner...

Takeaway from Palmer's Courage to Teach:

I want to be more in tune with inner self. Chapter 1 left me with the strong, uncomfortable feeling that I have gotten away from listening to myself—that somehow I have stopped thinking about what makes me happy, what makes me feel good, what helps me fall asleep at night feeling fulfilled and tired. When did this happen? Last time I really paid attention to myself, I was writing, reading, part of clubs where I shared things in common with others. What happened? Was that really five years ago?

I can’t even excuse this fact by scapegoating my daughter. She’s only eight months, afterall, and it’s been at least four years since I lived according to my inner voice. I can’t blame my first, and only, full time job as a teacher, either—how many times over the years have I eaten boredom and spare time for dinner? How many times over the course of the past few years have I frowned and complained about feeling disconnected and lost?

What I took away from Palmer’s book, The Courage to Teach, is that the discontentment I am feeling in life could have less to do with what I am doing than with what I am not doing. The book encouraged me to revisit old passions and to keep an eye out for potential new ones. I am not too old or too busy or too set in a routine to open up my heart and to spend some time everyday doing things that bring me pleasure and keep me feeling alive. I want to pursue activities that interest me, get absorbed in things I love, new and old, and prioritize what I value over the agenda of meetings set forth by my job. Doing so will make me feel like a more complete, happy, vibrant person.