In this week's reading from Noden, I found the discussion between imitation and creation, versus plagiarizing and copying to be a great source of potential lessons. I've found that, although students are impressed constantly by their teachers to avoid plagiarism, they are simply told what not to do, rather than given guidelines as to how to write in their own voice, and document someone else's voice when you rely upon it. Furthermore, I've found that plagiarism is only discussed in the terms of research paper composition; as the chapter revealed, falsification or plagiarism has occurred in every genre possible -- not just research. Creative nonfiction and memoirs are two genres with some particularly egeregious examples in recent memory.
This can all be very confusing and frustrating for a student because we conversely discuss the minutia of what makes a work of literature classic or seminal. I think that if it were made clearer how to apply what authors have done again and again to their own writing, but show how to make it uniquely theirs students might understand the difference between imitating and plagiarizing. An example that could illustrate imitation, as well as cause a discussion about literary tropes, is the film Star Wars. As a class, students could pull these tropes and themes out, from the hero's quest to the distressed damsel to the evil empire, to see what makes the film so popular and rewatchable. After some discussion, you could tell them about Joseph Campell's Hero with a Thousand Faces and how George Lucas deliberately used it as a reference, as well as the film serials of his childhood like Buck Rodgers, to explore age-old themes in a new way.
With that illustration fresh in student minds, I think that the next step would be looking at repeated tropes or structures in literature. I liked the illustration of the writing trees because it shows how many ways a sentence can convey information. As a bonus, this activity is helpful for students who struggle to convey their arguments clearly, or who fall in to formulaic patterns while trying to express a particular feeling. The Anderson readings for this week connceted well becasuse they dealt with teaching the sentence. I could see tying many of the concepts from to the writing trees Noden illustrated. For example, you could show how a dangling modifier causes the "branches" in the sentence to state the message of the sentence confusingly.
Regarding the dark side of imitation, I liked the "Explore Plagiarism" activity for its I think that too often, teachers focus on the morality of plagiarism rather than examine why it happens. In short, I think that we can go beyond the obvious, knee-jerk response to plagiarism (BAD! CHEATING! LAZY! WRONG! are some responses that come to mind) with our students, and use some practical examples of it. A debate activity might be a good way to discuss some of the alleged plagiarists; that is, have students pick one of them and debate whether or not there was plagiarism in their work and if there was whether it was deliberate or not. I was certainly surprised by some of the alleged plagiarizers on that list. I'm sure that students will be too. Further exploration into this subject could be looking into what the consequences were, if any, for these alleged plagiarizers. I think that the real-world concequences of plagiarism are much more interesting and nunaced than how teachers make it appear. IMMEDIATE FAILURE! rarely happens, for one. The consequences are usually are the result of allegation, and cause massive amounts of debate, finger-pointing, and are generally much more protracted.
I won't talk too much in depth about Anderson's chapter since I have to teach a Grammar RX lesson on sentences and I want to save the bulk of my ideas for that, but I will say that the clarity of the chapter gives me hope that the methods we're learning actually work. I'm understanding grammar more and more through , but more importantly, I'm understanding how to explain how grammar works more and more.
Monday, February 27, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Putting into Practice
Out of all of the weekly readings that I have had for this class this semester, this set of chapters has probably been my favorite, soley because it deals with not just what we should be doing in the classroom, but how. I must admit that I have been somewhat frustrated with these readings thus far, as well as the pedagogy that I've read for other classes this semester, because so much of it tells instead of showing what to do -- even if that is the main message of the text. Seems a wee bit contradictory to me. At any rate, I liked the that the authors, especially Anderson, detailed their strategies through their own lessons in practice. This step-by-step process helped me visualize some ways to model grammar in the classroom.
Delving into the lessons themselves, I was surprised by how in-depth the integration between grammar and text actually was. I suppose this is my degenerate, grammar-severed-from-meaning education muddying my conception of what a lesson ought to look like. But at the same time, I can see how you could wrap up a text that students are studying and pull instruction out of that much, much more effectively than examples. This approach really appeals to my love of literature; I can visualize getting students to find example passages in a sentence-underlining frenzy.
Another technique which appealed to me was the keeping of writer's notebooks. Since I can see students being initially resistant to freewriting on a regular basis, perhaps a way to get them interested would be to have them come up with topics and write them down on slips of paper, collect them, and keep them in a bowl or box. Then, each day, a student can draw out a slip to determine what they will be writing about that day. A former teacher of mine used a technique similar to this; she kept a "no-questions-asked question box" which students could fill prior to a test, and then part of our review consisted of doing activities around student questions. The question box was useful because often what other students put in it were common questions that we were either too afraid or didn't think to ask about, and it was empowering because what we were learning what we wanted to know.
I also like the passage where Anderson talks about how to explain the use of grammatical conventions when students are keeping their writers notebooks. The comparison to grammar "rules" to "rules" found in the everyday places. Furthermore, I like that grammar is emphasized as something to help clarify meaning in writing, rather than something that is arbitrary and nitpicky. Teaching students that grammar rules act best as guidelines, or tools, depending upon the circumstances, might help clear up confusion in students about what they are supposed to do with all of their "brushstrokes."
Finally, one thing that I'm realizing about this approach is that it takes a lot more work in the planning stages. I'm learning about Learning Focused Schools (LFS) in another one of my classes right now, and I think that that method is well-suited to preparing grammar lessons or workshops. In short, you start out with an end goal for your students and then plan lessons, then create activities, all of which gradually lead up to successful completion of that goal. If the end goal here is to, for example, model and apply varied sentence structures, you could plan lessons that do that through examining specific passages in an assigned text.
Delving into the lessons themselves, I was surprised by how in-depth the integration between grammar and text actually was. I suppose this is my degenerate, grammar-severed-from-meaning education muddying my conception of what a lesson ought to look like. But at the same time, I can see how you could wrap up a text that students are studying and pull instruction out of that much, much more effectively than examples. This approach really appeals to my love of literature; I can visualize getting students to find example passages in a sentence-underlining frenzy.
Another technique which appealed to me was the keeping of writer's notebooks. Since I can see students being initially resistant to freewriting on a regular basis, perhaps a way to get them interested would be to have them come up with topics and write them down on slips of paper, collect them, and keep them in a bowl or box. Then, each day, a student can draw out a slip to determine what they will be writing about that day. A former teacher of mine used a technique similar to this; she kept a "no-questions-asked question box" which students could fill prior to a test, and then part of our review consisted of doing activities around student questions. The question box was useful because often what other students put in it were common questions that we were either too afraid or didn't think to ask about, and it was empowering because what we were learning what we wanted to know.
I also like the passage where Anderson talks about how to explain the use of grammatical conventions when students are keeping their writers notebooks. The comparison to grammar "rules" to "rules" found in the everyday places. Furthermore, I like that grammar is emphasized as something to help clarify meaning in writing, rather than something that is arbitrary and nitpicky. Teaching students that grammar rules act best as guidelines, or tools, depending upon the circumstances, might help clear up confusion in students about what they are supposed to do with all of their "brushstrokes."
Finally, one thing that I'm realizing about this approach is that it takes a lot more work in the planning stages. I'm learning about Learning Focused Schools (LFS) in another one of my classes right now, and I think that that method is well-suited to preparing grammar lessons or workshops. In short, you start out with an end goal for your students and then plan lessons, then create activities, all of which gradually lead up to successful completion of that goal. If the end goal here is to, for example, model and apply varied sentence structures, you could plan lessons that do that through examining specific passages in an assigned text.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Clarify, Don't Correct
In this week's reading, I found it interesting that Weaver drew comparisons between grammar acquisition in young children and English Language Learners. The commonality between them is that much of learning to speak a language is observing and experimentation. I can remember following this process as a young girl as I found words I didn't recognize when reading. For example, while reading a Nancy Drew book in third grade I became facinated by a new word that I found: "rhododendron." After that, I described any and all plants in my midst as a "rhododendron," not knowing in my youthful bliss that there are very specific contexts and places to be discussing flowering shrubbery. To the credit (and patience!) of those around me, I eventually learned how to pronounce and use words that I picked up properly.
Learning English a second language, however, presents unique challenges. The example essay from an ELL student on page 155 is a good example of this. Putting aside my mental red pen, I can see that the student has a good, well-developed set of ideas lurking in there. Though the inner editor is screaming "The sentence structure! The word choice! The vagueness of the thesis! et cetera," I can see that it is more beneficial to help them clarify rather than correct what concepts and ideas already exist in the student's mind.
As such, I think that the next chapters about making expository essays more engaging are a nice segue. In many ways, I think that if we as teachers clarified that the distinctions we draw between many types of writing are more arbitrary than we may like to admit many, if not most misconceptions about English and English teachers would be clarified as well. Upon reflection, much of what we call good fiction, journalistic, or even academic writing freely bends genre rules. I think that what they all hold in common is the ability to persuade, and as such I think the most important part of writing is teaching students the many, many ways that a writer can go about making an argument.
On the other hand, I can see a danger in telling students to break from the formula completely. Without making it clear to students that the so-called rules of essay composition are, in fact, guidelines, I can see writing assignments degenerating into chaos. I don't want this to be meant as a condemnation of students. Put simply, students are so used to teachers telling them what they must do, they aren't even sure what to do when you eliminate the "musts" and "have tos." Because of this, I hope that Weaver goes into some effective strategies for transitioning the classroom from formulaic writing to functional writing.
One thing that I do like about Weaver's approach is that it takes a constructivist view of grammar. Specifically, I find the conception of error as part of learning especially interesting. A summation of the chapter would be that errors in grammar usage do not just arise from defiance or ignorance; rather, they come from a variety of sources such as an incomplete grasp upon or oversimplification of a concept. Furthermore, the paralells that Weaver draws between how native English speakers form their speech as children and how nonnative English speakers develop an understanding of it are also tied to this. The teacher's role, then, is to help the student learn how to keep using a misused concept, but model how to use it in its proper context.
Learning English a second language, however, presents unique challenges. The example essay from an ELL student on page 155 is a good example of this. Putting aside my mental red pen, I can see that the student has a good, well-developed set of ideas lurking in there. Though the inner editor is screaming "The sentence structure! The word choice! The vagueness of the thesis! et cetera," I can see that it is more beneficial to help them clarify rather than correct what concepts and ideas already exist in the student's mind.
As such, I think that the next chapters about making expository essays more engaging are a nice segue. In many ways, I think that if we as teachers clarified that the distinctions we draw between many types of writing are more arbitrary than we may like to admit many, if not most misconceptions about English and English teachers would be clarified as well. Upon reflection, much of what we call good fiction, journalistic, or even academic writing freely bends genre rules. I think that what they all hold in common is the ability to persuade, and as such I think the most important part of writing is teaching students the many, many ways that a writer can go about making an argument.
On the other hand, I can see a danger in telling students to break from the formula completely. Without making it clear to students that the so-called rules of essay composition are, in fact, guidelines, I can see writing assignments degenerating into chaos. I don't want this to be meant as a condemnation of students. Put simply, students are so used to teachers telling them what they must do, they aren't even sure what to do when you eliminate the "musts" and "have tos." Because of this, I hope that Weaver goes into some effective strategies for transitioning the classroom from formulaic writing to functional writing.
One thing that I do like about Weaver's approach is that it takes a constructivist view of grammar. Specifically, I find the conception of error as part of learning especially interesting. A summation of the chapter would be that errors in grammar usage do not just arise from defiance or ignorance; rather, they come from a variety of sources such as an incomplete grasp upon or oversimplification of a concept. Furthermore, the paralells that Weaver draws between how native English speakers form their speech as children and how nonnative English speakers develop an understanding of it are also tied to this. The teacher's role, then, is to help the student learn how to keep using a misused concept, but model how to use it in its proper context.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Learning from Example
Oftentimes while I read something that I enjoy, I will go back and reread whilst on an underlining frenzy, marking up lines of text that I think hint at or reveal something important. But most often, I underline sentences that I find to be beautiful. Because of this, Anderson's idea of using "mentor texts" to model good writing appealed to me. After all, when an someone is trying appreciate an artistic technique, like chiaroscuro, they probably go to a museum and look at a Rembrandt's contrast of light and shadow. They don't look at a deliberately blurry, smudgy mess and try to think of ways to fix it. Why should reading and writing be any different?
I find Anderson's sliding scale of context to be an interesting concept. At first, I was taken aback at the thought of a single sentence as a context for something, but looking at the definition of context and how it is intended to be used, I liked the idea. For struggling students, starting small, with a sentence, and moving on to more complex examples makes sense.
I can think of some ways that modeling strategies were implemented in my education. A successful example was when a teacher took an example of past student writing that used good transitions from one argument to the next, since our class was having difficulty with that in our essays. On the other hand, a somewhat negative example of modeling was when a teacher spent an entire class using my paper as an example of what not to in choosing synonyms. She of course blacked out my name, and reassured me that she would use other people's papers as examples in the future so as not to pick on anyone. A problem that Anderson would see in these modeling experiences would be that they were only to correct errors, not to actually model good writing. Another problem is that in both instances, the modeling wasn't systematically done. It was unexpected, and not memorable unless you were the poor hapless student having difficulty with a concept.
Though I agree that using what he calls "correct-alls" do more harm then good, I actually disagree with Anderson when he says that there is no value in looking at negative examples of grammar. I do see value in it, when it is a part of the writing and editing process. I think editing can be an encouraging and uplifting process if it is modeled well, and student-led. I also believe, along with Anderson, that it needs to be part of a routine. Part of what made me more successful as a writer was a fusion of constantly appreciating what worked and what didn't in a text.
To come full circle, one thing that I think could be helpful for students improving their conception of grammar is teaching them strategies for close reading. Not only will their appreciation and understanding of a text increase, but by seeing the structure of a good argument or just a beautifully written passage they will unconsciously be intaking models for their own work. (A resource comes to mind for teaching this is Mortimer Adler's essay "How to Mark a Book.")
I find Anderson's sliding scale of context to be an interesting concept. At first, I was taken aback at the thought of a single sentence as a context for something, but looking at the definition of context and how it is intended to be used, I liked the idea. For struggling students, starting small, with a sentence, and moving on to more complex examples makes sense.
I can think of some ways that modeling strategies were implemented in my education. A successful example was when a teacher took an example of past student writing that used good transitions from one argument to the next, since our class was having difficulty with that in our essays. On the other hand, a somewhat negative example of modeling was when a teacher spent an entire class using my paper as an example of what not to in choosing synonyms. She of course blacked out my name, and reassured me that she would use other people's papers as examples in the future so as not to pick on anyone. A problem that Anderson would see in these modeling experiences would be that they were only to correct errors, not to actually model good writing. Another problem is that in both instances, the modeling wasn't systematically done. It was unexpected, and not memorable unless you were the poor hapless student having difficulty with a concept.
Though I agree that using what he calls "correct-alls" do more harm then good, I actually disagree with Anderson when he says that there is no value in looking at negative examples of grammar. I do see value in it, when it is a part of the writing and editing process. I think editing can be an encouraging and uplifting process if it is modeled well, and student-led. I also believe, along with Anderson, that it needs to be part of a routine. Part of what made me more successful as a writer was a fusion of constantly appreciating what worked and what didn't in a text.
To come full circle, one thing that I think could be helpful for students improving their conception of grammar is teaching them strategies for close reading. Not only will their appreciation and understanding of a text increase, but by seeing the structure of a good argument or just a beautifully written passage they will unconsciously be intaking models for their own work. (A resource comes to mind for teaching this is Mortimer Adler's essay "How to Mark a Book.")
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