SI Reflection...

On our initial meeting on May 7th, we were given several quotes to choose from and were to respond in writing.  I chose the following:

"All my life I have been frightened at the moment I sit down to write" - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Pretty much sums it up for me...Academic writing was a genre that I could tackle, but personal writing was something I avoided...until I came to SI.  In my reflection on this quote, I wrote, "It still scares me when I sit down to write, but then I recognize I've been writing all along - with every breath I take, a life narrative grows.  It's the getting down on paper that's both tedious and freeing...I guess writing is commitment - to self, to others- a joining in and celebrating, if you will."

Well, low and behold, this is exactly what I experienced at our SI - a joining together and celebrating, with a strong commitment to write.

Teacher as Writer:
SI taught me to recognize my "writer-ness"  and to use those curiosities in the classroom to become a better teacher and inquirer.  I've always had an affinity to empathize - it helps me to wear others' shoes.  It enables me to identify with the 'other' in people.   I always knew I could empathize, but my writing experience has elevated my social awareness of words.  Empathy connects; it is social, spiritual, communal, comforting, forgiving, ripe with life.  Now I have a much stronger understanding of the necessity to write - because I can empathize, which leads to sharing and greater understanding.  It is becoming my lifeblood - this writing into the day - this reflecting...

Teacher as Inquirer:
Lil's presentation on responding to student writing got me thinking about context.  65% of teacher response focuses on function, 25% focuses on structure, 10% focuses on personal growth, and ONLY 5% is dialogic.  Here is the kicker: Lil suggested that we, as facilitators, "strive for the reverse".  This resonated with me; I like to play with language and interject words where they might not 'normally' occur.  I guess Dr. Seuss really impacted me as a child - I loved the sense of playfulness with nonsense he found with words!  So I should strive to have 65% of my response as dialogic with my students? OK.
Then I remembered a seminar I attended at RCCC, which I blogged about:

Seventh Day...

I am thinking about context, grammar and Lil's pronouncement to strive for fluency with language first; then follow up with clarity and correctness.  Fluency creates confidence in one's ability to express Self.
Makes sense...

I attended a seminar in June at RCCC and had the opportunity to attend a session facilitated by Dr. Linda Best from Kean University in Union, NJ.  The title of the presentation was: "What Writers Know and Do: The Nature of Writing and Implications for Teaching and Learning".   She bases much of her research off research conducted by Flower and Hayes, 1981.  What is interesting to note is her focused attention to differences in dialogue between proficient writers and weak writers.  She notes, "Whereas proficient writers envision their writing, developmental and weak writers adopt a 'what's next' approach, often adding new and unrelated material to their writing, which results in breaks among ideas and an overall lack of coherence"(24).  i.e. lack of fluency!

Even more fascinating are the numbers that come from her data highlights from a 20-year research program on first year college students.  "On the average, student writers producing essays in the 250-word range generated 2500-3000 words during the process of composing these essays"(17).  Kean specified that these students dialogue their thoughts - much like the stream of consciousness exercise that Lil had us do today.  Kean also documented that students repeat words on average five times in order to generate new words. (17)

Wow, today solidified the importance of dialogue in relationship to writing!  I can't wait to practice these exercises with my students!

this reflecting...it is dependent on dialogue - something else that Lil, Sally and Lacy modeled for me.  It is amazing how things connect when we put pen to our thoughts.  Like Jessie said in her blog - once you write about something, you become hyperaware.  This has me thinking about the neuroscience behind writing...hmmm?

Teacher as Professional:

Sally's enthusiasm for E-Anthology - well, I must confess that today is the first day that I have posted a personal piece on this site, but I am excited to see where it takes me.  I guess this is a piece of myself, as a professional, that I have avoided...the willingness to be critiqued, assessed, modified, uplifted, recognized...But is it important to step out of our comfort zone, as professionals, and assume leadership roles, risks, new opportunities.  This is something I need to work on...

Tomorrow I will give my presentation.  I think it encompasses all three of these personas I have been focusing on: teacher as writer, inquirer and professional.  I hope that you each can sense a part of yourself in this final presentation - for I did not compose it on my own.  Bahktin believed that the Self is plural.  In Zebroski's book Thinking Through Theory, Bakhtin is quoted, "One's own discourse is gradually and slowly wrought out of others' words that have been acknowledged and assimilated, and the boundaries between the two are at first scarcely perceptible"(189).  I view this demo as a collective effort- I have been diligent in listening and hope that you can find yourself within this work.

I love the first lines in this music and think they best sing of our experience in SI...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxRyRc3EOas

As I close, my eyes go back to my first page in my daybook,  I see the following:  This daybook is a gift from the UNC Charlotte Writing Project.  As Ralph Fletcher says, 'this notebook is your private place to write badly.'  

True, but write on, baby, write on!!!  Thank all of you for this collaborative gift...

Carrie W.

Seventh Day...

I am thinking about context, grammar and Lil's pronouncement to strive for fluency with language first; then follow up with clarity and correctness.  Fluency creates confidence in one's ability to express Self.
Makes sense...

I attended a seminar in June at RCCC and had the opportunity to attend a session facilitated by Dr. Linda Best from Kean University in Union, NJ.  The title of the presentation was: "What Writers Know and Do: The Nature of Writing and Implications for Teaching and Learning".   She bases much of her research off research conducted by Flower and Hayes, 1981.  What is interesting to note is her focused attention to differences in dialogue between proficient writers and weak writers.  She notes, "Whereas proficient writers envision their writing, developmental and weak writers adopt a 'what's next' approach, often adding new and unrelated material to their writing, which results in breaks among ideas and an overall lack of coherence"(24).  i.e. lack of fluency!

Even more fascinating are the numbers that come from her data highlights from a 20-year research program on first year college students.  "On the average, student writers producing essays in the 250-word range generated 2500-3000 words during the process of composing these essays"(17).  Kean specified that these students dialogue their thoughts - much like the stream of consciousness exercise that Lil had us do today.  Kean also documented that students repeat words on average five times in order to generate new words. (17)

Wow, today solidified the importance of dialogue in relationship to writing!  I can't wait to practice these exercises with my students!

Additional reflection for Tuesday...

As I re-read my writing from this morning - specifically about I see myself as a teacher/writer, I thought of  how to bring myself into these two nouns.  What is it about me that I can pour into these words and I recognized something:  I really enjoy empathasizing, putting on someone else's shoes, absorbing the contexts that I surround myself in - saturating and marinating in them.  Oh, I should also add that I like to focus on the positive.  So how does this make me a better writer/teacher?

Our group exercise for the day was a tableau; we chose an action and froze in response to the word 'assessment'.  Now for me, I view assessment in positive terms...as much as I dread turning in papers, as well as grading them.  At my core, I know that assessment is linked to opportunity and critical thinking/analysis/re-examining, revising, re-visiting in hope of creating something more fully...

Unfortunately, I am also aware of the numbers game teachers are forced to play at the end of each year and the dread that accompanies these tests.  There has to be a way to dialogue out of the old perceptions and into new ones...

Sixth day...

Today provided much information to reflect on...

Tableau was a very creative opening game to play with words, ideas, themes, our bodies, interpretations.

Rashid opened with a demo on how to inspire our students to social action...He introduced a wonderful new piece of software, The Museum Box.  I really want to explore this venue for composing.

Ashley brought home the beauty of glogger with her demonstration.  Megan also created an environment for critical thinking; I plan on using her lesson in my classroom this semester.

Today has me thinking about what it means to be a writer; how do we define writer?  Do the genres writers write define them?  Rashid tagged on the importance of being, and that if we claim to be a writer, then we are.  I wrote that writing is life expresses, a journey that requires us to be curious and socially engaged.  Metamorphosis...

More inquiries on inquiry...

Quotes to ponder from Brannon's "The Development of Writing":

"Teachers err in their use of grades only when they allow the fiction of 'improvement' to distort their judgements" (165).  Wait!  You mean I live in a fictitious world???!!?  Very true, aptly phrased and frustrating.  The writing program I am a part of  has bought into and canned the functionalist view of writing classes.  Lil Brannon elaborates on this view: 

"A functionalist view of writing classes, emphasizing such low-level technical accomplishments as the manufacture of a business letter, is seductive because it assures a measure of teaching 'success', yielding public evidence of productive effort.  But its effect, often, is to encourage a rudimentary behaviorism in the classroom, not unlike the training of pigeons to push levers, where students are drilled to affect the appearance of literacy without striving to acquire the humane values or the intellectual competences that literacy really entails"(166).  The phrase 'affect the appearance of literacy' really resonates with me - actually it really bothers me because there is so much truth to this.  I so want to hit a homerun with this concept and break the windshield of my student's' cars - wake up!  

"Writing - writing about things that matter, writing to make sense out of experience, writing to discover new knowledge, writing to reach ethical judgements, writing to examine the problems and complexities of the world, writing in response to meaningful reading - is an activity both truly liberal and truly artful"(167).  Zebroski would agree; he is an advocate for studio - a concept I need to implement into my  curriculum.  I have studied the Ross School in NYC, where students are surrounded by art and participate in atypical 'classrooms'.  Shoes are left at the door of the school and a multi-disciplinary approach to topics of interest is the approach taken by teachers. (a writing across the curriculum, if you will).  Wouldn't Scott also agree that writing is liberal and liberating - which is why, perhaps, we have all of these assessments currently in place - as a way to codify and control the masses?


Brannon goes on to write: "Presumably, the value of a reading program would lie mainly in its effectiveness at creating new incentives and offering additional support for readers [students], so that school reading [learning] reinforces and intensifies the literary experiences students are also accumulating elsewhere"(167).  This has me thinking of global interaction via internet - there are two professors at ECU who have implemented a digital classroom program.  It facilitates opportunities to interact, teach, learn and dialogue with students and teachers from different countries.  Dr. Susan Gardner speaks of 'updating and relating'; this is what is missing in the 'classroom'.   I want to name my class "Language Studio I", etc...  The term 'Developmental English' bothers me; what does this really mean?  Aren't we all developing and evolving our understanding and wordsmithing of language on a daily basis?  

"The answer, again, and it is an ancient one for the liberal arts, is that evaluation emphasizes, not short-term outputs, which are always inconclusive, but the character and appropriateness of activities going on in such courses, and the impact of those activities on students' dispositions to learn"(168).   This concept of activity has me thinking about transitivity analysis and the transitive nature of writing courses.  How can we create more experience in the classroom?   I think a key word here is 'activity'.  Learning is active; it is not a product to be consumed, but an experience to be shared.  I did a transitivity study on a short story writing from The Brownies Book, a magazine published initially in 1920(?) by the NAACP for children.  It has been fascinating to delve into the actions of the characters and ask the questions why? when? where? how? How does the transitive essence of verbs affect the reader/student?


More later...

Spotlight: Peacemaker’s Talk to Focus on Education in Action

Spotlight: Peacemaker’s Talk to Focus on Education in Action

Weekend reading...

Thoughts that resonated with me from Chapter 7: "The Development of Writing Ability: Some Myths About Evaluation and Improvement", written by Lil Brannon

This article advocates for the use of writing across the curriculum as it tackles the central question:  How do we measure the 'improvement' of student writers?

This was illuminating to me:  "The most debilitating illusion associated with writing instruction is the belief that teachers can, or at least ought to be able to, control writers' maturation, causing it to occur as the explicit consequence of something they do or ought to do" (165).  How many times have I thought to myself, 'Well, we covered that in class last week...you should know that by now!?"

More to come...