This week's readings fueled me up and readied me to launch into teaching writing. So inspired. Here's why: They demonstrated how grammar can be explored rather than taught.
I take insignificant umbrage with teaching grammar explicitly, but I want to celebrate it in context so much more. As I read the Bush article, I wrote "SHOW EXAMPLES" and "TEACH THRU STUDENTS" just as you see the phrases now, and I rarely use capital letters outside of sentence starters and proper nouns. Illustrating grammar rather than teaching it, per se, must make the rules so much more germane for students. If they see how a classmate utilized repetition - perhaps unintentionally - they will buy into its applicability so much more than if I taught it without context.
I also loved the point late in the Bush article to get away from always pointing out errors in sentences. Rather, find examples of good writing and ask students to highlight what's right about it, what they like. Such positive examples doesn't mean we shouldn't correct errors, but they should be balanced so writing doesn't seem like a gauntlet of rules. This would be all the more effective if it was a classmate's writing, the author not revealed until after the exercise. What a self-esteem boost that could be.
On Page 102 of Romano's book, "I scribbled this note: It seems really crucial to teach from something - examples of what you are saying. Like a reporter, you need interviews, data, something to write about so it doesn't become about you." I realized at that moment that learning gets really boring (and tends to cease) when the teacher just blabbers without concrete examples or sources. When that is taken into account, teaching makes more sense to me.
I am not great at talking without details. I ramble and tend to be at my worst argumentatively. It is when I have found evidence - a quote, a stat, at least an anecdote - that I feel confident that what I am saying is worth saying. In the spirit of that, I offer this quote, which unlike the previous one in this post is not from me. Says Don Murray, quoted on Page 131: "Readers read to satisfy their hunger for information - specific, accurate information they can use."
Why would students be any different? We are charged with teaching them, and in so doing, we owe them something more tangible than a really important thought. I am delighted to see so many useful examples of multiple genres in this Romano book, and I marked a number of them so hopefully I can use them in my own classrooms.
Like many of the students Romano describes in his book, I was initially resistant to writing in genres such as poetry, short story and 10-minute plays. I felt that way mostly because I'd never actually tried writing them, though I'd read many of them all. So I think I can identify with these resistant writers and the students in my classes who may not feel like writing dialogue is a skill they possess. I can honestly say to them that they might just be surprised by their own abilities.
Immediately, then, it was easy to resist the idea of the multigenre paper. Why do it? I wondered. We choose a genre for a specific purpose, a specific audience. Why blend them? Yet within a seemingly illogical framework is the logic that if you wanted to reach a given audience on varied levels you could tailor your style between a number of collected pieces. Romano illustrates this well with his William Basie example. The concept makes sense, and I like the challenge it presents writers.
