CI5461: Teaching with sources

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.

This idea of evidence and examples should infect teaching, at least for me. If I want students to find haiku's in the world - or other found poetry - then my goodness, I should provide them a few to show that it is possible. If they don't get examples, why would they, discerning students, assume that it is possible? (I appreciate all the times these writers mention that we are all creatures that choose to exert the minimal effort to accomplish the task.)

Linking this to writing, I loved the prompts Romano suggests, especially photos, indelible moments and memorable places. I like the idea of focusing on a specific idea and asking students simply to describe it. I'd bet they have much more to say than they originally assume, because they lived it. They are being asked to write what they know. And when pressed for details and examples, there is no place more immediate, convenient and (often) better than looking at a person's own life.

External Resource:

http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/index.php

This is tangentially related to what I have written about, but the Beloit College Mindset lists could be great places to start for writing prompts. Perhaps many of you have read these before. Every year, the good people at Beloit College (my younger sister is a proud graduate - shameless family plug, I know) write up a list of statements that describe the perspective of students who will graduate college in a certain year. For example, for the Class of 2006, the third entry is "South Africa's policy of apartheid has not existed in their lifetime."

As a writing prompt, these could work well for research papers. Students could select their year, pick a statement and ask, What was it like before the year I was born? Why is this significant enough to make the list? It could be a way to ask them to think beyond their lifetime and to see themselves as a bit more insignificant (in the grand scheme of time, of course).