Creating Conditions--Beliefs about Teaching Writing

This week, my co-teacher, Jenny, and I asked the students in our Teaching Composition class to begin to envision themselves as teachers of writing, to establish their own “writing territories,” and to begin to formulate some thoughts about their future classrooms and the young writers who will grow there. 

We gave them this prompt: “On your blog: Post your own statement on what you think is important to the teaching of composition and how you foresee your own writing classroom.”

Of course, asking them to think about these things brought me back to my own notions of teaching writing. I often find myself referring to my experience as a teacher of high school English in order to help my students now, who are mostly pre-service teachers. Drawing from my awareness as a teacher and learner can provide insight and contextualize theory and research and can add an accessible voice to the conversations generated by the experts we read in class. My thinking about this prompt sent me into one of the many binders stowed away from my days in the high school classroom, and in it I found a version of a handout I gave to writing groups every year. The purpose of this handout was to introduce students to our classroom procedures for writing workshop, and, more importantly, it allowed me to articulate my beliefs about writing—in writing—for my students in a way that could frame instruction in my classroom.

 When I distributed this sheet to my classes (most recently in 2008) I believed—and I still believe:

Writing about a subject helps us learn and motivates us to learn

Writing about what we study has a practical payoff

Writing about what we study will develop all language skills

Writing about what we study will help us develop thought and educated opinions

Therefore,

You will be expected to write every day about a variety of relevant subjects

You will be given guidance and guidelines to follow

You will have helpful responses to your writing

You will be expected to provide helpful responses to others’ writing

You will have ample opportunities to share and publish your writing*

Looking backward and forward after having internalized years worth of research and reading (and having completed a dissertation about writing), I would add this:

Writing helps us know who we are and how we think

Writing gives us a way to find and articulate what we know

Writing cultivates a sense of awareness, observation, and wonder

Writing centers us deeply in the world

Calkins expresses that teachers in writing workshop create conditions for learning, and that “Writing can help those conditions by encouraging students to ask questions, to notice and wonder and connect and inspire,” and “to stay wide awake in life” (1986/1994, p. 484). The effective writing classroom, then, is a process space in which relationships grow, in which ideas grow, and which people grow together—and writing is a part of that growth process. Were I to go back to the high school classroom, these are the conditions I would hope to create, idealistic as they may be. For now, however, I will co-create them with other teachers, cultivating their growth and my own, writing and learning together.

*As a footnote, I should mention that these beliefs grew out of my own student experience in a teaching composition methods course taught by Dr. Gwen Rosenbluth sometime around 1999. Dr. Rosenbluth’s class changed fundamentally my understanding of myself as a writer and teacher of writing, and introduced me to the National Writing Project, which in turn shaped me more—from teacher to practicing writer and learner-leader.

Our students’ blogs, with their own writing statements, can be found on our motherblog.

Calkins, L. (1994). The art of teaching writing: New edition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. (Original work published 1986)

The New Year

On the first day of 2014, Brian and I hiked Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in Virginia. 

Although it is not comparable to the bare and jagged western peaks in the Rockies, or even the rugged peaks of the northern Appalachians, Mt. Rogers allows gorgeous views of a living landscape in the Blue Ridge. The winter sunshine welcomed us, so we were warm even in the wind, and as we hiked we found ourselves breathless not from the strain but from the sights and sounds of the mountain. Wild ponies greeted us (really, they just wanted our lunches), and clouds moved across the blue sky.

The branches of trees and bushes, coated in ice, sparkled in the light, and, when touched by the wind, clinked together, filling the woods and fields with sounds like tinkling bells. It echoed poetry: 

I feel them, hear them even now,

The syllables of aspen leaves,

The words of waterfalls,

The stanzas of stones.

They make the whole world vibrate. (Smith, 2003, p. 578)

I felt connected, whole, and engaged in the vibrant and vibrating world around me. 

Filled with awe and wonder, I turned to Brian and said, “I want to feel like this every day.” I was working hard, climbing over rocks and balancing on stony, icy trails. I needed constant awareness to maintain my footing, and still, I was able to look around, amazed at every turn of the trail or hilltop as the valleys and views opened up around us. Every day, I meant it. I want to cultivate that sense of intentional amazement, a level of continuous effort that also affords a view of wonderment, of being in the moment, of moving forward toward a summit, filled with gratitude and with no better place to be. I am so grateful to have started the year in this way, and I hope, going onward, I can keep that momentum.

Smith, B. (2003). The language of poetry. In S. Ballard & P. Hudson (Eds.), Listen here: women writing in Appalachia (p. 578). Lexington, KY: U of Kentucky P.

All photos courtesy of B. Ricketts. 

My Reading and Writing Life: Digital Story

This week, in the English language arts methods course that I teach at Virginia Tech, students were to complete a digital story, a kind of reading and writing autobiography, that tells viewers something about who they are in terms of literacy. Because I believe it is important to write alongside my students, and also to understand the parameters of assignments I require in my courses, I made a video, too. 

Although I have made digital stories before, this is the first time I have incorporated an interview. Doing so changed the way I drafted--and did so drastically. Typically I write and record a script, insert images, and add text and music last. This time, I started with fifteen minutes of recorded interview, added images, and then filled in with script that elaborated on the interview discussion. It isn't perfect, but it works, and it tells something about me as a reader in the process. 

What do you think? 

The Present: Being Present

I am a little ashamed to admit this, but I love birthdays. I love cake, I love the way that a birthday honors one person’s becoming, I love the way that birthdays give us a chance to reflect upon who we are and to enter into a day of beginning each year. I love celebrating other people’s birthdays, and I love celebrating my birthday, too. Yesterday marked the final year of my 30s, and I spent my day celebrating and reflecting.

Bright morning on the trail...

Brian is new to Blacksburg (two weeks here) and still wrestling the alligator of finding lucrative and meaningful work. Because he is living somewhere in the application and interview process for more than five postings at Tech and countless others elsewhere, we decided that this would be a purchase-minimal birthday, which is fine with me. He did bake me a fabulous (and gluten free) cake, and, more significantly, he gave me the gift of a leisurely and solitary nine-mile trail run at Pandapas Pond. I feel blessed to have a partner who loves me enough to leave me alone when I need to be by myself. He was there, on his bike, but he was doing his own thing while I ran along the Poverty Creek trail.

The present that comes from trail running, for me, is the gift of really being present. A trail run is different from one on the road or paved path because rocks, roots, and other obstacles mean that I must be engaged and attentive to my steps and surroundings. I never listen to music on the trail—to do so means I am not prepared for bikers and bears, and I must be aware of what may be coming toward me or upon me as I move. Trail running makes me listen and look, feel, and be fully.

On the trail more than anywhere, I find myself a place of joy and play, where I can enter into a flow—mind, body, breath, and often, like today, a writing flow. So, yesterday, in a state of creative play, I began to make meaning, to problem-solve, and to compose.I wrote and reflected while running, “seeing things as if for the first time, seeing the familiar as unfamiliar, the common as uncommon”... and “bringing to that running, that play the attitude of the child, the perception of the poet. Being a beginner with a beginner's mind, a beginner's heart, a beginner's body” (Sheehan, 1998, p. 119). With my beginner’s mind and in the present, then, I was able to move forward—beginning again, reborn, on my birthday.

Reference

Sheehan, G. (1998). Running and being: The total experience (20th Anniversary ed.) RedBank, NJ: Second Wind II. 

Creating a Podcast: This I Believe

The first major assignment in the English language arts methods course I teach at Tech is a little overwhelming at first glance. Students are to create a “This I Believe" Podcast (you know, like on NPR). ReadWriteThink has a fantastic lesson unit on creating and posting these podcasts. This unit presents a good way to get to know ourselves, to get to know one another, and to take a critical look at a unit plan, complete with instructional objectives, state standards, daily lesson plans, and assessment rubrics, as well as modifications for different kinds of learners.

Because I believe (See what I did there?) in learning by doing and also in being able to do what I ask my students to do, I created a podcast, too. I am including it here. I used Garage Band to record and edit (I think I could have done a better job editing--there are a couple of hiccoughs, but hey...), posted to Sound Cloud, and easily inserted the audio track as a widget. I was surprised at how streamlined the process was, all done through my Google account. Composing the piece (doing the writing, always) and keeping it under five minutes (doing the revision, always worse) was the hardest part. In spite of feeling initially overwhelmed, I enjoyed the process. I hope my students did, too. 

Anyway, I hope you’ll listen, maybe offer feedback (even measure my work against the rubric, if you like). I think it’s a good first try.