Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter Six

(Page 130) “…even when students understand the purpose behind their writing, they often give little thought to who their audience might be.”

I think many students figure that the teacher is the one who is going to be reading and grading the assignment, so she/he is the only audience to whom the work should be written. If we only give the “fake” assignments that Gallagher writes about (i.e. the kinds of writing that is never seen in the real world), then why would students ever write to an audience other than the teacher? By exposing students to those real-world writings and examining why they were written, they can see the possibility of writing to someone else.

Gallagher gives many strategies to use to get students to write better so that they are writing for someone other than the head of the class. I think several of them can easily transfer to disciplines other than English. What if students bought in their lab reports for others to analyze (RAG Competitions, p. 133) or the teacher highlights the best parts of the lab reports to share with the class (Golden Lines, p. 131)? I know lab reports are lengthy—I don’t think the golden line thing has to be done in five minutes as Gallagher describes. It could be done as the teacher grades the reports; she could then use the lines as examples when students write the next report.

I also thought that “Another Set of Eyes” (p. 137) strategy would work well for those of you who work closely in subject areas, such as US History or Physical Science. When I used to score the practice HSAP tests while I was still in the classroom, I never scored my own students. I wanted someone else to score their writing for a couple of reasons. One, I felt like they needed feedback from someone other than me, so they could see what someone else thought of their writing. Two, it allowed me to look at how others viewed their writing—I could see if I was overlooking something and could look for commonalities (good or bad) in their work.

On a side note, is it a sign that I have overused my copy of this book when I have a chunk of pages fall out?!? Pages 83-88 sure did fall out when I opened my book tonight. I thinking that’s a good thing!

Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter Five

(Page 91) “…students write a whole lot better when they care about what they are writing…Choice generates a welcome chain reaction: it creates student buy-in which in turn generates writing motivation, which in turn causes students to write better.”

I feel as if I always start Gallagher responses with, “I love how Gallagher…” and why should this post be any different?!? I love how Gallagher gives tons of examples of providing writing choice in this chapter. I think sometimes, as teachers, we get caught up in the idea that we’re the ones in charge and we need to tell students what to do. If we give students choice then that might create more work for us. I don’t think that’s the case at all. Providing students with options will certainly make the work less painful to read! As Gallagher points out, students are better writers when they’re writing something they care about. So, if we let them have the option to write about something of interest, it will be better written and much more enjoyable to read. I’m not saying that history teachers need to let students write poems about their love lives instead of an analysis of the Civil War. Just let them have a few choices to choose in the process. I’ll tell ya, the one thing I liked better about the old exit exam (BSAP) versus HSAP is that BSAP provided two writing prompts, and students were permitted to choose which one they wanted to write about. I’ve had a hard time understanding why a choice wasn’t given on HSAP when we know it’s better for students.

Ah, but you say, “Yeah, but what about when they get to college? They’re not going to have a choice what to write about then.” Here’s the thing: our students are not in college right now. They’re in high school. Do we need to prepare them for college? Yes. Absolutely. But I repeat: they’re in high school now! Preparing students for college and treating them as if they’re already in college are two different things. We have to take baby steps with them. Gallagher has a great analogy about writing and basketball at the bottom of page 92 though the top of page 93. I think this is an excellent way to think about how we teach our students to write. Nobody gets tossed into a basketball game without lots of coaching and practice, so we should not expect our students to spit out great writing without lots of coaching/teaching and practice!