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!

Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter Four

(Page 84) “Let’s face it, our students will not be spending the rest of their lives reading Beowulf. But, hopefully, they will spend their adult lives reading books and magazines. By getting them to analyze real-world text, not only are we preparing them for their adult reading lives, but we are also providing them with interesting, relevant models.”

While I think it is important to tackle some tough stuff in class, I love that Gallagher explains the importance using of real-world texts. His point about Beowulf is on par. How many adults do you know who read that kind of stuff for pleasure? I bet most English teachers wouldn’t even read it if they weren’t teaching it. If we want our students to be readers once they get out of high school, we have to show them the types of things that are available. What better way to make them want to read—and improve their writing in the process—than to utilize real-world texts? After all, what are the chances that a student is ever going to write like Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter)? And would we want them to write like that anyway? Heck, I’d have to reread their work a couple of times if they did!

I know many of us are readers, but many adults find themselves “too busy” to read long books but often read other short texts—newspapers, magazines, blogs (I’m partial to Reality Steve’s blog), etc.? By using these pieces in class we are able to expose students to texts that they may find appealing and continue to access outside of school. I hate that we are not able to get newspaper subscriptions at a discounted rate anymore. I used to have students read the newspaper religiously…granted, they were often hooked by the Sports section, but they were reading nonetheless. One of my students, Don (whose last name shall remain unwritten, but I suspect some of your know who he is) clearly developed the love of the newspaper while at school that carried on after he finished. He continued to read the paper well after he graduated—he called Pam one day about something he read two years after he finished at Airport. I’m certain that enjoyment of reading the newspaper would not have happened if he had not developed the habit at school. Using a variety of texts for pleasure reading, analysis, and writing models allows students to discover that there really is something out there for everyone to read.

I recently read Nicholas Sparks’s Dear John (2006). (I wanted to read it before seeing the movie…which I have still yet to do.) The main character, John, wasn’t the most stellar student in high school nor upstanding person once he graduated; he ended up joining the military to straighten himself out. Even though the book is fiction, something John said (wrote, technically) after being in the army resonated with me: “I read a lot too…I wasn’t into Chaucer or Proust or Dostoevsky or any of those other dead guys; I read mainly mysteries and thrillers…I took a particular liking to Carl Hiaasen because his words flowed easily and he always made me laugh. I couldn’t help but think that if schools had assigned these books in English class, we’d have a lot more readers in the world” (p. 20). I was that student who hated to read in high school—I didn’t like those dead guys either. Luckily, I eventually discovered on my own the type of stuff I like to read. I wonder how many students out there hate school reading, but may actually love to read if they had the experience working with a variety of texts. And by having instruction along with those texts, they may learn not to believe everything that is written—it is okay for one to develop his own opinion. Heck, he might even learn how to write a letter to the editor and share his opinion with the world.