Multigenre Butterflies

To be honest, I am a little apprehensive about this project.

As a student, I am definitely a product of the current education system.  I am a terrific test-taker.  (Seriously.  It scares me.)  While I enjoy learning, I am also motivated by the grade.  I am the kid who will write the analytical essay instead of drawing a picture or making a video response.

But, as a teacher, I am elated by the multigenre project!  This is the kind of work that I want my students to do.  I love the creative yet critical conversations this project fosters.  I love that it engages multiple literacies.  I love that the creator is in complete control of his project.

However, this does not solve my dilemma.  Before I can assign something like this to my students, I have to complete it myself.

I would not describe myself as creative or artsy.  I anticipate my primary struggle with the multigenre project to be varying the genres that I choose and finding a way to make them all mesh.  I am finding it a bit difficult to swallow my own medicine; this project is really pushing me out of my comfort zone, which is exactly what I want to do to my students. 

The provided examples were helpful.  I have a better understanding of what is expected of me.  I even have the foggy beginnings of a plan.

Overall, I am looking forward to how this will turn out.  I am really excited to see how they all turn out!

Meaningful Revision

Another week of great material from Anderson and Noden!

I especially appreciated Noden's discussions about nonfiction writing and editing.  One thing that he addresses that I believe to be an indispensable focus for English classrooms is the relationship between content and form.  While I got a taste of the omnipresence of this relationship in high school, I did not fully understand or appreciate its immensity.  Content and form are married in writing, but also in so many other contexts.  It is an important pattern for students to be able to identify and utilize.

I absolutely agree with Noden's revision strategies.  Indeed, the revision process is not complete without giving form, content, style, and conventions each their proper due. 

His discussion brought to mind an observation that I completed in a ninth grade Honors English class.  The teacher opened the class with a discussion on how the students viewed peer editing.  Their responses were dishearteningly true.  One student shared that peer editing is simply "an excuse for the teacher not to grade."  Other students asserted that it provides no value because their classmates only focus on correcting basic mechanics, if they even care enough to do that.  The teacher then worked with her students to develop peer editing goals focused around three questions: "Do I understand?  Is it confusing?  Am I convinced?"

The students really seemed to appreciate the opportunity to vent frustrations about the peer editing system and have a hand in designing the expectations for the workshops.  They engaged in great discussions about their classmates' papers for the rest of the period.

Noden's suggestion to begin with style is helpful!  My own experience supports his claim that most Language Arts/English teachers begin and focus the revision process on conventions, ignoring the other three components.  It is also encouraging to read about the checklists, which are essentially scaffolded road maps to stronger writing.  I do not need to overwhelm my students with rules.

This is the first time that I have EVER heard someone suggest that a final draft does not need to be perfect.  "With students, the idea is to begin with one category and progress through the other three" (244).  In retrospect, throughout middle and high school, I was given assignments and expected to demonstrate mastery of form, content, style, and conventions starting in. the beginning of the year.  Noden instead seems to suggest scaffolding the writing.  We want the student to succeed in each of these four categories, but can they be successful if they are bombarded with them all at once?  Is it better to layer these revision categories?

One additional revolutionary concept from the text: "[U]se a checklist, a checklist that has been taught before students revise" (239).

Providing the students with the tools they will need in order to be successful before we assess how well they use those tools...  What a novel idea.

Seeing is Reading

If I can be half as effective as Anderson is when I teach grammar, I will be a very happy English teacher.

I am understanding grammar for what feels like the first time just by reading his text!  In fact, I am tempted to use his book as the grammar textbook in my own classroom!  (But that would mean giving away all of our teaching secrets!  *gasp*)  Anderson's approach to grammar is incredibly clear and straightforward.  My grammar-confidence remains on a rapid rise.

Noden also continues to enlighten and challenge me.  Throughout my secondary education, teachers pounded adjectives down my throat. Noden, however, advocates stronger nouns and, especially, verbs.  This is an incredible concept because it is one that is so often overlooked.  It is a skill that will transform students into writers.

While I understand his theory about moving students away from adjectives that lead to blank imaging, I wonder if it is too complex for the casual student writer.  Is it too much to expect students to be able to distinguish between adjectives?  I feel as though the only way to do this would be to contrast adjectives that create blank imaging with adjectives that are specific in mentor texts and student writing.  However, I still forsee this causing some confusion.

I do love Noden's theory that students are very visual learners.    I can attest; Anderson's visual scaffolding charts have been extremely beneficial to me, cementing the concepts that he has introduced!

"So it is possible that, separated by one generation, students relate to images more intensely than teachers" (Noden 43).

Noden not only caters to students by suggesting visual learning aids and model texts - not to mention the painting motif - but through actual prompts as well.  The zooming and layering writing exercise is awesome because it encourages students to comb through their works to really tap into the power available in grammar.  Noden also suggests using pictures, images, movies, and props to inspire more colorful brushstrokes in student writing.  This is great because it allows students to interact with the objects that they will be translating in their writing.  The visuals offer inspiration and support for student writing.  Students have something tangible to explore instead of having to procure abstractions from nowhere.  Many of Noden's strategies thus further double as good scaffolding techniques.