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.

Getting Dirty with Grammar

I really appreciate the conversations about grammar that our texts create.  It is helpful to read Noden's ideas and theories about teaching grammar, and then to read how Anderson implements some of them in his classroom; it makes the inevitability of teaching grammar more concrete and less intimidating.

Anderson consistently teaches grammar visually.  For example, he uses the Sentence Smack Down and Visual Scaffolding Charts to help his students understand the concepts.  These activities keep the students "doing" grammar; they are actively involved with grammar!  I love his advocacy for wallpapering the walls with posters.  First, this constructively hides the dull cinderblocks.  But it also surrounds the students with grammar.  Students can't escape grammar!

Again: a representation of Anderson's philosophy of a rich and living learning environment.

I also find that Anderson's lessons embody Weaver's view of grammar as a box of tools (versus a list of rules).  ***See the "Write a Sentence" discussion on page 65 of Anderson's text***  As students untangle the rules of grammar, they assume control over grammar and, thus, their writing.  This is not to say that students are able to use certain standards of grammar and discard others but that students are empowered to use grammar to enhance their writing instead of having adding grammar that limits their writing.

Noden's detailed lesson models further illustrate this idea.  Students are taught what a prepositional phrase is, for example, not so they can know what it is but so they can use.

I like to think of it as students getting their hands dirty with grammar.

Reclaiming Grammar for the Voiceless

During last semester's Teaching Adolescent Lit final, Shannon asked our class to identify one thing that we had learned throughout the course of the class.  It didn't take me long to realize that I want to be an influence to my students' discovery and development of their voices.  It is interesting to now think about empowering my students in the context of grammar.

Weaver's discussion about second language acquisition particularly ties into my hope.  Language is power: How something is said is just as important - if not more important - than what is said.  We gravitate to errors; they glare at us, obscuring whatever meaning is within them.  But when we bleed corrections over a student's page, the student is cut too.  If you are always told that you are doing wrong, you begin to feel wrong.

Has a teacher ever made you feel like a failure?  Just last week, a professor responded to me in a way that made me feel like the most disappointing, wretched failure that ever dared to breathe a word in her class.

This is true for all students, but especially students who are working with English for the first time.  They are acutely aware that they are behind.  They do not feel confident with this new language.  Thus, Weaver advocates a constructivist approach to grammar that will empower - not discourage - the student in his language acquisition.

Code-switching: A really effective visual.  A balance of respect for the student's language and understanding of the role of a unified standard of the rules of English.  Maintains the student's voice in his initial language while allowing them an "in" to the English language.

No failure here: Treating errors as learning opportunities versus failures.  It hurts to be labeled as a failure.  We need to keep our students as far away from this fruitless construction as possible.

The Perfection Trap: As a self-professed perfectionist and optimist (especially when it comes to writing), it is difficult to accept that students will not fully grasp every single grammar concept.  Every error will not disappear.  But didn't we already establish that we are not going to focus on errors?  [Working on that...]

Encourage risks: A comfortable classroom environment is a nonnegotiable.  Students must be able to trust and experiment.  This is the only way to ensure organic and real growth in student writing.  Also inspires confidence and excitement in writing.  "[C]hildren - everyone, really - will work much harder on a piece of writing when they are truly engaged with it and truly eager to share it with a wider audience" (183).

Saving expository writing: Yes!  Persuasive writing can be exciting!  Every single thing that a student writes is an expression of that student.  Expository writing - and every writing - must be transformed into an opportunity for our students.  Not to write another "5 paragraph essay" but to let their voice be heard.

***A final, barely-developed thought: Breaking the rules can say more than following them.***

With a Name Like Anderson, It's Gotta Be Good

Anderson is my hero.

Yes... Anderson Cooper is one of my heroes, too.

But in this instance, I am referring to writing guru Jeff Anderson.

Although I made a pretty hefty list of the wonderful things that I read in his text and that of Harry R. Noden, I have condensed them into the following 5 Big Ideas.


1) Write, Write, Write - Maybe it's just me, but I've been seeing a lot of this in the reading over the past couple of weeks.  Anderson and Noden are both exceedingly helpful in demonstrating how to teach grammar within the context of authentic writing.  For the first time - and all credit goes to Anderson's mentor texts and Noden's painting metaphor - I am able to see myself successfully teaching grammar in my future classroom.  I also was able to generate some really cool ideas for class writing journals and games.

2) Keep the Balance - Reflecting back on the past year, I suppose the best visual for my relationship with grammar would be a roller coaster.  At first, I could be found brandishing a red pen in the camp of the traditionalists.  I was soon liberated and thus rejected all of my previous philosophies, screaming a manifesto of "Write, write, write!  Read, read, read!"  While I had faith that writing, reading, and grammar could be taught in conjunction, without an example I had no idea how to do this.  Noden in particular illustrated this "how" for me.  Shoot - just after reading those first few pages, I felt like a better writer!

3) "What Sticks with You?" - Anderson strongly advocates engaging students in outside texts - including literature, newspapers, the students' own writings, and other such endless possibilities - in order to strengthen both their writing and their understanding of grammar.  The most revolutionary concept is a focus on a "right" way to do grammar as opposed to the demonstrations of the "wrong" way.  Instead of giving students poor examples of grammar to correct, Anderson floods his students with strong examples of good writing.  Research and experience further demonstrate that students are better able to imitate and implement the shared techniques.  I really, really, really, really, really like this idea because it is positive.

4) Teach What They Need - I have always imagined teaching grammar by checking the standards and the curriculum, and then spewing those requirements to my students.  Of course, I would try to mix some fun into those lessons, but it still always seemed a rather dismal task.  Once again, Anderson offers the common sense solution: "Base your teaching on errors they make.  Base your teaching on the strategies they need" (7).  I am reminded once again to structure every lesson around the needs of my students.  Yes.  Even grammar lessons.

5) Writing is Sacred - This is not exactly something that I needed to be told, but I love this quotation from Zemelman and Daniels: "In fact, many primary teachers will tell you that the surface of a kid's piece of writing should be inviolate, that it's an expression of a self, a work of art or artifact that should never be defaced by anyone else's markings or revision.  This is a view that we teachers of older kids need to give respectful consideration."

May I always allow pause to thus celebrate my students' writing.

Grammar Has Friends

If there is anything that I took away from the first few chapters of Weaver's text, it would have to be that grammar is not effectively learned in isolation from its buddies writing and reading.

Weaver claims that "[t]eaching grammar for its own sake is never the aim" (2).  I agree for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it has been proven to be ineffective.  Weaver cites a variety of studies that show that lessons taught in isolated grammar instruction are usually discarded and forgotten by students as soon as the recall necessary for exams or the essay at hand is completed.  The assessment grade is recorded, the lesson checked off, and everyone moves onto the next topic.  Instead, Weaver advocates a repetitive study of grammar that comes alive through authentic writing.  Instead of spending a week on condensing sentences and then the next week on the proper usages of the colon and semicolon, Weaver argues that students should engage in these techniques as they come across them in their writing.

The learn-by-doing (or hands-on) approach has proven to be very effective in a variety of disciplines.  So, why is grammar left out?

 We also need to reform grammar instruction by making it mean something to our students.  Traditionally, grammar has been taught as a set of rules.  I prefer Weaver's idea that grammar is a box of tools that can be used to enrich and enhance writing.  This shift in perspective transforms grammar from a looming force that lords over every scratch of the student's pen to a freedom of opportunities that the student controls to express and communicate his or her thoughts and ideas.  Grammar becomes positive and - dare I say it?! - even exciting and fun!

Weaver continues this idea by explaining that grammar should be a focus on how words function.  In our every day life outside of the English classroom, we do not beat parts of sentences to pieces but instead work to structure words effectively and meaningfully.  So what we need to impart to our students is the importance of grammatical structure.

Linda M. Christensen's article "Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?" explores this topic.  (I read Christensen's article last semester, and I encourage you to look it up!)  Christensen states:

"Asking my students to memorize the rules without asking who makes the rules, who enforces the rules, who benefits from the rules, who loses from the rules, who uses the rules to keep some in and keep others out legitimates a social system that devalues my students' knowledge and language. Teaching the rules without reflection also under-scores that it's okay for others-"authorities"-to dictate something as fundamental and as personal as the way they speak" (40).

We must overcome the rational that students must learn Standard American English (SAE) because the textbooks or administration or parents say that they must.  Instead, we must be able to explain both to ourselves, our students, and the rest of the world why SAE needs to be applied and when it needs to be applied.

Last semester, I was prompted to examine my position on enforcing "proper English" over student vernacular.  As Weaver and Christensen demonstrate (and contrary to popular belief), they can coexist!  Weaver advocates that there is no "right" grammar, but rather "only appropriate grammar and effective writing, for different audiences and purposes" (44).

This is further reflected in the Mark Larson's suggestion to "help [students] recognize the place standard English, among other language variations, holds in the array of devices we humans find to 'give voice accurately and fully to ourselves and our sense of the world'" (Weaver 41).

This thought is further enhanced by Christensen: "When more attention is paid to the way some-thing is written or said than to what is said, stu-dents' words and thoughts become devalued. Stu-dents learn to be silent, to give as few words as possible for teacher criticism. Students must be taught to hold their own voices sacred, to ignore the teachers who have made them feel that what they've said is wrong or bad or stupid. Students must be taught how to lis-ten to the knowledge they've stored up but which they are seldom asked to relate" (37).

Again, I ask: Why are we teaching what we're teaching?  Do we teach grammar so that students can fill out worksheets to be able to involuntarily identify active and passive voices?  Or do we teach grammar so that students are able to effectively and meaningfully structure their thoughts into words to foster stronger expression and communication?

An additional metaphor, if you will, on standardizing grammar and, thus, standardizing students: