Finally, we have come to the end of a semester and I have officially completed my blog. At the beginning I stated that I wanted to share my ideas from course readings and background experiences with you my readers. I hope I have fulfilled this purpose and believe that I have, at least in part. This blog sharing was sometimes an interesting task, other times a dauting one; but I can not deny that the information dispensed was rich and I hope to continue to use this forum as a learning tool even as we move beyond this our last semester of theory into the practical aspect of DTEEA.
Indeed the ideas that we were exposed to sought to make us better teachers, by providing us with teaching strategies that fostered the writing experience in the English classroom.
I thank you for your patience and hope that you too have learned something about me and my knowledge and understanding of the writing process and how it should be taught.
I wish you the best for the upcoming new year and beyond.
Thank you.
Friday, December 17, 2010
The Reading and Writing Connection
For years I have ignored the reading and writing connection; particularly because as a learner I had never been brought to see the importance. Loosely, we as learners were warned that in order to be a good writer we would have to do a lot of reading and I later grew to understand how obvious this was if only on a basic level. But the "readers make good writers" line that teachers tried to bait seemed more like a threat than a genuince enticement to engage in reading practices that would facilitate good writing practices; behind this lurked a sinister idea that those of us who hated reading would court bad grades generally. Fortunately I enjoyed reading and writing though my English grades remained inconsistent.
Now as an aspiring teacher of English the reading and writing connection holds a new allure, it promises opportunities to develop both students' reading and writing skills.
The reading and writing connection denotes the importance of reading to the writing process It is said to be important to understand the relationship between reading and writing in order to become a better writer. Both reading and writing are cognitive processes that includes constructing meaning.
It seems that those students who are exposed to a print rich environment on a regular basis develop better skills are writing. This seems to be a logical deduction as students who read frequently are exposed to different rhetorical modes and writing styles. These students are exposed to a wider range of creative ideas that can themselves spark students' imaginations. When we read we become exposed to new, and richer vocabulary in context and being prolific readers helps mechanical skills like spelling.
Generally revising our work before submission is advised and helps us to edit our errors in writing. Sometimes in reading our work, we read what we intended to write and not what is on the page; for this reason it is advisable to have others read our works to us in order to identify those errors that we have made.
Both when reading and writing we need to keep in mind the ideas of purpose and audience. For writing it helps us choose rhetorical modes and what type of language and ideas to present whilst for reading it helps us to identify rhetorical modes used and can aid general comprehension of the text as a whole. I believe we do not explicitly teach the importance of purpose and audience in the English classroom although this is an important aspect of writing and reading.
Also we do not make that connection to reading and writing for our students. Usually the two are seen and taught as two separate acts instead of two components of English sharing a symbiotic relationship. Students therefore approach each differently and never come to the understanding that one can be used to enhance the other. I think there needs to be a more deliberate attempt on the part of English teachers to make the connection between reading and writing and develop lesson plans, activities, materials and objectives that reflect this relationship.
Reading and Writing Connection and Poetry
Poetry is all too often a mysterious facet of the English Programme. Nightmares of recitation of long incomprehensible pieces written by the "Great Composers" seem to haunt many English students; at least I know it still haunts me. However, it was through poetry I began to enjoy the use of language to create vivid imagery; I discovered the beauty of figurative language. It seemed endless the number of ways a man can use language to create ideas and images in a reader's mind; today still I enjoy a witty play on words as well as the use of sarcasm.
However we need to be careful what types of poetry we introduce to our students; we should take into consideration their age and developmental level. Is a grade three student truly prepared to learn, recite and grasp "A City's Death by Fire." I know I certainly was not; and it was only much later at the Division of Arts Sciences and General Studies that I developed a real interest in certain types of poetry, in spite of many years of elocution. In fact in mentioning those days of elocution to a friend at the St. Joseph's Convent, she immediately shouted: "bad memories." During those periods our exposure to poetry was forced- it should be explained to teachers that forcing students to remember and regurgitate lines of poetry does not foster any kind of love for it.
But the same kinds of language found in poetry can be used in other types of writing. And we should use age appropriate pieces of poetry to engage students in the reading and writing of poems.
Now as an aspiring teacher of English the reading and writing connection holds a new allure, it promises opportunities to develop both students' reading and writing skills.
The reading and writing connection denotes the importance of reading to the writing process It is said to be important to understand the relationship between reading and writing in order to become a better writer. Both reading and writing are cognitive processes that includes constructing meaning.
It seems that those students who are exposed to a print rich environment on a regular basis develop better skills are writing. This seems to be a logical deduction as students who read frequently are exposed to different rhetorical modes and writing styles. These students are exposed to a wider range of creative ideas that can themselves spark students' imaginations. When we read we become exposed to new, and richer vocabulary in context and being prolific readers helps mechanical skills like spelling.
Generally revising our work before submission is advised and helps us to edit our errors in writing. Sometimes in reading our work, we read what we intended to write and not what is on the page; for this reason it is advisable to have others read our works to us in order to identify those errors that we have made.
Both when reading and writing we need to keep in mind the ideas of purpose and audience. For writing it helps us choose rhetorical modes and what type of language and ideas to present whilst for reading it helps us to identify rhetorical modes used and can aid general comprehension of the text as a whole. I believe we do not explicitly teach the importance of purpose and audience in the English classroom although this is an important aspect of writing and reading.
Also we do not make that connection to reading and writing for our students. Usually the two are seen and taught as two separate acts instead of two components of English sharing a symbiotic relationship. Students therefore approach each differently and never come to the understanding that one can be used to enhance the other. I think there needs to be a more deliberate attempt on the part of English teachers to make the connection between reading and writing and develop lesson plans, activities, materials and objectives that reflect this relationship.
Reading and Writing Connection and Poetry
Poetry is all too often a mysterious facet of the English Programme. Nightmares of recitation of long incomprehensible pieces written by the "Great Composers" seem to haunt many English students; at least I know it still haunts me. However, it was through poetry I began to enjoy the use of language to create vivid imagery; I discovered the beauty of figurative language. It seemed endless the number of ways a man can use language to create ideas and images in a reader's mind; today still I enjoy a witty play on words as well as the use of sarcasm.
However we need to be careful what types of poetry we introduce to our students; we should take into consideration their age and developmental level. Is a grade three student truly prepared to learn, recite and grasp "A City's Death by Fire." I know I certainly was not; and it was only much later at the Division of Arts Sciences and General Studies that I developed a real interest in certain types of poetry, in spite of many years of elocution. In fact in mentioning those days of elocution to a friend at the St. Joseph's Convent, she immediately shouted: "bad memories." During those periods our exposure to poetry was forced- it should be explained to teachers that forcing students to remember and regurgitate lines of poetry does not foster any kind of love for it.
But the same kinds of language found in poetry can be used in other types of writing. And we should use age appropriate pieces of poetry to engage students in the reading and writing of poems.
Planning for Writing and Pre-Writing Strategies to enlist in the Classroom
What does it mean to plan for writing; and how exactly does one engage in pre-writing? These questions baffled me immensely as I had never engaged myself or been exposed to such practices. Writing procedures were fast and furious in those younger student days where a good writer was one who was just able to write. Creative ideas, full of imagination and flair were self-generated and a testament to writing ability. Yet this behaviourist approach has left many inspiring and developing writer's without support and scaffolding for personal growth. As stipulated by NCTE: perhaps everyone may not create a masterpiece; but everyone can improve in terms of how they write.
Gatz (2004) Pre-Writing Strategies are:
Key to good essay writing and a key component of the writing process.
A way of organising ideas in preparation for writing
Comprise a delineation of of a topic to be written about
Guide an organised outline of possible ideas/topics and or comments
Different from drafting, revising and editing.
Planning for Writing incorporates brainstorming activities that help stimulate and generate ideas for writing and follow the process not product approach to writing.
Students should be encouraged to: pick a topic that interests them. This can be done through use of media and technology; personal experiences; dreams; visual representations; think, pair, share; discussions and even free writing.
Free writing is an appropriate follow up once students have selected a topic. It focuses on having students to practice writing without focusing on the mechanics of the language; it is the thoughts and ideas generated, not the mechanical structure that is of value at this point and many ideas can be generated through the use of this technique. The key is to write and mute the internal editor and check ideas after at least 10 minutes using this strategy; it surprises all of us how difficult it is not to critique while writing as well as how good some of these free writing ideas can be.
A flexible and multidimensional tool that can assist a students' planning to write is the Graphic Organiser. It allows students to organise ideas in a logical manner. It is an illustrative way of representing students' thoughts and caters especially to the visual learner. It associates the visual diagrams with written ideas. It can be a useful tool for scaffolding because of its perceptual properties; helps writer organise and chunk information; diagnose and solve identified problems. It is more effective if students create/generate the graphic organisers themselves; but if students are not properly trained in how to use these tools it may negate their purpose.
Questioning, another strategic pre-writing tool helps stimulate students ideas through prepared questions and students' responses. Students can respond to the questions and use the ideas that best suit their purpose for writing: those ideas that can cater to their writing.
In the hand-out "Brainstorming" I thought it was interesting that the author listed keeping audience and purpose in mind when writing. How often do we ourselves as writers and critical thinkers take this into consideration? Also as English teachers do we help students identify purrpose in their own writing as well as the works of others? We engage students in quite a lot of "comprehension: activities while at the same time ignoring a writer's purpose and his intended audience. These key factors can help both reading and writing but are ignored in the classroom.
Whereas Sloane's "Ten Steps to Better Brainstorming" recommends that students have the opportunity to practice extensively the art of brainstorming without the discussion of the actual merit of ideas generated. It gives students the opportunity to come up with diverse ideas, which may help them to think outside the box or norm of a topic (divergent thinking). Ideas that are irrelevant or inapropriate can be later discarded but to stop the freeflow of ideas to discuss their merit may hurt the process as it interrupts student's thinking.
Enthusiasm on the part of the teacher is key. We sometimes come to our classes as though we are slaves who have been commanded to do it. If we are uniterested in English and uninterested in writing and generating ideas for writing it is unlikely that our students will be. Teachers must be certain to praise students when they come up with creative ideas, let them know that they are on the right track and encourage them even when they miss the mark, then they will be eager to work and master the writing game. Often students fail to try because of learned helplessness and negative experiences with failure: teachers should utilise the self-fulfilling prophecy in a positive way to help students build confidence in their skills as writers. Reinforce the importance of student's ideas by giving them ample opportunity to make suggestions, participate and engage in peer critiquing. Planning our lessons before hand can help ensure that we deliberately incorporate these brainstorming and pre-writing techniques so that students have ample opportunities for participation.
Lastly Sloane (1998) gave an appropriate caveat. We are to select topics that will aid not impede our ideas. Those topics would be one that takes student's interests prior knowledge and background experiences into considerations. This means we must take time out to know our students. An easy way to do this is to conduct an interest inventory. It is hardly possible that we can always take into consideration the interests and experiences of each child; in this situation, class discussions can help stimulate brainstorming. One student's ingenius idea may just spark another less knowledgeable student's thought patterns.
Engaging in all these activities shows our students that writing is important and that each of them are capable of good writing through the use of planning and pre-writing stgrategies. And although we use these colloborative strategies to build students' writing abilities, our ultimate goal should be to develop competent, independent, strategic and creative writers. This can be aided through the use of Self-regulatory strategies that assist students in deliberately engaging in metacognitive process through goal instructions, self-instructions and self-monitoring. This of course is possible in our secondary schools as students are now at the stage of formal operational thought and are therefore developmentally prepared to engage in this strategised thinking.
Though these readings were extremely long, they helped reinforce the ideas that I have been exposed to here at DTEEA. It seems an almost insurmountable task to plan to implement all of these ideas into the classroom as a novice teacher. However there are a number of ideas that seem feasible which have begun to that I have begun to form a credo in my mind as a future English teacher. This credo is to use the process approach to stimulate good writing techniques in the classroom.
Gatz (2004) Pre-Writing Strategies are:
Key to good essay writing and a key component of the writing process.
A way of organising ideas in preparation for writing
Comprise a delineation of of a topic to be written about
Guide an organised outline of possible ideas/topics and or comments
Different from drafting, revising and editing.
Planning for Writing incorporates brainstorming activities that help stimulate and generate ideas for writing and follow the process not product approach to writing.
Students should be encouraged to: pick a topic that interests them. This can be done through use of media and technology; personal experiences; dreams; visual representations; think, pair, share; discussions and even free writing.
Free writing is an appropriate follow up once students have selected a topic. It focuses on having students to practice writing without focusing on the mechanics of the language; it is the thoughts and ideas generated, not the mechanical structure that is of value at this point and many ideas can be generated through the use of this technique. The key is to write and mute the internal editor and check ideas after at least 10 minutes using this strategy; it surprises all of us how difficult it is not to critique while writing as well as how good some of these free writing ideas can be.
A flexible and multidimensional tool that can assist a students' planning to write is the Graphic Organiser. It allows students to organise ideas in a logical manner. It is an illustrative way of representing students' thoughts and caters especially to the visual learner. It associates the visual diagrams with written ideas. It can be a useful tool for scaffolding because of its perceptual properties; helps writer organise and chunk information; diagnose and solve identified problems. It is more effective if students create/generate the graphic organisers themselves; but if students are not properly trained in how to use these tools it may negate their purpose.
Questioning, another strategic pre-writing tool helps stimulate students ideas through prepared questions and students' responses. Students can respond to the questions and use the ideas that best suit their purpose for writing: those ideas that can cater to their writing.
In the hand-out "Brainstorming" I thought it was interesting that the author listed keeping audience and purpose in mind when writing. How often do we ourselves as writers and critical thinkers take this into consideration? Also as English teachers do we help students identify purrpose in their own writing as well as the works of others? We engage students in quite a lot of "comprehension: activities while at the same time ignoring a writer's purpose and his intended audience. These key factors can help both reading and writing but are ignored in the classroom.
Whereas Sloane's "Ten Steps to Better Brainstorming" recommends that students have the opportunity to practice extensively the art of brainstorming without the discussion of the actual merit of ideas generated. It gives students the opportunity to come up with diverse ideas, which may help them to think outside the box or norm of a topic (divergent thinking). Ideas that are irrelevant or inapropriate can be later discarded but to stop the freeflow of ideas to discuss their merit may hurt the process as it interrupts student's thinking.
Enthusiasm on the part of the teacher is key. We sometimes come to our classes as though we are slaves who have been commanded to do it. If we are uniterested in English and uninterested in writing and generating ideas for writing it is unlikely that our students will be. Teachers must be certain to praise students when they come up with creative ideas, let them know that they are on the right track and encourage them even when they miss the mark, then they will be eager to work and master the writing game. Often students fail to try because of learned helplessness and negative experiences with failure: teachers should utilise the self-fulfilling prophecy in a positive way to help students build confidence in their skills as writers. Reinforce the importance of student's ideas by giving them ample opportunity to make suggestions, participate and engage in peer critiquing. Planning our lessons before hand can help ensure that we deliberately incorporate these brainstorming and pre-writing techniques so that students have ample opportunities for participation.
Lastly Sloane (1998) gave an appropriate caveat. We are to select topics that will aid not impede our ideas. Those topics would be one that takes student's interests prior knowledge and background experiences into considerations. This means we must take time out to know our students. An easy way to do this is to conduct an interest inventory. It is hardly possible that we can always take into consideration the interests and experiences of each child; in this situation, class discussions can help stimulate brainstorming. One student's ingenius idea may just spark another less knowledgeable student's thought patterns.
Engaging in all these activities shows our students that writing is important and that each of them are capable of good writing through the use of planning and pre-writing stgrategies. And although we use these colloborative strategies to build students' writing abilities, our ultimate goal should be to develop competent, independent, strategic and creative writers. This can be aided through the use of Self-regulatory strategies that assist students in deliberately engaging in metacognitive process through goal instructions, self-instructions and self-monitoring. This of course is possible in our secondary schools as students are now at the stage of formal operational thought and are therefore developmentally prepared to engage in this strategised thinking.
Though these readings were extremely long, they helped reinforce the ideas that I have been exposed to here at DTEEA. It seems an almost insurmountable task to plan to implement all of these ideas into the classroom as a novice teacher. However there are a number of ideas that seem feasible which have begun to that I have begun to form a credo in my mind as a future English teacher. This credo is to use the process approach to stimulate good writing techniques in the classroom.
My Evaluation of Lou's Place
In my opinion the descriptive piece "Lou's Place" is well written. The ideas were well developed, rich in thought and clearly presented. It catered well to the reader's imagination, emotions and senses. One was able to get a clear sense of the restaurant itself- what it looked like, what it might feel like to be there, and why it was such a place of endearment to all those who visited.
The sequence of the piece was well-structured; there was a clear introduction, body and conclusion. There was fluid and logical movement throughout the piece and transitions were well balanced. There was also no confusion as to the temporal flow of the piece though it explores the passing of time at the restaurant. The past, present and future of the place are all clear to the reader. There is flair and creativity with word choice and the consistent and appropriate use of figurative language. There is unusual experimentation with the language that blends well into the piece. Sentences flow well and create a gentle rhythm that coincides with the hub of the place. This piece is not exciting, but it is interesting. It moves at a slow pace that seems to fit with the quaint, slow moving life being described in a place that seems to be a world of its own. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece though I am usually more interested in thriller like story-telling. Generally an interesting and unusual read.
The sequence of the piece was well-structured; there was a clear introduction, body and conclusion. There was fluid and logical movement throughout the piece and transitions were well balanced. There was also no confusion as to the temporal flow of the piece though it explores the passing of time at the restaurant. The past, present and future of the place are all clear to the reader. There is flair and creativity with word choice and the consistent and appropriate use of figurative language. There is unusual experimentation with the language that blends well into the piece. Sentences flow well and create a gentle rhythm that coincides with the hub of the place. This piece is not exciting, but it is interesting. It moves at a slow pace that seems to fit with the quaint, slow moving life being described in a place that seems to be a world of its own. I thoroughly enjoyed the piece though I am usually more interested in thriller like story-telling. Generally an interesting and unusual read.
Writer's Purpose in Story "Lou's Place" and How it was Achieved
Lou's Place, a descriptive piece seeks to create a vivid mental image of a quaint restaurant in located in Tennessee; it tells us how the restaurant- as though having a persona of its own- captures the heart of the narrator and those who set foot within its doors. It creates the image of a place timeless and frozen in time; a place that outlasts those who come to patronize and whose scene never changes. Customers grow old, but younger ones replace them and the place is always filled no matter what decade you enter.
The narrator introduces the place to the reader through a piece of nostalgia: recounting her first visit to the restaurant twenty years before. This helps create an image of endearment in the reader's heart, as we can all relate to moments in time that seem to capture us and change our lives forever. The evident recounting of fond memories also help foster this emotion- it seems that the narrator seeks not only to appeal to our senses but also to our emotions by pulling a little at our heart-strings. The word choice portrays Lou's Place as an old restaurant but the old is not ragged or worn out but comforting and classic.
The details of the writer's first encounter- the fact that the visit was accidental (to get directions as a result of a missed turn)- tells the reader that the place is seemingly insignificant to a passerby; without flair or anything to attract customers through decor. Yet, the Siren's Song seems to beckon and capture the hearts of people from all walks of life just as it did the narrator.
The narrator introduces the place to the reader through a piece of nostalgia: recounting her first visit to the restaurant twenty years before. This helps create an image of endearment in the reader's heart, as we can all relate to moments in time that seem to capture us and change our lives forever. The evident recounting of fond memories also help foster this emotion- it seems that the narrator seeks not only to appeal to our senses but also to our emotions by pulling a little at our heart-strings. The word choice portrays Lou's Place as an old restaurant but the old is not ragged or worn out but comforting and classic.
The details of the writer's first encounter- the fact that the visit was accidental (to get directions as a result of a missed turn)- tells the reader that the place is seemingly insignificant to a passerby; without flair or anything to attract customers through decor. Yet, the Siren's Song seems to beckon and capture the hearts of people from all walks of life just as it did the narrator.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Differentiating the Rhetorical Modes
A writer may use any one of the four rhetorical modes of discourse or a combination of these modes in order to fulfill his purpose. These four modes are identified as exposition, narration, argument and description. It seems that knowledge of these modes can be useful to our students in the classroom as their fulfill their roles as both readers adn writers by helping them select appropriate modes to accomplish their purpose when writing and to categorise texts when reading. These modes should be explicitly taught in the classroom to develop students' understanding of texts in order to help them fulfill the goals and objectives of the English curriculum. Here I seek to differentiate these modes according to my understanding from texts read.
Rhetorical Modes
| | Description | Narration | Exposition | Argument |
| Purpose | Descriptive prose is used to express what a thing looks like, smells like or tastes like. It seeks to portray the way things are perceived through the five senses (sight, hearing, touch smell and taste). It caters especially to the visual sense. | Narration seeks to recount the details of events/ actions in a temporal sequence. It seeks to present an event to the reader and to provide a sense of witnessing an action.It generally seeks to appeal to a reader's imagination | Expository discourse is concerned with making an idea clear, analysing a situation, defining a term, giving instructions. Its primary function is to inform and explain.Therefore seeks to appeal intellect and understanding. | An argument makes an attempt to convince or persuade an audience that a claim is true by appealing to reason/rational thought processes as well as their understanding or to emotion. |
| Audience | Reader- usually conjures up a mental/visual image of what is being "described" or written about. | Reader- helps to recreate an incident for readers to create the sense of witnessing action. | Reader- conveys information to give reader a level of understanding. | Reader- It moves the readers to take an action or to form or change an opinion. |
| Content | It helps answer questions like: What is it like?
What is he/she like? What does he/she look like?
| This mode answers the question of what. For example: what happened? | Some questions that an expository text may answer are How does it work?
What are the constituent parts?
What is its importance? | Answers the question why is this so? |
| Style | Explicit use of adjectives, sensuous details and spatial/descriptive sequence that "freezes" time as it moves over an object/person/place etcetera to describe it | Use of action or dynamic verbs, dialogue; point of view narrator which is usually first or third person narrator. It should include story conventions such as plot, setting, characters, climax and resolution. | Expository style is characterised by the following: analysis, classification, definition, illustration, cause and effect, comparison and contrast and analogy | Presents claims and use of supportive evidence, argument use facts, authoritative opinion, and personal experience for its development with refutation of counterarguments whilst the "artistic" argument uses persuasion in the form of repetition, rhetorical questions and emotional appeals. |
| Voice | Description uses details that appeals to our senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch). May be artistic appealing to affective and sensory faculties or technical/scientific with an unembellished description. | To convey a particular mood (feeling) or to make an incident come alive, narratives employ the use of the first person or “I” narration and the third person or he/she/it persona. Generally artistic in nature. | In exposition, the writing is engaging and reflective of the writer’s underlying commitment to the topic. Generally scientific/technical in nature though it may be artistic. | The voice of argument has a strong and definite position on an issue from the beginning of the piece and has enthusiasm from start to finish. Can be logical (scientific/technical) or psychological (artistic). |
| Organisation | The organising principle of description is spatial. It creates a virtual image in the minds of readers as we must move spatially over the object in order to describe its different parts. described. | Time is the organising principle of narration. It is temporal in nature meaning that its events are sequential. | Organisational structure of this mode are various, with majority being based on logic: analysis, clarification, definition, illustration, cause and effect, comparison and contrast and sometimes analogy. The method chosen dictates the organisation of the piece as each method has its own distinguishing characteristics. | Argument is organised by way of formal elements and logic. The formal elements include at least two claims, the first of which being the conclusion and the other, the remaining claim or claims that are the grounds which support or justify the conclusion |
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