Molly Sloan

14 July 1997

Camp, Gerald. A Success Curriculum for Remedial Writers. National Writing Project, UC Berkeley, 1982

Major Points of Interest

Camp structures his book around 3 elements he sees as essential :

´ "In learning a skill, success is the most important motivation to continue." (4)

--He compares this to success in any other skill-learning activity (i.e. piano playing , dribbling a basketball, etc .): if you can't see that you're getting better, you may not continue

--He begins by "pretending" that his students are already successful, & he encourages them to do the same. "If you treat an individual as he is, he will stay as he is, but if you treat him as if hewere what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be" --Goethe

--He also notes that teachers actually have an unlimited storehouse of points: don't be stingy in givingthem out! ´ Success means knowing how to do something you didn't know how to do .........before, and knowing you know." (4)

--One way to help students in peer editing, etc. is to train them to "talk like teachers" (they actually already know how, we just need to draw it out): give students papers of different skill levels & then give them about 10 minutes to discuss in small groups & come up with an answer to the question, "If you were the teacher of this student, d you received this paper, what would you decide you need to teach the student next, so that the next paper he or she writes will be better than this paper?" (21)

--He also stresses the importance of oral "prewriting," especially for remedial students, and he aruges for the use of scoring guides for peer editing & revision, even moreso than for grading. Each scoring guide, he argues, should be tailored specifically for the assignment. (Teach something, have them do it, and then use the scoring guide to show that they know ...................how to do it.

--For grading, he sits down with each student at the end of the quarter or semester and looks over work, discussing it with the student, and then coming up with a grade together. This is important, he insists, because while one student may have made incredible leaps & bounds in his or her writing, it still may be worse than the first writing of another student... (otherwise we're not grading them on the work they have done in our class, but for all that they hadn't done or learned in other classes before)

´ "Any reasonable assignment can be structured in such a way that every student in the classroom can succeed." 5

--In order to do this, consider the following things:

1. Each assignment should be a writing assignment

2. The assignments are copmlete & are real discourse

3. Assignments follow oral & written prewriting

4. The main concern is what the student is saying & how they say it

5. Divide each assignment into small steps & give specific, clear instructions so that each student can successfully complete each step.

Implications for my Teaching

Three of the classes I will be teaching this next year will be "General Freshmen," and one of those classes is for especially "low-skilled" students. I really enjoyed that class last year, & I am looking forward to teaching it again, so I am always looking for ways to help my students, especially in this class. Mr. Camp offers some good suggestions, but I have to admit that some of the things he suggested seemed highly impractical. I was especially frustrated by the feeling that yes, this probably could work, if I could only get my students to come to class regularly! He suggested putting them in groups & having them call the absent student in my group & though my first reaction was incredulity, that thought is still rolling around in my head. He also offered quite a few specific lessons & classroom suggestions that I hope to implement. Above all, though, I think his general ideas can help me in shaping my thinking as I prep for next year.

How this book might interest others:

I wouldn't necessarily call this book "revolutionary," but there are some important ideas laid down in it. Teachers who will be working with "low-level" students could probably profit from at least some aspects of his discussion.

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