Patricia A. Gourley-Biggs

August 10, 2003

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Pieces of the Writing Puzzle: Motivating, stimulating, and effectively coaching students

to become readers, writers, and authors.

Participating in the Oregon Writing Project Workshop the past few weeks has been a very productive time. The OWP Workshop is a valuable time set aside for teacherís to learn about research and gain new teaching insights and ideas that can be developed into new teaching methods or practices. Developing new teaching practices serves to improve teacher efficiency, effectiveness, and relevancy in the delivery of instruction to their learners. When teachers improve their teaching practices they enable their students to benefit by helping to facilitate learning and discovery of their studentís own potential. Reading and writing are the best tools to teach learners to communicate their ideas, feelings, opinions, arguments, explanations, persuasions, and connections. The puzzle for teachers is putting together units of instruction for their learners that stimulate them to read critically, write expressively in their personal voice, and develop lifelong learning skills all the while motivating them to reach the highest point of their potential as writers.

I have directed my attention to teaching students by including "fun" in writing exercises. Most of the curriculum that I teach is already formatted for computers. The textbooks have exercises and assignments that are online for the students to complete, print, and hand in. The exercises are designed to build keyboarding skills, fluency, and speed not writing creatively or spontaneously or just for fun. Because the topics in the curriculum are chosen for the students there is a need for students to pick appropriate topics to write for fun and spontaneity.

In the book Both Art and Craft Mitchell & Christenbury (2000) discuss teaching as both an art and a craft. This to me is what provides the foundation to motivating learners to write with spontaneity using their personal voice. The art of teaching is found in the teacherís ability to effectively "spark" or stimulate the learnerís imagination so that it ignites into fiery motivation. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000) Craft in teaching is found in the knowledge acquired and the experience gained from years of teaching. Craft is also the ability of the teacher to use their teaching skills to instruct a variety of courses in lessons that are clear and understandable in a logical and attentive method to the real entity, the learner. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000) The combination of "art and craft" engrosses teachers in meshing the two together. A sound foundation of skills and knowledge of curriculum as their craft is meshed together with their art of stimulating and motivating learners to increase their ability to successfully learn and achieve. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000) In the development of the classroom the teacher must consider their learnerís individual needs, curriculum, and any personal circumstances that may influence their ability to learn. Implementation of the delivery of instruction depends upon the teacherís ability provide simple, relevant, and workable activities that increase the learnerís skill level as well as provide for successful achievement in the area of curriculum. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

As a teacher what is important to me is to bring relevant, clear, and meaningful activities to the studentís learning experience so they may benefit and successfully demonstrate to me real learning gains. In reviewing the courses that I teach I find that I can include spontaneous writing in the delivery of instruction to my students. What I must do is develop workable teaching strategies that help to create a classroom that is receptive to students to perform writing in a spontaneous manner. Students must be engaged and productive and they must be motivated and stimulated to produce quality written prose that is creative, spontaneous, and composed in their personal voice.

Mitchell & Christenbury (2000) discuss teaching strategies that enable the teacher to provide simple, relevant, and workable learning activities to the classroom. Reading aloud to students is a strategy that has been successful because reading aloud involves the student by engaging or connecting them to the story, the student is interested and cares what happens in the story. Based upon reading research many students do not visualize or imagine what they are reading. The student reads but does not see pictures or form images in their minds as they read the text. Without having the ability to visualize or imagine what they are reading students cannot engage or connect with the text. The text simply does not make sense to the student. Reading aloud to students allows them to use their minds to form pictures or images of the characters enabling them to engage or connect to the story. Mitchell & Christenbury (2000) found that by using the reading aloud strategy students felt nurtured and taken care of as well as helping them to see pictures or fill in gaps left by an author. This is a strategy that I can use in most of my courses, instead of assigning students to a chapter to read and complete the exercises I have found that by reading aloud to students allowing for discussion of the material they become more attentive and follow the lesson and are better prepared to complete the chapter exercises.

Another strategy that engages students to be productive is to ask them to talk about or explain their ideas or personal opinions on a topic that has been read aloud. Discussion about the meaning of the literature or the core of the article can spur their interest in the material while providing them an opportunity to convey their interpretation of the work. Discussions about the reading can draw out of the students what they think is interesting to them about the written work. Discussions can also validate the worth of the individual studentís contribution in class. Discussions of the reading can also allow students to construct knowledge using their own personal experiences to grapple with the content of the reading. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

The strategy of providing writing and project options allows students to demonstrate to the teacher the value of their differences in their writing and that they are authors writing for them not a teacher driven assignment. Mitchell & Christenbury (2000) discuss the need for students to feel accepted by their teacher and peers. When students feel safe from derision and mockery or not measuring up to harsh teacher standards they will take risks in trying out new formats or genres in their written work. Creating a writing option can be accomplished by selecting a specific theme or issue from a written work that can be structured to allow students to apply that theme or issue to their own personal experience. Another option is to allow the student to connect with the written work by writing from their point of view. Still another option to engage students in producing their own personal voice in writing is to allow them to connect the written work to their own life by developing an argument of agreement or disagreement with the writing and their personal experience. This option provides for the ability for students to engage in critical thinking or brainstorming themes that are important to them, such as examining race or gender if applicable to the written work. They may choose to respond to the text by drawing images or developing a collage that illustrates the core of the written work. Developing a collage works wonderfully with students because there is an element of fun added to the assignment as well as artistic expression. Lastly, another strategy to engage students in productive responses to written work is to have them evaluate in writing on each otherís papers a critical response comment. The response comment should only be directed to the paperís content. When students have evaluated each otherís papers they may discuss similarities or differences from reading experiences drawing conclusions of what they have learned often these group discussions can ignite whole classroom discussions. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

Sports marketing is one of my courses that all of the writing and project option strategies could be implemented. Students could design their own written work on subjects of their choice giving them the opportunity to express their opinion, passion, voice, and personal views on various sports, events, athletes, and the myriad of issues surrounding sports and the entertainment industry. Students could also form discussion groups, evaluate their written work, and enter into whole classroom discussion of similarities and differences from their reading experiences allowing each student to decide what they have learned from the material. Students could design collages that illustrate the entertainment industry subject they have chosen. The collage would engage the student in demonstrating the value of their individual artistic contribution on the entertainment industry subject productively.

Communications, careers, and computers is another course that I can implement the writing and project options described by Mitchell & Christenbury (2000). The course requires students to complete a research paper that involves researching three careers, using three sources for each career, documenting sources, writing a rough draft, editing and revising, then completing the final paper for grading. In addition, the students must prepare a Power Point presentation of their three career research paper to present to the class. Mitchell & Christenbury (2000) provide new ways to think about teaching research skills and critical thinking. First we spend too much time on developing correct form in writing the paper, such as, the title page must be formatted in a certain style, margins must be precisely one inch, double-spaced, endnotes with subscripted numbers, a reverse indented bibliography, and on and on and on. There are weeks of discussion about correct punctuation with placement of commas, colons, and underlining a title or placing quotation marks correctly. When the students submit the research paper teachers are amazed that the writing received does not contain quality prose in the content. First, the student is engaged through instruction on form such as bibliographic or writing convention so they concentrate on producing the form without acquiring the necessary skills of critical thinking and analysis involved in developing quality written prose. Second, the student listens to ideas of others and researches the ideas of others without having formed their own opinion or drawn their own conclusions. Without forming their own personal convictions their writing reflects their use of careless quotes of the opinion or ideas of others resulting in not well thought out poor quality written prose. The student needs to be able to reflect on the writing, critically thinking and analyzing the written work. Then using their own thoughts and questions they can make judicious use of quotes from other sources to create quality written prose. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

In teaching students how to write a research paper it is more effective to provide students with personal relevance to avoid these two pitfalls. Have each student write a free write page on their personal experience with the topic such as a career they have chosen. The free write page is not graded. Its sole purpose is to allow students to express their intrinsic feelings, thoughts, experiences, and passion about the topic. The free writing engages students in producing a writing that utilizes the resources at their disposal, engaging them in models of reality and the world of the topic. Next have the students develop initial focus for their topic by developing a thesis statement. In order to avoid using abstract terminology it is advisable to refer to the statement as an "answerable question." (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000) The answerable question is based on the topic that each student wants to research and dictates which direction their research will lead them. The unanswerable question needs to be specific and concrete. As a result of their research the answerable question may change somewhat as development of the research topic gets more involved with their research findings on the chosen topic.

Having developed the answerable question the students are ready to move towards thinking through their topic before they write. Thinking through the topic before they write about it helps the student avoid the pitfall of carelessly quoting the ideas of others. Students think through their topic arriving at their opinion and their own conclusions so they may form the words to use in what they want to write about this allows them to develop care for readership. Students must form a conviction about what they are going to write. Thinking provides them the skill and ability to judge what is relevant in their research of the topic, especially if they want to quote the research source to support their conviction. Interpreting and analyzing data and deducing logical conclusions are skills that a teacher wants to develop in the student. Research paper assignments structured correctly can be an act of writing that enables the student to learn. Students must not be given so many possibilities that they become overwhelmed with choices. Too many choices causes information overload for students resulting in skewed thinking without personal conviction, directionless research, careless quoting of others opinions and ideas, and poor quality prose. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

Now that students have developed their answerable question, thought through the topic, reached conclusions and ideas of their own, and formed a personal conviction, they are ready to formulate their thesis. The sources that they use as references are to provide proof and support to their argument. The sources do not provide conclusions or ideas to their thesis. Secondary sources allow the student to become focused, develop relevance to their topic, purpose to their paper, and communicate personal conviction using their own conclusions and ideas supplying the references to provide valid proof of support for their topic. Quality writing is produced when the student is not struggling with problems of form and style but when they think and analyze their topic. The student can write with conviction and authority because they have been empowered to think through the topic and develop a thorough understanding of the topic. This is what teaching literacy in reading and writing is concerned about. (Mitchell & Christenbury, 2000)

I would like to implement in my teaching is a writing workshop similar to the OWP Writing Workshop. By developing a writing workshop especially in the CCC students would be allowed to experience sharing their written works with their peers in a non-threatening environment of acceptance of their personal writing ideas. The writing workshop gains the students attention to reading and writing within a literate community such as the classroom. Using a writing workshop would integrate the non-threatening atmosphere into the writing process. This would allow the students to drop the curriculum/standards based atmosphere they are conditioned to in exchange for an atmosphere that encourages acceptance of relaxed creative personal written prose.

The writing workshop is concerned with product and production much the same as an industrial arts class, athletics, or playing in the school band. Fletcher & Portalupi (2001) discuss the writing workshop as a "generative time of day, with kids actively involved in creating their own texts...Most kids experience school as a series of tasks, dittos, assignments, tests&8212;things that are administered to them." In a writing workshop students are empowered to engage in responsive and productive thought leading them to design their own learning experience. A writing workshop is not a permissive learning environment but a rigorous environment that is rooted to the traditional system of apprentice and master working side by side learning the skills of writing. Students in a writing workshop must be engaged in the productive process of writing, making them accountable and responsible for their own learning. (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001) The writing workshop should be come an individual "flow zone" where the learner finds an optimal match between their ability and the writing task. The student becomes so engaged in the writing task that they loose sense of time. The "flow zone" allows the student to immerse in written work and play with language while learning to put words on paper. (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001) The writing workshop should be a "flow zone" that includes all students with differing abilities working together side by side in the construction of their own learning environment. By learning from one another the competitive area with a small group of students dazzling the teacher with their sophisticated literary writing ability is eliminated. (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001)

The teacher is not replaced in the writing workshop; rather the teacher must design and set up the structure of the workshop. The teacher is responsible for allowing the students ample choice to stimulate their imagination and motivation to ignite their writing energy to be worked off in the workshop. The teacher must intervene to teach specific emphasis on writing, clarify thinking, and reinforce learning in the workshop environment. Much like learning any other craft the teacher must reinforce doing rather than administering in a writing workshop. A writing workshop creates hothouse conditions where the students thrive as budding writers. The students are in the teacherís palm, they are scared, feel inadequate, scrunch down in their seats, cover their papers so no one will read them, and lack confidence when it comes to putting their thoughts into writing. The teacher takes the student building on their writing strengths, igniting motivational writing energy, stimulating their imaginations, and helping them to develop their own writing stride. Expect blank pages, false starts, misspelling, poor punctuation skills, and failure, this is how students learn, but the teacher can get the students to write on the first day. By celebrating the use of a word, the use of a sudden twist, use of a startling image, finding the strengths in their fledgling compositions will enable the students to find their "flow zone" and develop the ability to soar with their newly acquired writing skills. (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001)

The student is accountable and responsible for their learning the teacher determines what to teach the student. Students learn best when the purpose of writing is authentic usually a topic or purpose that matters most to each of them. The teacher can provide students with the freedom to choose appropriate topics and to set the purpose of their choice of topic. When students are allowed a choice in their topic they are more attentive to instruction they become more engaged and receptive in producing their own written work making them responsible for their learning experience. Fletcher & Portalupi (2001) recommend three key aspects that should be included in a writing workshop: (1) time for whole-group instruction (often referred to as a minilesson), (2) time for writing, and (3) time for structured response (as a whole class or in small groups).

I plan to include better and more frequent modeling of what a good writing and response group looks like. After first modeling I will initiate the peer response groups in the sharing time giving each student the opportunity to practice their responses as work that is authored and their responses are to that author. I want the students to respond to the writing not with "what I liked" or "what you need to change" but with authentic responses that include positive comments with specific suggestions based upon author requests or what needs expressed by the author. After the students have had the opportunity to practice responding to written work in a reader and author format I will begin the reading response groups encouraging them to reflect carefully on the written work before they respond with their comments. The pause before responding gives them the needed time to assimilate in their mind that this is an independent written work by a peer author not another teacher assignment that they are responding to.

To encourage reading literacy I will make time each day, at least twenty minutes, when students can read books of their own choosing. In high school periods are short but if carefully managed time can be found in a twenty minute block at least two days of the week for "choice" reading. In the reading literacy response groups I will encourage students to discuss favorite books or favorite authors or favorite bookstores that they love to browse. I will model to the students by discussing book reviews reading aloud a book review to interest them in a book. I will explain the process of selecting books for the school library using book reviews in the selection process. I will integrate book reviews into the writing workshop to encourage students to write book reviews of favorite books to share with their response group. By encouraging my students to read books I can help them note what authors do suggesting that they attempt similar writing styles when they write in the workshop. I will ask them to select especially well written paragraphs that use stimulating language or pertinent descriptions of characters or a scene depicted in vivid detail. By teaching the students to select especially well written paragraphs in their favorite books the students will begin to develop writing sensitivities about what really engages a reader when critically reading for pleasure and information. The students can then begin composing their own engaging written works to share with their response group.

Tama & McClain (2001) discuss literature strategies to encourage lifelong reading and to provide students with an enriched context for their study topics and writing choices. Using literature strategies provides students with opportunities to construct their own knowledge experience by reading the dialogue of their culture. Reading literature gives the student another point of view of what others experience and how they construct their knowledge of their experience. The reading student then takes the authors constructed experience and meshes it with their own constructing ideas and conclusions that direct their lives. (Tama & McClain, 2001) The rationale used by Tama & McClain (2001) is that reading across content areas in a culture enables students to understand the people, settings, issues, and culture in discussion. Regularly scheduled times for discussing and reflecting on what was read provides the student with the opportunity to discuss their own feelings and thoughts and arrive at their own conclusion about a literary work. Tama & McClain (2001) believe that students must read across the curriculum both expository and narrative subjects. Reading books across the curriculum help the student develop models for quality written prose. Reading across the curriculum helps the student develop comprehension and vocabulary as well as a sound understanding of each content area.

Literacy strategies outlined by Tama & McClain (2001) include encouraging students to become responsive to literature they have read by communicating in exercises their feeling and thoughts. Communication exercises help the student to relate the reading to their own life as well as developing judgmental skills. Discussion circles encourage students to share their own opinions and develop acceptance for ideas contributed by peers. Tama & McClain (2001) believe that discussion circles enable the student to discuss a reading or writing with their own reaction and to listen to how others in the circle have interpreted or perceived the same piece. Reading literacy response groups support reading while making the student responsible and accountable for their own reading literacy learning experience. Tama & McClain (2001) believe that literacy circles should be called discussion circles to convey the message that the discussion circle is across the curriculum in all content areas, not just language arts. Alternatives to the student directed discussion circle is the discussing circle directed by the teacher who models reading, listening, and speaking activities for students to benefit from as a learning experience. Teacher directed discussion circles provide a nurturing value bringing each student into the circle both figuratively and factually because all students are visible, recognized, and have a voice. (Tama & McClain, 2001) The authors list many more reading literacy strategies that encourage students to respond to what they have read such as Preview Checklist, Intra-Act, Pinwheels, Venn Diagrams, and Booktalks. Each of these literacy strategies are designed to elicit students to share their own opinions, relate the reading to their own life, develop judgmental skills, and acceptance of the ideas of others in the literacy group. (Tama & McClain, 2001)

In conclusion, as a society we must move toward more critical literacy using the definition of literate as being a more educated or literate community of citizens. This requires that teachers model the roles and operations of thinkers and learners, readers and writers, critics and reviewers for their students. The move toward a literate or educated citizenry includes schools that provide a network of literacy tools to enable the teacher to teach students so they may acquire the knowledge and skills necessary for reading and writing and learning literacy. Teachers must be provided with the necessary tools so they may teach students new skills to problem solve, interpret, evaluate, analyze, and apply that knowledge to reading, writing, and learning literacy. This is one of the most important responsibilities in teaching learners how to be literate for life. The changes that I plan to implement in my classes will reflect my commitment toward improving reading, writing, and learning literacy in my students.

The writing process is no longer a passing educational fad developed in the 50s but is now deeply embedded in the national school curriculum. Fletcher (1991) discusses the year in the life of a teacher in his book Walking Trees. The book is written with the goal to encourage "trees to walk" as a metaphor describing the exceedingly slow rate of growth and change in education. The book is to encourage educators who find that they are deeply mired in an education system rooted negative and disparaging bureaucracy to take "tiny steps forward" in the writing process so they may encourage their learners to write. (Fletcher, 1991) I his book Fletcher (2001) discusses a pictorial by a student illustrating a vacation to Florida with her family. The trees they saw were described by the student as "walking trees, with their roots, they take one step in a hundred years, mommy and daddy and I didnít see the trees walk." The studentís phrase is exactly what Fletcher (2001) wanted his book to do, what he had been doing all year long, "to encourage big and ponderous trees to lift up their roots and take a step, even a small step, even if it would be the only step they would take the entire year...how difficult it is to make educational change in the face of economic disparity between schools, teachers with low morale, political polarization, monumental inertia, the scarcity of high quality personnel, inefficiency, knee-jerk testing, daily interruptions...Walking tees." Had the teachers during his year made progress in "ceding bits of classroom power to their kids, learning not to write all over their studentsí papers, trusting that kids could take more responsibility for their writing, Fletcher (1991) asks this question. It was hard for him to decipher the ambiguity of their growth in teaching writing. He finally believes that his teachers during the course of the year had grown during the year their classrooms had grown deeper, clearer, swifter, and even more dangerous. The students were skillfully learning to write and read their drafts in some classrooms that displayed dramatic breakthroughs for the teacher however; he found that some teachers would not budge in teaching the writing process. Fletcher (1991) found that the attitudes of some of the teachers required grappling with massive mental forces that resisted change in any form. The teachers were the product of personal demons coupled with too many years of breathing only bureaucratic school system air, like the "walking trees" they could only take one step in a hundred years.

References

Fletcher, R. & Portalupi, J. (2001). Writing Workshop: The Essential Guide.Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

Fletcher, R. (1991). Walking Trees: Portraits of Teachers and Children in the Culture of School. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

Mitchell, D. & Christenbury, L. (2000). Both Art and Craft: Teaching Ideas that Spark Learning. National Council of Teachers of English: Urbana, IL.

Tama, M. & McClain, A. (2001). Guiding Reading and Writing in the Content Areas: Practical Strategies.Kendall & Hunt Publishing Co.: Dubuque, IA.