It's School Time

2013

Call for Submissions 100 2 These authors are represented in two of the required texts for the course, The Norton Book of Composition Studies, and A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. sional writing majors to each group of middle school writers (an initial set, a set after switching groups, and a final set tallied by clickers); we also draw on anecdotal evidence from class discussions of these scores (and the similarities and differences among them). Third, we analyze the actual feedback the groups posted to the wiki for each student writer. Throughout our analysis, we include excerpts from the reflections composed by the college students at the end of the process. In addition, one middle school student's writing, in particular, serves as a provocative point of intersection across the stages of this process. Reframing Responses to Student Writing Paper Jellyfish and Raisin-y Babies: Initial Perceptions of Student Submissions Ted was surprised by the remarkable quality of the writing from the Pennsylvania students. Students submitted detective fiction, dream sequences, fantasy and futuristic fiction, as well as sophisticated memoirs. For example, one student, Grace, from whose text we have permission to quote, submitted a memoir about adjusting to moving and to changes in her family. Her text demonstrates originality and humor as well as trust in her readers. Everyone loved [baby brother]. When we brought him home from the hospital a bunch of people came to see the bright blue eyed baby boy with a crop of pale blond hair and my exhausted mother. Ignoring me in the process, naturally. Just like people always had since they had brought [younger sister] home from the hospital when she was a baby. I didn't care for hospitals. That's where all the babies came from. Some babies were cute and very pretty to look at and adore, like dolls. Others had red, raisin-y, faces and cried too much. They smelled especially undesirable when they needed changing. I never quite understood why my mother loved babies so much. Still don't. She also demonstrated excellent control of syntax in constructing a sophisticated authorial voice: "Later, when I got to Pennsylvania it was still hot but there it was very humid. Sticky hot. Hard-to-breathe-in my-chest hot. Help me, the sun is beating down on me to kill me hot." Most of the texts from this group revealed students who seemed to enjoy writing and who were writing to engage and entertain their readers, not just to earn the approval of a teacher. One student created adult characters of all of the other students in the group and wrote a fictional story of a class reunion gone awry. Another piece ended with a sophisticated reprisal of a beautifully described image from an arts festival of handcrafted jellyfish with candles inside floating up into an evening sky. As one college student would later write in a reflection on the experience, Some of [the students' stories]...I could never think of even if I tried. [One] boy wrote a science fiction short story in which he made up words and mentioned hilarious details that made me chuckle. One writer played well with dialogue and demonstrated its importance in storytelling in general. Another writer used absolutely stunning imagery and captured a scene that I can picture looking at through a photograph from a polaroid camera. In all, Pennsylvania demonstrated some excellent storytelling. The overall quality of the student writing would, we hoped, reframe teacher candidates' idea of what eighth grade writers are capable of, and encourage them to respond to these students as "real writers." NCTE PROMISING YOUNG WRITERS PROGRAM HOLISTIC WRITING EVALUATION SCALE Submissions that receive a 3, 2, or 1 should meet a certain level of effectiveness with regard to organization, content, style, usage, and writing process. Submissions that do not meet this level should receive a 0. 3 Submissions scored as a 3 tend to employ an organizational framework that is especially effective for the topic/genre. The content is particularly effective throughout the piece because of its substance, specificity, or illustrative quality. The work is vivid and precise, with distinguishing characteristics that give the writing an identity of its own within the conventions of the genre/medium, though it may contain an occasional flaw. The work is polished and impressive for the eighth grade. 2 Submissions scored as a 2 are organized effectively for the topic/genre. The content is effective throughout the piece, though the paper may lack the substance, specificity, or illustrative quality of a 3. The stylistic/surface features of the genre/medium are consistently under control, despite occasional lapses. The potential in the writing is realized, though not to the degree that further revision would allow. 1 Submissions scored as a 1 show evidence of the writer's attempt at organization. Content, though effective, tends to be less consistent or less substantive, specific, and illustrative than that found in papers scored as a 3 or 2. The writer generally observes the stylistic conventions of genre/medium but unevenness suggests that the writer is not yet in full command of his/her voice. Some errors are usually present, but they aren't severe enough to interfere significantly with the reader's experience. The potential in the writing is evident, but the work would clearly benefit from further revision.

The Series provides compact, comprehensive and convenient surveys of what has been learned through research and practice as composition has emerged as an academic discipline over the last half century. Each volume is devoted to a single topic that has been of interest in rhetoric and composition in recent years, to synthesize and make available the sum and parts of what has been learned on that topic. These reference guides are designed to help deepen classroom practice by making available the collective wisdom of the field and will provide the basis for new research. The Series is intended to be of use to teachers at all levels of education, researchers and scholars of writing, graduate students learning about the field, and all who have interest in or responsibility for writing programs and the teaching of writing.

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego eBooks, 2011

Writing is one of the most effective forms of recording thoughts and communicating across time and space. It is also the major focus of early years education when children strive to make the connection between sounds and their graphic representations. Yet, writing is not merely translating utterances into texts but an art of putting one's thoughts and feeling on paper is such a way that they will be understood and experienced by the reader. This is obviously difficult, the more so if it is done in another language. Teaching writing requires many skills, most of which have little to do with the actual process itself. As teachers, we need to guide students through the intricacies of logical argumentation, text structure and formal aspects or writing inspiring them to come up with fresh ideas along the way. This text is a summary of a workshop on teaching writing to secondary school students which was aimed at providing new ideas on how to encourage students to write and, more importantly, how not to discourage them from the process. We strongly believe that writing is a creative process of self expression and is, as such, an immensely fulfilling activity. The only thing teachers have to do is help their students experience the joy of writing.

TEXT, 2018

On the next instance of the New South Whales making an appearance in the assignment, she hesitated, then typed out a pithy question. Because a third mention surely deserved sarcasm. She tapped it out two-fingered on her laptop. 'Are these related to the Southern Right Whale?' Was she undermining the student's self-esteem by pointing out he didn't know how to smell the name of his home state? More to the point, had she been teaching too long? It was supposed to be a heart and soul job, a vacation like being a nun. She wanted to do the right thing but increasingly felt she was losing the plot and not just of the students' convoluted assignments. It was like an illness, this feeling stalking her. The bus lurched to a stop and she was jostled by the outflow of passengers spelling of body odour and expensive perfumes and daily grind. She stared blankly at the swelling cityscape beyond the window. Sighed. Not her stop. Dropped her eyes back to the coldface. The hall was deserted. She sometimes doubted students existed in threedimensional space. The laminated A4 on the Professor's door announced Consolation times, handily colour coded on a timetable. No one had introduced him to the vagaries of autocorrect, nor his students to the futility of expecting anything soothing when they came to consult behind that particular door. She arrived just in time, a skerrick before the nick, in a case of hurrying up to get somewhere to sit still. The school meeting dragged, its soul-purpose, it seemed, to prepare them for hell. The diminutive sessional tutor alone did not partake of the neatly triangular sandwiches and cut fruit provided as incentive to get them there. This woman had long subsided on next-to-nothing at all. As the clock on the far wall itched its way closer to the advertised conclusion, she found herself drowning. She woke as her chin hit her chest. 'I meant drowsing,' she apologised. The Head droned on, having made a slightly more complex spelling mistake: perusing agenda items took so much longer than pursuing them. The list of mistakes in the afternoon marking grew. The baddie had another think coming. A ballerina was frilled when she won the Eisteddfod. Some boys went surging. The versus of a song were eluded to.

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 2017

L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature

This is the final version prior to formating

IRA E-ssentials, 2014

2015

Considerable support exists for teachers writing in the classroom and modeling, brainstorming and composing to assist their students in learning how more skilled writers approach writing tasks. Stories written by teachers and students can be used to teach English syntax, cross-cultural differences and literary appreciation. A story grammar of problem-resolution, as well as graphic organizers and listening-summarizing techniques, can assist students learning how to write fi ction. Two sample lessons are outlined. The fi rst lesson explains how to use a memoir to teach traditional literary terms such as theme, irony and confl ict, in addition to points of grammar such as modal auxiliaries, the present perfect and contractions. In the second lesson, suggestions are made for contextualizing a story for students through the use of comtemporary issues and timing the delivery of stories with the anniversaries of signifi cant historical events. Finally, techniques are described for teaching...