How do you get to Carnegie Hall? 3/14

looking forward to the class twitter feed! This article really hit me in the gut. https://t.co/2aI9VtjFTT #meaningfulwriters

— Sarah Kristiansen (@skristiansen) January 22, 2017

When I started reading Michelle Kenney's article, "The Politics of the Paragraph," I knew I had read it before. A quick scan of my twitter feed and I found that I had read it just after this class had begun, and felt the need to share it. I noted that it "hit me in the gut" because the notion that formulaic writing was NOT the most effective way to teach students how to write was an absolute shock. I really thought that teaching my 13-year old how to master the five paragraph essay was going to be the secret to helping him become a better writer. Shows how much I knew!

I have always thought, as Kenney touches on, that formulaic writing acted like training wheels for writers. But I am finally starting to understand that those kinds of restrictions and strict adherence to a formula inhibit both creativity and critical thinking. As Kenney says, formulaic writing "produces 'good-enough" writing...devoid of creativity and well-developed critical thinking, yet proficient enough to pass a test, raise school graduation rates, or increase the number of students receiving AP credit."

It seems like formulaic writing is shallow, and serves only to push students through the pipeline. Nothing about formulaic writing teaches students how to actually write. So it's time to say that "good enough" is no longer good enough.

The article by Alex Kameen that Dr. Johnson sent earlier echoes that same sentiment...instead of trying to fit writing into a formula, it should be IDEAS first. Not only that, but formulaic writing takes the student voice out of the equation, and in this class, we continually discuss the fact that student voice is of the utmost importance. So it's clearly time to rethink the formula.

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The golden nugget that stuck out of the two Gallagher chapters was when he said, "Putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) creates new thinking. The act of writing itself is generative" (37). I'll come back to that.

The things that Gallagher seems to be wrestling with is the notion of writing with revision (and I'm learning more and more how crucial revision is in the creation of writing pieces) and writing on demand. I think that there is a tendency to focus on the latter, about how to teach students to write for exams--teaching to the test. If you know how to write the dreaded five paragraph essay, then you can write about anything on demand. But that writing is so shallow, it's hard to measure real knowledge or ability.

The question becomes, how do teachers balance the deeper writing instruction with multiple revisions and the need to teach students how to write on-demand. I think the answer is practice. Lots and lots of practice. Gallagher is totally on board with this plan, too.

Gallagher notes that writing should be happening all the time, students should have not only daily opportunities to write, but that it should happen across multiple disciplines. Gallagher suggests "shouldn't we teach the curriculum through writing?" His anecdote about coaching basketball made this point clear. A coach spends lots of time practicing small skills with his players so that when it's game time, they have the skills that they have been practicing on hand. They don't have to think about dribbling or passing, those are skills they have already mastered. The same goes with writing. If they spend more time practicing writing, the better prepared they will be when the stakes are high.

• My favorite example of this kind of practice was when he had his students write down everything he did--and he walked from the door to his chair and sat down. Each day he would have his students revise their simple sentence until it was an amazing piece of short (very short) writing. In a very small amount of class time for a week, those students did some ery important practice. I bet you breakfast that if he had them write out a different one-sentence scenario the following week, the students would have enough practice to have a first draft that was markedly better than the original first draft. Practice, practice, practice. 

This is also where that golden nugget comes back in. Writing is generative and explicitly connected to thinking. With constant writing practice, when students are able to create a kind of "muscle memory" for writing, the on-demand writing becomes easier and easier. This notion in itself is enough for me to ditch the five-paragraph essay formula in my classroom in favor of daily writing practice. (I've bookmarked his idea for a writer's notebook. I really liked that.)

The second important part of teaching writers (not teaching students to write--teaching writers) is to model how to write. I have kids and I KNOW that modeling is the most effective way to lead. My husband sometimes likes to follow the "do as I say, not as I do" plan, but I know that does not work. Modeling writing has to happen in a classroom--for no other reason than students really do need to see first hand that writing is hard! A teacher has to be a little vulnerable to be able to show the authentic writing process. But the rewards, I think, will far outweigh the risks. Gallagher says, "writing is personal and risky," and students need to see that taking that leap is not only okay, but encouraged, no matter the result. When students see that a teacher struggles, and fails, but carries on, it makes that struggle and failure okay! It gives the students the permission to struggle and fail, and from that, grow and thrive. As a parent, I know that failure is so important in order to grow and improve, and I am certain that principle will carry into my classroom.

(I also have always liked that Dr. Johnson does the quickwrites with us--it's nice to see that even writers and writing teachers need to keep practicing as well!)

• something else I'll carry into my classroom is the 4:1 grading philosophy. Giving students opportunities to write without assessment will allow them to take more of these risks, and time to refine their thoughts and writing before grading. Again, this goes against what I would originally thought was the right way to teach, but as I continue to read and learn, I absolutely see the value in this approach.

One of my father's favorite sayings was, "How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice practice!" Until this class, I thought that having my students practice the five-paragraph formula was the best way to set them up for success. I see the error in that now. I've always heard that "practice makes perfect" but you must ensure they are practicing the RIGHT habits!