Thursday

Advanced Writing - Thursday

It’s been a hard week of writing in my Advanced Writing class, so I decided to give them an option today. They could either do a group work project or they could go over to a nearby park, do a free write, and leave. They wisely chose the latter.

For the past two days, students have been reading their essays. I have never been able to do this successfully in past classes. Of course, I never had as serious of writers as I have in here. These kids, well most of them, care about writing and care about writing well.

At first I had to bribe them to read by offering them an exemption from our Friday term quizzes if they read from an essay. We did this last Friday, and it was the best class I’ve ever had.

So yesterday in class I proposed the same thing. We spent the entire hour listening to essays. How great is that? No one was hesitant. They belted out their words and enjoyed the responses. Several students actually got to the point where they were asking for specific feedback on their essays - “What can I do to improve the ending? Where can I use dialogue? Does this introduction sound boring? How do I adopt a serious tone? I don’t use enough imagery, help me out.” It was grand.

Now I have to ask myself, why does this work so well and how on earth do I keep it going?

First, I think it works well because students like to share. They share their thoughts and opinions all the time. Every time I hand out an assignments and kids groan and whine, they are sharing their opinions. They freak out that we won’t be able to watch the Twins. They offer excuses for why their papers are late. They tell me way more than I want to know about who they’re dating and what has happened to their parents. All sharing their thoughts. But when it comes to channeling that sharing to school related manners, that passion and energy dies right out.

I think what worked so well with this class is that they are all high achieving students. So they are used to excelling, and some of that has been tied to sharing. They are the ones who are used to dominating their classes and sharing their opinions when no one else will because they’ve been taught or learned that in prior classes.

I also believe that part of my approach to this class has helped them open up and share more. For each theme the students have done so far, I’ve had them write at least three essays. Then they choose from what they believe to be their strongest work from those essays and submit it for a letter grade. I read each essay and offer my comments. The students like this. I have never been asked so many times “what do you mean by “show not tell?” or “What does this word mean?” (my handwriting is atrocious). So now that I have them ‘hooked’ on my feedback, I’ve started to get them ‘hooked’ on getting feedback from their classmates.

The next step will be getting them to record the feedback and use it more. I’ve been able to steer the class away from such feedback as “I really like it” and “It was good.” Instead they give practical feedback. Part of this is due to how I model feedback while each student reads their essay. I scrawl notes on the board while I listen. A few students have even begun to mimic this (and I’m guilty of this copying this idea from Susan Hauser at BSU). I am thinking of a way to try and get everyone to do this. One way might be to give each student a set of note cards. Then tell each to write down strong images, phrases, or suggestions they have for each essay read. If we did this, we’d only be able to get through a fraction of the essays that we do. But I’d gladly sacrifice class time to do this. I am also thinking of doing the same thing we did in an advanced writing graduate course - have each student bring in several copies of their essays. Then I’d divide them into small groups and circulate the essays to each person in the group and then have them read and comment. If one particular essay stood out, the students could offer to have it read at the end of the period to the entire class. That might breed competition though, and I want to avoid that at all costs.

I think I can keep this going by letting the experience ‘the writer’s high.’ This is what I call the rush a writer gets from seeing the impact their work has on others. So far so good with this class.

Well, my butt is starting to get cold from sitting on the cement gazebo steps. Most of my students have finished their essays and are off to their lives. I still have four students writing. What a great class - I tell them write a page or two of free writing on anything that strikes them. Then they are free to leave. Any of my other classes would have written gibberish and taken off 20 minutes early. Not this bunch. It’s now 3 and school is out and I still have several writing. I even had one, Chase, proof read his free writing (and for those bloggers who don’t know what free writing is - it’s a writing technique where students just write for a certain amount of time about whatever strikes them. They write as quickly as possible without worrying about spelling and punctuation).

It’s now 3:02 and all the free writes are tucked into my backpack My backside is numb. I have a game in an hour and a half. Sometimes I’m amazed I’m paid so much to do this job.