Theory and Pedagogy in the Study of Writing

Teachers and teacher educators agree that teaching grammar and language study are important to the development of student writing. There is however less agreement as to what such instruction should involve, how language competencies should be taught and when. Historically, the pendulum in the instructional approaches towards this subject matter has swung from teaching grammar and language work in isolation, and from definition to example, to teaching these skills in the context of writing, and from example to definition.

Like striking a balance between content and grammatical errors in responding to student writing so is the challenge in achieving balanced language instruction. Such measured guidance should be nevertheless pursued. Ideally, it should embrace both ideas development (content) and language work in student writing. This combined method will help students in communicating their ideas to their readers in effective, engaging, and empowering ways. In today’s discussion, we will attempt to set boundaries for such instruction and offer strategies and best practices towards this goal.

New technologies are constantly changing our concepts of text and composition in our daily and professional lives, by augmenting and enriching traditional texts and genres or by adding new texts and ways of communicating. These changes require from readers to become more ‘writerly’ in exploring and evaluating these new texts and genres. Similarly, writers are called upon to better understand and meet their readers’ needs in producing and communicating with these texts and media. Being effective communicators with these diverse tools and media calls however for strong rhetorical and compositional skills from their writers and producers. Such skills will allow writers to attract readership in various venues, since they will have something important to say in powerful and effective ways through these new texts and media. On the other hand, weak and poorly communicated messages are unlikely to gain wide response from readers, and as such, they may lose the opportunity to change and influence people’s thinking and ideas and even their lives. This has been the purpose of effective communication and writing for decades.

As writing teachers, we want to help our students to understand the foundational rhetorical constructs such as the mode, audience, purpose and the ways writers and content producers negotiate these constructs to produce powerful messages in various genres and media for various audiences and purposes. To do so, we must bridge the artificially perceived binary of technology and English language arts that, as Swenson, Young, McGrail, Rozema & Whitin (2006) argue, “position[s] literacy and English language arts (ELA) content here and technology over there; similarly, old literacies and their social practices here, and new literacies with newer technologies and their social practices over there” (p. 353).

Instead, these researchers and educators advocate for Myers’s (2006) approach that “erases these divisions, by describing [new litleracies and technologies] as ‘evolving social practices that coalesce new digital tools along with the old symbolic tools to achieve key motivating purposes for engagement in the literacy practices’ (p. 62) ” [p. 353].

Hicks (2009) adopts a similar mindset in the Digital Writing Workshop, and offers some practical ways for educators and students for accomplishing this goal. Today’s class discussion will examine these ideas. Join our conversation.

References:

Swenson, J., Young, C.A., McGrail, E., Rozema, R., & Whitin P. (2006). Extending the conversation: New technologies, new literacies, and English education. English Education, 38(4), 349-367.

Hicks, T. (2009). The digital writing workshop: Learning to teach digital writing in K-12 classrooms.

A writer’s voice is the writer’s personality on the page. It is unique, full of character and individual style. Each of us has it. Our students have it too, but often it does not shine through in their writing. Our task as educators is to help each student writer discover his/her unique voice. It is there, inside their heads, waiting to be put to their writing. We would also like for our student writers to be able to use it to connect effectively with different audiences in different contexts. Today’s class discussion will focus on exploring various ways to accomplish these important goals for our student writers.

“Writing is talking,” reminds us Pat Schneider (2003, p.3). It is talking about our dreams, beliefs, or experiences. It is who we are and what we think at this specific moment. It is our response to others’ positions, beliefs, ideas, and thinking. It is hard to do that kind of talking, if we ourselves have not determined yet what we think and who we are. Our task as educators thus is to invite our students to begin a self-discovery journey about these questions, with their peers and other readers, and to guide them as they do so. Like getting on a vacation trip involves a great deal of preparation, researching, planning, and decision making, starting any new writing project calls for similar preparation and deliberation. How can we do this most effectively and successfully for all students? This question is a focus of today’s conversation. Bring in your ideas, questions, and suggestions, based on the readings as well as teaching and personal experiences as writers. We will be looking for a variety of teaching and learning opportunities to support student writers as they embark on a new writing journey.

Today we will reflect on how well we know our students as writers, learners, and human beings. Such knowledge will help us to support them both as writers and learners, and to meet their future needs as citizens. Since our students are becoming a more and more diverse student body, we need to continue to get to know them well. As we do so, we must re-imagine our classroom environments, pedagogy, texts, and the ELA curriculum, to meet their needs. At the same time, we also would like to build on the rich capital that they all bring to our classrooms. Let our readings and teaching experiences guide us in this exploration.

“Of the three ‘Rs,’ writing is clearly the most neglected, ” states the report by the National Commission on Writing (2003, p.4).

The clear message that the report sends to teachers, teacher educators, and other interested parties, is that writing needs to be put in the center of any school and classroom agenda, and I would also add, parent and local community agendas.

Before we can help our students become effective writers though, we must help them distinguish good and effective writing from weak writing, in various genres and contexts, and through such careful analysis support their own development of successful strategies for producing powerful writing. In other words, we must engage our students in conversations at school and home about the writing process and the writer’s craft, or as Mary Salibrici (2008) puts it, in studying “what happens behind the scenes of published writing” (#8). What might such an analysis look like, and how might students contribute to it?

Let us begin our conversation.

Today we will engage in exploring the preconceptions about writing in the past. We will also examine where we stand now in terms of research and models for writing instruction. Our focus will be on the “hidden curricula” (Quigley & Holsinger, 1993) these theories and models represent– the beliefs, policy, practices, and thinking about writing and its role in the classroom and society. In daily practice, the hidden curricula often are reflected in readings, grammar textbooks, writing books, exercise sheets, assignments, activities, writings, posters, publishing outlets and audiences, among other things. They also indicate what is not taught and how it is not used or practiced– the “null curriculum (Eisner, 1994).

As we capture the past theory and pedagogy, imprinted with readings, images, memories, and experiences, or lack of whereof, we will strive to move forward in our own thinking about writing and teaching it to students. Change in our writing classrooms can only come from rethinking the past and imagining the future.

Bring these thoughts, discoveries, and questions to class.

This blog serves as a mother blog for our conversations about teaching writing in the classroom. I will use this blog to share comments, resources, and questions to guide our ongoing conversations about research and theory on teaching writing in the classroom.

Typically, our class will follow a workshop format and will include:

Explorations/Writing Invitations
Theory/Research and Pedagogy Discussions
Workshop: Individual Work/Group Project Work/ Technology Support
Exit Sharing/Homework Reminders

I look forward to our exciting journey into writing and writing pedagogy and theory this semester.

Happy blogging to all.