Topic: Reading Compositions Aloud

10-second review: Help students to practice reading aloud by having them read aloud their compositions to other students, parents, relatives and friends. The purpose is to engage in discussion about writing.

Title: “Beyond checklists and Rubrics: Engaging Students in Authentic Considerations about Their Writing.” CM Dawson. English Journal (May 2009), 66-71. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: The author suggests teaching students to practice reading aloud by reading their compositions aloud and gives two generic questions to encourage discussion: What do the listeners like about what they heard and what are the listeners wondering?

Comment: I don’t think it occurred to me to use students’ reading of their compositions aloud in order to prepare them for effective reading aloud. A missed opportunity for me. I think this is an excellent idea. Students will be uncomfortable to begin with, but they will become used to reading aloud effectively. Practice is the key.

Tomorrow, I will share with my readers my thoughts on the most forgotten skill in the English curriculum, reading aloud. RayS.

Topic: Real World in English Class

10-second review: Two responses to the charge that English teachers do not live and work in the real world.

Title: “How Would You Respond to Someone Who Says English Teachers Don’t Live or Work in the ‘Real World’ ”? English Journal (May 2009), 38-40. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Quote #1: “Good literature, no matter how great the demand for suspension of disbelief, is an expression of truth. Adults may look to fiction as an escape from reality, but students come to English class to embrace it and find a place to express their own truth. I couldn’t keep the ‘real world’ out of the classroom if I tried….” Ann Magyar, p. 38.

Quote #2: “Academics are forever being accused of not living in the real world, but it is in our classrooms that students explore issues that are integral to our nation’s democratic existence.” Gregory Shafer, p. 39.

Comment: First, I would ask the people who made the charge to define “real world.” Their responses should be interesting. I wonder if they would agree on a definition.

In some cases, the classroom is not the real world. It engages students in practice for the real world. In other cases, students deal directly with real-world skills and issues.

Students learn both to cooperate and to compete, to speak formally, to work in small groups and to debate.

In literature, students discuss real-world issues, the illusion of an American dream in Gatsby, the nature of sin in The Scarlet Letter, the nature of war in The Red Badge of Courage, etc., etc.

In writing they are learning to shape their thoughts in order to express themselves eloquently. They learn to read aloud fluently so that they can participate in civil (the double meaning is intended) meetings. They learn how to shape their own learning in completing independent study and in research papers.

How do my readers respond to this charge that English teachers are not living in the real world? RayS.

Topic: Real-World Writing

10-second review: …begins with a statement of purpose and audience.

Title: “Real-World Writing: Making Purpose and Audience Matter.” G Wiggins. English Journal (May 2009), pp. 29-37. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: Write for the real world. Make your purpose clear and specify your audience and write for that audience so that you receive reactions from which you will learn about how to write.

Quote: Real-world writing: “Fiction writing is rare…. School-like research papers with disembodied audiences and no bottom-line purposes are not the norm. Persuasive and informative writing for specific and real audiences are common.” p. 31.

Quote: “More than half of all responding companies also report the following forms of communications as required ‘frequently’ or ‘almost always’: technical reports (59%), formal reports (62%), and memos and correspondence 70%).” p. 31.

Comment: More and more, I am beginning to realize that the focus in writing instruction should be on real-world writing and that means reports as opposed to descriptive, narrative, argumentative, etc. writing. If students wrote blogs, they could put into practice writing with a purpose for a specific audience. RayS.

Topic: The State of Writing

10-second review: Students are not writing enough and they are not writing at any length.

Title: “What Is Happening in the Teaching of Writing?” AN Applebee and JA Langer. English Journal (May 2009), 18-28. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary/Quote: “What is clear is that even with some increases over time, many students are not writing a great deal for any of their academic subjects, including English, and most are not writing at any length. Some 40% of twelfth-grade students, for example, report never or hardly ever being asked to write a paper of three pages or more. Although short, focused writing is also important, extended writing is necessary to explore ideas or develop arguments in depth. It also represents the demands that they will face in post-secondary education.” p. 26.

Comment: Not writing enough affects development of the writing habit. Writing is more difficult without that habit.

If 40% of 12^th graders are not writing papers of 3 pages or more, then 60% are—and I bet it’s once a year, with a research paper.

Of course, the time needed to mark the papers is probably a factor in not assigning lengthy papers. Still, the authors have a point. Students are going to need—I assume—to write lengthy papers in college and reports in the business and professional worlds.

I think three lengthy papers, including the research paper, should be assigned throughout each year in the high school. Marking will be made easier by the students’ using tables of contents, bold-face headings and diagrams and pictures to illustrate ideas. Failure to make use of all of the features of the computer was another concern by these authors. They used the results of the questionnaire that accompanied the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) to draw their conclusions. RayS.

Topic: Writing on Issues

10-second review: Find issues on the Internet and in newspapers or magazines and have students write their points of view on the issues It’s “authentic” writing because students care about expressing their points of view.

Title: “Making Writing Instruction Authentic.” E Kahn. English Journal (May 2009), 15-17. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: “I avoid expressing a view point myself, and when I need to play devils’ advocate, I preface statements with a phrase such as ‘But some people argue that...’ so that students don’t mistakenly assume that I am more sympathetic to one viewpoint than another.”

Comment: Supreme Court decisions are one source of issues, but you will also find them on CNN, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, etc. Today, for example (6/18/09), the Supreme Court decided in a split decision that long-term prisoners do not have a right to DNA testing g on cases from many years ago.

Where have I seen this idea of writing on issues before? Note below. Not the same purpose, but the same idea.

10-second review: How teach students to deal with controversial issues in writing? Motivate students to write by raising emotional, controversial issues, but show students how to control their emotions when discussing them and writing about them.

Source: J Lindquist. College English (November 2004), 187-209. RayS.

Topic: An Assessment Challenge

10-second review: Develop an assessment tool and use it for three weeks. The data might surprise you.

Title: “Assessing Assessment.” DJ Linville. Language Arts (May 2009), 396. The elementary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English.

Summary/Quote: “Someone once told me that if something is done daily for three weeks, it has the capacity to become a habit. Teachers should take the three-week challenge to assess their assessment. Adopt one new mindful, purposeful assessment tool (checklist, rubric, grading criteria, status of the class chart….) and evaluate the data. It just may inform this instruction in a radically new way.”

Comment: I thought of applying this idea to the 10-minute essays with which my students began each class period. I would record the number of changes I made each day for each student. What would I learn? RayS.

Topic: Testing and Assessment

10-second review: “Testing is for final results”; “assessment” is for learning what a student knows and needs to know and for the teacher to know what to do to meet the students’ needs.

Title: “Testing and Grading vs. Assessing.” G Goode. Language Arts (May 2009), 395-396. The elementary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary/Quote: (For students, assessment means nothing if it is not part of their grades.) “These views challenge teachers to be clear about the difference between testing and assessment, terms that for many teachers are synonymous in meaning. Testing is supposed to be for final results, while assessment refers to an ongoing collection of data that directs teaching and learning. Assessment is not supposed to be about the grade: it is supposed to be about 1) students demonstrating that they have learned and what they still need to learn, and 2) about teachers determining what steps to take to accommodate the needs of students in order to advance student learning.” p. 395.

Comment: A useful distinction between testing and assessment: final result vs. learning what students have learned and need to learn and teachers determining what the students need. RayS.