Craig, I agree with you on the importance of context and background knowledge. I guess that is why a broad education is so important. It allows greater understanding across more subjects in reading. Eric
I completely agree that students should free-write/ write about things that are interesting to them and are within their own realm of experience, but I also think there is value in directing some writing exercises. For example, giving students a prompt and letting them run with it will encourage their creativity and let them express themselves in a new way. That said, I would never want to unintentionally give a student the message that he/she has nothing to say/ no experience to report, and I definitely see the danger of that when using prompts for writing. I guess I would just want to do both free writing/personal narrative and creative writing. :)
I'm glad you pointed about what you got out of the writing activities readings. It's such a good point that teachers can forget to help students make a personal connection to their writing. In English this can usually be accomplished. But, in other content areas, teachers have to make a special effort to find ways to make the writing done in class relate to them. Eric mentioned a few ideas about how he might do this with foreign language. I'm glad you all are thinking about this and finding it important.
I absolutely agree that all students - all people really - have something, many things that are worth writing about. The trouble is getting them to realize that. I've attempted to give open ended writing assignments to my ERC students before, and have to not yet met with much success. Usually the majority of the students absolutely insist that they can't think of anything to write about despite agonizing processes of suggestions undergone by the staff. My conclusion thus far is that either the field should not be left so wide open (write about whatever you want!), instead some perimeters should be set (write about a surprising event) or the students should be provided with a clear, structured system for coming up with a writing topic. --Emily
Craig, I agree with you on the importance of context and background knowledge. I guess that is why a broad education is so important. It allows greater understanding across more subjects in reading.
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I completely agree that students should free-write/ write about things that are interesting to them and are within their own realm of experience, but I also think there is value in directing some writing exercises. For example, giving students a prompt and letting them run with it will encourage their creativity and let them express themselves in a new way. That said, I would never want to unintentionally give a student the message that he/she has nothing to say/ no experience to report, and I definitely see the danger of that when using prompts for writing. I guess I would just want to do both free writing/personal narrative and creative writing. :)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you pointed about what you got out of the writing activities readings. It's such a good point that teachers can forget to help students make a personal connection to their writing. In English this can usually be accomplished. But, in other content areas, teachers have to make a special effort to find ways to make the writing done in class relate to them. Eric mentioned a few ideas about how he might do this with foreign language. I'm glad you all are thinking about this and finding it important.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree that all students - all people really - have something, many things that are worth writing about. The trouble is getting them to realize that. I've attempted to give open ended writing assignments to my ERC students before, and have to not yet met with much success. Usually the majority of the students absolutely insist that they can't think of anything to write about despite agonizing processes of suggestions undergone by the staff. My conclusion thus far is that either the field should not be left so wide open (write about whatever you want!), instead some perimeters should be set (write about a surprising event) or the students should be provided with a clear, structured system for coming up with a writing topic. --Emily
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