When thinking about the writing instruction I received going through school, I would have to say that it was very, VERY traditional the entire way through school. Everything from the traditional goals and methods, to the traditional approach to correctness rang true about my own experience as a writer from kindergarten through 12th grade.
Beginning in elementary school, writing instruction was very product based. Every student had to arrive at the same product within a specific amount of time. During 1st grade, the one thing I remember about writing was the handwriting worksheets. If each letter wasn’t formed correctly, it was circled in bright red ink and given back to erase and try again. In 2nd through 5th grade, the writing instruction followed the same steps each year: prompt is given, then whole class moves through planning phase, drafting phase, writing phase, editing/revising phase, and then publishing phase (in that order). In Freeman and Freeman (2004), they explain that, “in a traditional class, teachers want students to be able to produce a good story, report, or other piece of writing. To accomplish this goal, teachers break writing down into its component parts and teach each one” (pg 30). Even in middle school, I remember my language arts teacher circling letters and giving us spelling lists.
The traditional approach of teaching made writing miserable for me. I struggled with it as a native-English speaker; I can’t even imagine what it was like for those students who had to learn English on their own (English language acquisition teaching strategies really weren’t widely used in my home town). The stress that the traditional approach placed on my classmates and I was unreal. Having to write about the same prompt, such as “what I did on my summer vacation…” (even though we all had different experiences), plan the story at the same time, write the story at the same time (which was agonizing! When you did have something to write about, you felt rushed to get it all down; when you didn’t have something to write about, you were left trying to look busy so you didn’t get into trouble), edit/revise the story at the same time, and produce a published piece all at the same time as every other student in the class. It was awful!
I agree with you Jonell! I went through some of the same experiences as you in school. I felt like my writing instruction was very structured and traditional as well. I know that I felt like I struggled as a writer too because of this. Thinking about what you said about ELLs is true! I didn't even think about how horrible this instruction would be for them. If I am struggling as a native english learner, how is an ELL student feeling? Especially when you said that you would be rushed and had to write about a topic, that could be very frustrating for any learner, especially an ELL student!
ReplyDeleteJonell,
ReplyDeleteI had some of the same experiences that you had. I grew up with more traditional style classrooms. My favorite year was when I was with a teacher who had a more student based, process approach.
Although that was my favorite year, I know that I did learn many things from my more traditional classroom settings. I feel like we need to offer a balance of the two approaches to our students. ELL students do need to be explicitly taught many skills. If a teacher picks only one style to live by, he or she is doing a disservice to the students.
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ReplyDeleteJonell,
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you had such awful experiences with writing. I could feel your pain just reading your blog. Your experiences reminded me of my own in 4th grade when we were supposed to write the entire year in cursive. If something was turned in with incorrect letter formation, we were marked down. Looking back on this, it seems counter-productive; especially with the technology we have today and how rarely cursive is used.
As a teacher, I find it is always a struggle to balance the "how-tos' of writing, with keeping writing authentic for the students. While I would argue that the traditional view to teaching writing has a lot of benefits, reading about your experiences, reminds me again of how important it is to give students some choice. Maybe if your teachers had provided you with the conventions of writing while giving you more freedom in what you wrote about, you wouldn't have felt so terrible about learning to write.