Nancy Sommers
I love the idea that writing begins at the point where speech becomes impossible. I would really like to hammer this point home next year. I think that it is important to remind students that writing allows us to say what we want to say, exactly like we want to say it, the first time. It doesn't require redundancy. You don't have to think up arguments on the fly that sometimes can derail your whole train like you would during a conversation. It is a freeing form of communication because you are the ultimate authority when it comes to your own writing. You get to revise your thoughts until you are making the point or telling the story that you want to share with your reader. You don't even have to share until you are ready. This is powerful.
This article also gets at why revision is so hard for my students. They have a very difficult time re-viewing their work. They can't seem to take that step back from it. And if the writing starts to take a student in a different direction, they often refuse to go along. I know that it is important to teach my students to focus their subject, but if they are trying to write about Christmas at grandmas, but keep coming back to that one Christmas in Aspen, maybe they should give it up and write about Aspen. I will try to formulate some sort of mini-lesson about writing as a form of discovery next year. My students have a very hard time abandoning a draft that they consider a representation of a lot of work, even if the work is weak. I really liked the idea that came up about having a physical collection of these sentences, paragraphs, and drafts. I think it will make a student feel like they can dig through the box later, but they can let go of that snippet of writing for now and continue onward.
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12 years ago
5 comments:
"My students have a very hard time abandoning a draft that they consider a representation of a lot of work, even if the work is weak."
An astute observation. I know how that feels, as writing is a serious investment of time, energy and, especially, emotions. Kids don't want to feel they've been wasting their time in the midst of a whirlwind of other activities and commitments. I like the idea, too, of having a box, basket or bag of materials from which they can later draw upon. This is a good lesson for me, as well. I should be more careful about what I throw away or keep.
Work equals soul for many of us. If our time has been invested then we want a return for that investment, which of course is why many of our kiddos keep going on a writing piece they may not even like.
I think that approaching it like Caulkins did today as a separate product, while acknowledging the initial piece validates their entire investment. Should we really call it a "draft" if this is as far as they want to go? Knowing when to let go is important, but difficult sometimes.
Excellent reflections on this article. I learned that I needed to give permission to students to stop a piece of writing if they lost interest. I keep everything I do and try to convince my students to do the same. There is a point when they finally have to "get rid" of some. Christy
I agree that we must carefully and precisely teach how revision and proofreading are distinct processes.
Here are 10 tips for proofreading and some really fun exercises that will help writers catch their own mistakes-even spelling errors! See if you can catch all of the errors at Top 10 Proofreading Tips without using these tips. I'll wager that you can't. These proofreading tips will make a difference in your own writing and in that of your students.
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