grading

I'm reading Elbow's Ranking, Evaluating, and Judging article.  Some parts make me think he's taking a line right out of my life.  Elbow talks about "why we hate it so when students ask us their favorite question, "What do you want for an A?": it rubs our noes in the unreliability of our grades."  I can't remember how many times I've asked or thought, "What do I have to write for an A." It has been about the end product, not the learning process, the journey of learning the material.  That's because most the time what I've been learning was not valuable to me. Teacher's rankings lead many A students to "end up doubting their true ability and feeling like frauds--because they have sold out on their own judgment and simply given teachers whatever yields and A." I can't count how many times I've given teachers what they want and felt no pride on even agreement with what I've written.  Every time I got an A on the paper.  I call this being an expert at BS and at one point thought that's what writing was.  If I had wrote a paper I believed in that didn't follow what granted an A I wouldn't have written another one.  Ranking was and is important to me. Yet the problem with evaluating Elbow notes is that different readers have different interpretations of what is good writing. Elbow suggests many examples to have less ranking and more evaluating.  Yay! One question answered!

Reflection Day 4

Wow what a day! I am overwhelmed in a good way with the various resources I have gained in such a little bit of time.  From Lil's workshop today I have gained so many resources into my inquiry of critical media literacies.  One I found called thebubbleproject.com is a good tool for having students critically look into media advertisements by reading between the lines.  I read a study done with fourth graders using this and was amazed on how intuitive these kids were. I'm considering putting this into my demo which went from too little, to desperately needing to be condensed after today.  I'm also interested in book vs. film critiquing and how children can use this in writing--maybe persuasive reviews of which to choose for viewers/readers.  Entertainment Weekly is my favorite magazine so this is right up my alley. 

The Workshop Workshop was very helpful also in considering how to restructure my writer's workshop time to be more meaningful and engaging.  I've been making the steps to get away from every child doing the same thing during writing but I struggled with new and innovative ways to switch this up.  I have centers throughout my day so adding these to writing is a great idea.  I'm considering permanent centers such as conferencing or revision circle and also changing centers based on need/theme.  I'm thinking on different "inspiration centers" with books, internet, video clips, and audio to inspire the unit we're working on.  I'm also looking at centers where kids and read, write, draw and talk. 

Is it August yet so I can get started?

Arspoetica

Poetry about poetry

When I wrote of Kathy's dream
an angel with fluttering wings
I remember such release
to get it out, of that need.

When I wrote the poems of hate
for those girls that crept and scraped.
I remember burning tears
followed by cemented angry courage.

When I wrote the lines of love
of my other self completing.
I remember knowing beyond fear
that he would be mine forever.

Reflection Day 3

Richard Ford: "Clearly, many writers write for reasons other than a desire to produce great literature for others' benefit. They write for therapy. They write (queasily) to "express" themselves. They write to give organization to, or to escape from, their long, long days. They write for money, or because they are obsessive. They write as a shout for help, or as an act of familial revenge. La, la, la. There are a lot of reasons to write a lot. Sometimes it works out OK."
Why do writers write?  I definitely write to express myself. As I worked on my digital timeline today I thought about middle school.  Hoarded up in my dark dank room writing poems of angst on scraps of paper and kitty covered journals.  I think that is where my true writing began.  Where I really wrote in response to something that had happened. A shout for help.  What are the reasons our children write? Can any professional paper really answer that question when everyone's answer is different.  I'm finding a block in my inquiry into why we write from that perspective.  Yet there are countless resources from writers and would be writers on why they write.  The question may be: why should kids write? Maybe my young kids don't know why to write yet.  My head is currently hitting the brick wall.

Why we write/what we write

I'm exploring why we write and what we write when we do.  When not given a prompt or a picture to base our writing on, why do we choose to write what we do?  For me, I mostly write about my background. Experiences I've had in my past that shape me in good or not so good ways.  We write what we know right? Here are some essays online from famous and not so famous writers about why they write: http://whywewriteseries.wordpress.com/

Reflection Day 2

I can't believe how much writing I have produced in only two days. From blogging to poetry, my short story about cemetary beach, and my prezi presentation on my digital timeline of writing.  My fingers should freeze up any moment from typing and scribbling my pencil across the page.  There have been a lot of good ideas flowing today.  I took to the idea of what is writing? It is so different to so many people. To some self-realization and others punishment.  It makes me think how I portray writing in my classroom.  I think of A Purificaiton from this morning, "I have not been happy enough."  I get so caught up in get this assignment done so it can hang on the wall when the real important part I'm missing.  The process--the give and take of writing that feels smothered by school and apparently by me.  I need to create a happy space of experimentation.

Time is now

In revision groups I realize how my group mates are writing stories of their families.  Memories of when they were young.  I realize how important it is to document our families histories because if we don't tell the story then who will?  I think I will take this opportunity (SI) to explore my family history and document it.