"Great day!" "Excited to write!"
Comments at the end of the day attested to the power and potential of this group's development as writers, teachers, and leaders. There was a general consensus that the group feels supportive, and that people are already willing to take risks with their writing. Nancy noted that it's good to be reminded of the importance of writing with our students; Jeanne commented that the process of "re-focusing" on things we may have known were important, leads to improvement in our understanding and practice. I agree! Re-reading Donald Murray's writings, for instance, is forever a treat. John appreciated the opportunity to write "beyond reflecting on my teaching practice" -- a nice reminder of how important it is to provide our students with a wide variety of authentic writing opportunities.
"Invite the editor to take a nap."
We started the day with a freewriting "looping" writing warm-up. Invoking Peter Elbow, we invited our internal editor to "take a nap" (Andra's words). Freeing ourselves from the censorship of language, grammar, ideas and emotions proved to be an interesting experience for many of us. Andra reminded us of the importance of "practice writing" -- writing that is not assessed or evaluated, but serves the important purpose of rehearsal. Some people noted a movement from specific to broad in their "looped" freewriting; others noted a movement from general to specific, from concrete to abstract, or from negative to positive. Cindy noticed that looping allowed her to make a connection she might not otherwise have made. Whatever movement we experienced, it's the noticing itself that is key: the awareness of our process, and the recognition that the experience can take multiple forms. What an honorable challenge this makes the teaching of writing!"Where do our ideas for stories come from?"
Andra got us started with generating some ideas for stories, in a "neighborhood map" activity. Well, my own neighborhood map generated a story about a neighborhood nap: my elderly neighbor who took over the babysitting job from his wife, and installed a kitchen swing so he could put my son in it and they could both fall happily asleep. This mapping activity is a terrific example of designing "opportunities for our students to practice orally" (as Carrie put it) the kinds of thinking they need to do while writing. As Amy W. noted, "other people's ideas sparked mine." This is an important reminder that structured pre-writing opportunities are a high-leverage practice, yielding more confident, engaged responses from students. Nancy observed that sometimes a bit of distance helps: she found that recent experiences were harder to share than ones in the past.
"We make up our stories out ourselves anyway. Don't begrudge other people their stories."
Tim Cate honored us with a demonstration lesson on "Multi-genre autobiography." Tim participated in an OWP summer institute in 1992, which he called a "game-changer for me as a teacher." (As a 1994 Summer Fellow in the Bay Area Writing Project summer institute myself, I appreciate and share his experience.) Tim's lesson first helped us define "piece" (piece of life, piece of writing), and then led us through a lesson that emphasized giving students choices of genre to tell the story of their lives. Tim brilliantly modeled the process of a demonstration lesson, especially running the lesson on multiple levels (teaching students and teachers simultaneously), and switching voices/hats fluidly. Perhaps most key to Tim's lesson was the idea that transitions (what he called "connections") contribute substantially to student voice in the multi-genre autobiography, as these connections are the student's opportunity to speak directly to the audience and link parts of the writing. Tim's debrief at the end gave us a chance to think about adapting the lesson to different grade levels and teaching contexts, and some exciting ideas emerged -- from first grade to college.
"Write with your students."
Tim Cate modeled and explicitly stated the power of writing with our students, of doing the assignments we ask them to do -- both in advance and in real time. Our readings (Murray and Elbow) both harkened back to 1972, and both reinforced the idea that teaching writing means teaching process, not just product. I find it interesting that the context in which Elbow and Murray wrote necessitated a "revolution" in how writing instruction was conceptualized. In subsequent years, both were criticized for their 'soft,' 'touchy-feely' approach. But at the time, nothing short of a revolution in writing instruction would have had an impact. Now that we 'breathe' the language of writing process, I think we are called on to find a balance: of course process matters, and of course product matters too. Often, product motivates process. Often, product rewards process. I'm not sure it's realistic to say process motivates process; in fact, I'm quite sure it's not. But that doesn't detract from the critical importance of understanding: although we may assess product, when we teach writing, we fundamentally teach and support process.
"Learning curve..."
Heather mentioned it. We're all in it, somewhere. Whether it's finding ways to get students excited about expository writing (John), learning to use short time-frames in ways that don't make our students hyperventilate (Amy S.), learning to teach an extended lesson (Heather), learning to "start from scratch" (Sasha), or learning how to develop a demonstration lesson (Kim)... slightly accelerating around the learning curve is what we want to do. Maybe you learned in in Driver's Ed, or in physics class, on a ski slope, or a bike path: braking or excessively accelerating around a curve throws you off balance. Slight acceleration provides stability. Let's go!
(Photo: http://thelearningcurvephotography.blogspot.com)
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