In our reading and consideration of two case studies - Love that dog (Creech, 2002) and Structure and freedom (Casey & Hemenway, 2001) - we encounter examples of how teachers can structure their English language arts teaching to support their students’ growth in language and learning.
(1) List and describe the 5 stages of the writing process as discussed in class. Provide illustrative examples of each stage from either case.
The ordered stages of the writing process are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Prewriting involves identifying the purpose and the audience of the writing and forming ideas as to what the writing is going to be about. Prewriting can be supported by talking about the writing, drawing pictures or making mind maps, researching, and many other ways. Drafting is the process of getting the ideas which were developed in prewriting organized into sentences and just taking a first shot at writing. Spelling and grammar do not matter because the point of drafting is to just get the ideas on a page. Revising involves making changes to the bulk of the writing and narrowing down which ideas to incorporate and which ones to discard. This can be done through peer conferencing, but only if the students have been taught how. Another way to revise is through teacher feedback, either written or verbal. A good way for teachers to give feedback for revising is the “two wishes and a star” method, where the teacher will advise the student, “you did really well with (a), and I’d like you to work on (b) and (c).” This gives the student specific areas to work at revising. Editing requires the students to clean up any spelling or grammar mistakes left over in their work. The final step is publishing, and this can be done in a variety of ways; students can read their work out loud, post it on the classroom wall, mail a letter, submit it to a newspaper or magazine, post it on a class website, or even make a compilation of work into a book for the class library.
The stages of the writing process are illustrated in the two case studies we have examined in class: the fictional “Love That Dog” by Sharon Creech, and “Structure and Freedom: Achieving a Balanced Writing Curriculum” by Mara Casey and Stephen Hemenway. In “Love That Dog”, Miss Stretchberry helped the class to engage in prewriting by bringing many poems into the classroom to inspire her students in their own writing and to create discussion about the poetry. The form of “Love That Dog” is a journal kept by one of Miss Stretchberry’s students, Jack. In his journal, Jack engages in drafting when he writes responses to the poems read in class or models after them, like his entry on February 15 where he models a poem after “Street Music” (Creech, page 31). In Casey and Hemenway’s case study, they first examine a grade three class’ writing program, which focuses on revising work until it is good enough for publication. The subject of the case study, a girl named Page, compares revising writing to combing the knots out of her hair; both rather tedious exercises result in something to be proud of and enjoy. When Casey and Hemenway revisit Page in grade eight, they discover that her teacher fixates on editing the students’ work rather than revising, and focuses solely on correcting spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The importance of publishing is very well illustrated in “Love That Dog” when Miss Stretchberry asks Jack’s permission to post his poems on the class wall and when she has Jack write to Walter Dean Myers. By publishing his work, Jack gained a sense of self confidence as a writer.
(2) Discuss and detail three aspects of a well-organized and engaging writing classroom as discussed in class, and provide illustrative examples from the case studies.
A well organized classroom would include balance, respect, and sufficient time and space. In Casey and Hemenway’s case study, Page’s grade six classroom lacked balance between formulaic exposition and expressive writing, so her attitude towards writing shifted from positive to negative. A more balanced classroom would have taught that the full writing process can and should be applied to all types of writing, including personal, informational, and imaginative. In Miss Stretchberry’s fictional classroom in “Love That Dog”, there were clear expectations of the students that they would have to publish sometimes, not all the time, and that they could not always publish anonymously. However, Miss Stretchberry balanced her expectations with respect for the students and did not force them to publish any particular pieces. Instead, she encouraged them and helped them to develop confidence as writers so that they would eventually take pride in their work and want to publish it. Another effective thing that Miss Stretchberry did was to give her students the consistent time and space for work with poetry in the form of individual journals. This consistency gave the students opportunity to explore poetry in depth and to fully develop their own poems.
(3) What will be two important factors to you in developing an effective and balanced writing classroom?
My writing classroom will be student-focused and have a holistic outlook on writing. The classroom will be student-focused in that the goal will be for students to develop an enjoyment and pride in their writing. They will not be writing to appease me, but rather they will develop a deep understanding of the key points determined in prewriting, such as audience and purpose, and they will become effective writers from that. I want my classroom writing activities to reflect a holistic outlook towards writing, not only so that their writing is balanced between the various styles and methods of writing, but also so that students understand the connection between writing and the other areas of language arts: reading, viewing, speaking, listening, and representing.
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