Creativity and Choice in Adolescent Writers

Writing in history class can truly help students relate what they are learning to their own lives. In Chris VanSlooten's class, researcher Jane Hansen observed what happened when he asked students to discuss the various ways that the people they hang around with can reflect their character; this led into the study of Hayes's corrupt term. Not only did the students feel more personally connected to the study, but they could understand why the American people became so upset about Hayes and his actions in his office of leadership.

English class can also serve as a way for students to connect schools to their own lives. Students need to feel heard, and writing can give them that voice. In one English class, students wrote about how they would set up their own Utopia. For many of them, this involved ideas from the previously read novel Witness and personal experiences that have determined what the students value. Personal experiences determined the utopias students chose to create in writing; this was a reflection of the values each student held personally. This type of work allows a teacher to gain incredible insight into the background, experiences, and the values which students hold. This writing assignment was innovative and appeared to motivate everyone. The choice didn't lie in the prompt, but in how students could respond; this is the best form of differentiation in writing instruction in the classroom.

The hyperobolic statements about classrooms and teaching really cause me to resent the point authors are trying to make when they talk about writing. In chapter two of Calkins' book, The Art of Teaching Writing the classroom is described as an emotionally neutral place where teachers don't connect to students in a meaningful way as to bridge the gap between school and outside experiences. If Calkins has seen that in one classroom, then she can only talk about that one classroom. If she has seen it in a whole district, then she must realize if may just be the culture of that district. I have been in positive, negative, and neutral classrooms, and the one thing I have learned is that you can never make a general statement about American classrooms because they are so locally based just like you have to understand the uniqueness of each individual child when teaching every subject. True, there are some facts and trends, as quoted from NAEP and statistics on writing assessments, but these can even be picked apart sometimes to reveal deeper issues about the flaws in the test or the education system. But every classroom is so unique and every teacher may have such varying ideologies about writing that really what needs to be said are suggestions and recent research, not assumptions about my classroom or the classrooms of my colleagues.


I think the idea that creativity is needed for writing perpetuates the resistance that some students feel because they do not see themselves as creative or as writers or authors. I think that because I personally felt that over the course of my school work when an English teacher demanded the flair and creativity of an abstract, symbolic, non sequitur modern poem (which I still don't think is true poetry). Writing can be creative, but I think the more important point is that writing can give students a voice, and the knowledge that their voice is worthy of being heard.

This can be accomplished by calling students authors. In science classes we say that we are going to be scientists; in history we become historians; in English we should tell our students that they are authors. Ownership, pride, and motivation can stem from simply making a child feel as though their writing matters.

One question that remains for me:
Why is reading so evidence-based while writing is still seen as a free-form activity needing creativity to be good? If reading and writing are so closely intertwined as so many professionals profess, then why are we not researching how to make writing instruction more systematic for students?

References:
Hansen, J. (2008). "The way they act around a bunch of people": Seventh-grade writers lean about themselves in the midst of others. Voices from the Middle, 16(1), 9-14.
Calkins, L. M. (1994) The art of teaching writing. Heinemann: Portsmouth.

Writing to Understand & Develop Reading

Some professionals argue that writing should be added to the five areas of writing as the sixth area of a comprehensive reading curriculum. Writing can reinforce what students are doing in the classroom, strengthen word knowledge, and help students synthesize and communicate what they learn through reading. Some teachers use reader response journals in order to help students learn to write about what they read.

Writing Next Report (2007)
This meta analysis allowed Graham and Perin to determine the consistency and strength of the methods used in the classroom in order to enhance writing and reading instruction. Below are the eleven ways in which teachers were effectively improving the quality of writing from students if the writing instruction was based upon each individual student's needs in the classroom.

1. Writing Strategies: this includes planning, editing, and revising writing in order to refine ideas. There are few writing strategies utilized in all classrooms; this is an area in which we can really grow.

2. Summarization: students who learn how to summarize what they read develop deeper comprehension skills. There are even summarizing strategies that teachers can teach in order to improve summary skills, such as the PEER, RAP, and SQ3R strategies.

3. Collaborative Writing: when adolescents learn how to write together, they can help each other out in the planning, draft creating, revision, and editing process. Many group projects demand a little bit of this in some way or another.

4. Specific Product Goals: gives a student a goal or audience for their written work. Persuasive essays come to mind when thinking about this type of writing because asking a student to take a stand and sway an audience gives the student a purpose for writing.

5. Word Processing: students using computers as instructional supports can help with spelling. This is especially effective for students who struggle with spelling or who may have a learning or intellectual disability.

6. Sentence Combining: teaching students to build more complex sentences can begin young, and allows a student to write more sophisticated sentences. Students need to start this type of instruction as soon as students learn what constitutes a sentence and sentence parts; students can even learn this in juncture with learning about vowels, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and the parts of speech that enrich writing.

7. Prewriting: helps a student generalize or organize ideas into a cohesive composition. In the Being a Writer program the earlier grades really learn explicit strategies such as creating a list, using an experience, and being inspired from a book, in order to get ideas for writing.

8. Inquiry Activities: students engage in in analyzing data that will help form ideas for writing. I have personally seen this method used in more advanced classes, but this could be used in a math class when learning about charts, graphs, or diagrams.

9. Process Writing Approach: workshop type of instruction with extended writing opportunities, writing for a real audience, all while interweaving several types of individual, unique writing experiences.

10. Study of Models: students get the chance to read, analyze, and copy structures from excellent models of writing. One such example would be using the "Where I'm From" poem structure by George Ella Lyon.

11. Writing for Content Learning: indicating exactly what it sounds like, this method prompts students to write about subjects in math, science, social studies, art, music, or physical education class.

Though this list is comprehensive, the authors should have helped teachers out even more by sequencing these steps into a developmental timeline in order to help teachers begin with the most developmentally appropriate elements for the age or grade of student that they teach; in addition, the authors need to include other resources or materials needed to constitute a cohesive writing curriculum. However, it is helpful to know that through the meta analysis, these were the eleven most effective elements to writing instruction for adolescents. Further research into each method can help teachers decide which method would work best in their classroom, as well as how to incorporate multiple of these strategies throughout the year as the students move through different content and themes.

 Writing to Read Report (2010)
In this report, written by Graham and Hebert, the researchers ask three questions:

1. Does writing about the material that students have read increase reading comprehension?
2. Does teaching writing specifically enhance the reading skills of a student?
3. Does increasing the amount of writing students do improve how well a student reads?

Before you read on, how would you answer these questions in your own words? In your teaching or schooling experience, has writing helped and improved your reading?

Personally, I know that if I write something down I will remember far longer than simply reading. So for me, the answer to each of the above questions are positive; however, I have always found writing easy, and I have not struggled as some students do with spelling, articulating ideas, or synthesizing new information. When I worked with students who have disabilities, specifically in the areas of spelling and writing, I am not sure if the same applies. Not only do they learn differently, but sometimes writing can be so painstakingly slow and laborious that orally discussing text provides more benefit to the student. For some of those students, we use speech-to-text technology so that the student can simply say what they are thinking, and the computer will write the statement for them. Then the student simply has to go back and edit the writing, which is guided at first by the teacher. When the students reach independence, and take the initiative to write about what they read on their own, then the student will reap the most rewards for their work.

The researchers state three things:
1. Make sure students write about what they read.
2. Teachers must teach students the writing skills and processes that allow students to create text.
3. Increase the amount of writing for each student.

Common-sensical, right? Have students write about what they read, teach them how to write, and have them practice writing a lot. All of these things will increase the quality of a student's written work, and can enhance a student's reading abilities, as well as comprehension and retention.