For this week, the questions for thought are: What is the most difficult thing to teach in the teaching of writing, and how do you go about teaching that? For me, I find that everyone has their own way of learning. In my graduate studies at UT San Antonio, I learned about adult learning and how it was important to know each learner’s style. These questions bring up a time where I had the opportunity to work with a friend who was having so much trouble with her English class. She came to my house several times over the semester to go over her papers. The hardest thing for me to teach her was transitions and concision, but that was not the hardest thing to TEACH…It was HOW to teach it.
After several tries, I found myself providing a series of demos where I created paragraphs about any subject and some of them had no transitions, some transitions with too much detail, too much detail and a transition here and there. I had her review them and tell me what she sees wrong. She got it right on the second try. I was able to demonstrate how transitions help with the flow of information and how being concise can keep the reader on the information you are trying to convey. For my friend, it helped to have concrete information in front of her to demonstrate the lesson rather than just simply explaining. I then had her put it to paper, rewriting what she wrote and as a result, she was able to realize how the paper flows better. Her response to me when she had her “ah-ha” moment was “my professor is all talk, no action so I cannot understand what he’s talking about.” The issue I had was I kept explaining the issues to her and she wasn’t getting it. When I put it to practice and she put what she learned to practice, she got it.
This situation is similar to what Janet Emig details in her article “Writing as a Mode of Learning.” She writes of self-pacing and references Luria on page 12, “writing is self-rhythmed” or self-paced. By understanding my friend’s way of learning and allowing her to learn a little more on her time, I was able to effectively show her how to better writing her paper. Emig also references Bruner who supported that we learn by doing which is exactly what I had to get into my mind when tutoring my friend on her writing. Putting to practice my demos as well as encouraging her to rewrite, it helped make the connection between learning and writing.
Julie,
ReplyDeleteThe difficulty your friend had with writing concisely is a problem that I have as a writer. Some of my students have this problem too, though it's usually the opposite end of the spectrum that I see (I have "nothing" to write). When given a prompt, I have a million things going through my head. I want to make sure I mention all of my important points and ideas and I want to talk extensively about ALL of them (as if they are the most important points in the world and the human race's existence depends on it). I like to go back to the prompt or task at hand and refocus on what the purpose of the assignment is. I think it's also important to note that we learn so much when teaching others! I know I do.
Modeling is very important, of course. I try to share writing or work that I'm doing with students as I do it in a course, too, to show them that not only do I teach these processes, I believe in them and use them, myself. Similarly, when you brainstorm with students in a class, writing up everyone's ideas onto the board or into a computer to project up is useful. Everyone's perspectives are valuable. They can see for themselves if their ideas are good or not, but they're valuable, all.
ReplyDeleteI like your ideas of demos or modeling.