Three Rules of Writing

Every day, when I read my students' journals, I am encouraged and amused by the ideas that they share with me in their writing. They are creative, thoughtful - well, sometimes - and often even passionate writers. They share about their weekends, about boyfriends and girlfriends, family life, friends, football games, jobs, birthdays, chores, and many other topics in addition to the assigned ones (they're allowed to freewrite for the second half of the page if they want to, and each Friday I assign a freewrite rather than a topic).

Then I assign an essay. *sigh*

It's like they think that for any 'real' writing, all of a sudden I'm not interested in hearing their ideas anymore. What I'm looking for is the 'right answer' or a re-phrasing of whatever my own opinion is. In vain do I entreat them to share their own thoughts, supported with examples and facts from their reading or their own lives.

So I came up with my Three Rules of Writing:

1. Don't confuse me. If I can't understand what you're saying, how in the world are you ever going to convince me that your ideas have merit?
2. Don't bore me. If you don't care about what you're writing, why should I? Include specific details and description to make what you're writing about seem real to me!
3. Don't lie to me. Not everything you write has to be factual, but it does need to be truthful. Don't write what you don't believe.

My sophomores are working on a research paper. We'll see if that little lecture sinks in at all...

Continue...

Online Practice & DIY

I like to play Minesweeper. My students are always amazed at how I can zoom around and click-click-click without making a mistake. Well it's not that I'm particularly smart; it's just that I've had LOTS of practice, and so now I can recognize patterns that help me decide which boxes to uncover and which to mark as mines.

And we know that fluency comes with practice. As you read more, your reading becomes smoother. As you write more, you develop your 'voice.' As you drive more, your back and arms stop hurting from sitting rigidly and gripping the wheel. (It was a minivan with manual transmission, okay?!)

While I wouldn't want to use these sites as lessons in and of themselves, they do provide a way to practice that takes out some of the tedium. They're automated, but interactive, and there's immediate feedback.

http://www.kwarp.com/portfolio/grammarninja.html - Grammar Ninja
freerice.com - grammar and vocabulary
http://www.eduplace.com/kids/hme/k_5/quizzes/ - easy peasy
http://a4esl.org/q/h/grammar.html - ranges from easy to tough
http://chompchomp.com - with fun prizes!
http://classroom.jc-schools.net/basic/la-grammar.html - list site
http://www.theteacherscafe.com/Grammar/Grammar_Games.php - list site

http://www.easybib.com/ - put in the info & it formats your Works Cited entry (only MLA is free)

So, yeah. I don't know how "authentic" these would be for practice. But what I do know is that when I play these games and muck around on the sites, I can feel my brain stretching in different ways, and I think that's a good thing.

What are some of the online games you like?

Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/dothezonk

Continue...

Today is a GOOD day

After spending all weekend slaving over those darn research papers (except for the time I spent on here grousing about attempting to write a donorschoose essay) I finally got done last night. I still have to check cards and outlines, but that's pretty much a completion grade - making sure there aren't any that are just duplicates and/or "This is a fact card for my research paper" cards.

And I did get TWO new donorschoose proposals written - they're under review now.

And THEN sometime last night (I crashed at, like, eight) the Hunk nudged me awake enough to tell me that the roads were washed out and SCHOOL IS CLOSED TODAY.

!!!!!

Seriously?! I mean, because, ALL WEEK it was rolling around in my brain that I was going to have no weekend thanks to those papers. I've been grinding through them as best as I can but GRACIOUS it's awful. As in why are there no citations anywhere in your paper?? WTF?!

And now I get a day for ME. I just feel so ... so vindicated! I am going to play WoW, and read Fire Study (I am SO glad we picked that up last night), and ... well, okay, and I'll probably work on my next two unit plans. Where is my copy of Shakespeare Set Free?...

Granted, if it doesn't stop raining sometime today, there may be serious trouble. Right now it's just flooded roads and possibly some power outages, afaik.

(Tangent: I've started pronouncing web acronyms as words. So, like: btw = BIT-oo, wtf = wa-ta-FAY, afaik = uh-FAKE. Usually lowercased like regular words, BUT, if they're at the start of a sentences, the whole thing gets uppercased. Why? Because! I don't know!)

Ennyhoo, WE at least will be all right. Temperatures are quite mild, and being stuck in the house with neither power nor water would be quite feasible, if inconvenient, for up to a week - perhaps longer. But I REALLY don't think it'll go even that far.

And then! This morning I got an email that said that my latest donorschoose proposal has been funded! We're getting two new digital cameras! WAHOOO!

Just a coupla point-and-shoots, but still! ^.^ Glee!

LIFE IS GOOD! *happysigh*

Continue...

Session F

Making Research Relevant – Multigenre research papers

There's a wiki up where you can see the presentation, as well as several others from the conference:

What does multigenre mean? we're expanding our definition of a research project to include alternate or additional types of artifacts; they can get into higher levels of Bloom's taxonomy with synthesis and evaluation

it's a collection of different pieces written in a variety of genres that illustrate a perspective informed by research. They sound simple, but when you look at examples, you can see the depth of thinking and understanding shown in seemingly "simple" genres.

MGRs allow students who don't do well in a particular format to show understanding in other ways, while still pushing to improve in their areas of weakness.

Why should we do it? (My question: why NOT?) It gives students more choice, allows for more freedom and creativity, and helps them to understand the similarities and differences between genres. Part of the project is that students explain why they chose a particular genre for that particular piece. It gives an opportunity for new and alternate perspectives. It includes traditional writing as well as the alternative genres.

We're going a LOT into why we should do this, and I guess that's valid for those who need to promote it back at school, but I want to hear more about HOW to do this.

Aha!

1. Work with the librarian to develop the resources necessary for the students to get the information they need.
2. The librarian can provide mini-lessons about research strategies, evaluating sources, and using information in an ethical manner. (Theoretically! Of course it depends on who your librarian IS.)
3. Encourage students to use many different types of sources, so long as they're authoritative!
4. Organize the task carefully; provide instruction and practice before jumping in!
5. Provide "enough" time – give students a bit of "wiggle room." (How do you know how much is "enough?")
6. Give concrete examples of alternate genres and completed papers. This will help students understand what's possible.
7. Have a timeline with a series of steps so that students know where they should be in the process at all times. They will need some help staying on track.

"Repetend" – a repeating or continuing element in the project? I don't really get this – it's a theme, repeated phrase, or "something" that gives the project as a whole continuity.

Ideas for alternate genres:
- Pageflakes
- Blogging
- Delicious
- Class commons?
- Class wiki

I noticed that all of these are online, which IMO seems as limiting as the traditional paper.

Evaluate what resources you have, and survey the students beforehand to see what they feel comfortable with and what they know they need help with.

The presenter's going over the documents – worksheets, rubrics, instruction forms, etc – that are available on the wiki. It's incredibly thorough. There are also sample projects and she's going to upload more of them as she gets permission from the students.

This sort of project allows students the freedom to do research that is more authentic – five-year-old books aren't the best resources these days – as well as personally relevant. Rather than something they suffer through, this can be something that helps them see research in a new way, something that they remember for years after they graduate.

Continue...