Writing Zones 12.5

After speaking with several teachers from Kennett High School and taking copious notes, I was able, though not without their extensive help, to form a few conclusions about writing. Perhaps I could be more precise and accurate by saying those conclusions pertain to high school writing, though I have a sneaking suspicion that it could be true for all grade levels through post-secondary. Most teachers commented either specifically or using language around “idea expansion.” Getting students to fully flesh out a thought, argument, or idea was remarked as being notably difficult. Anecdotally, I, too, got these comments on my papers in high school and as an undergraduate. “Explain more.” Talk more about your ideas; get comfortable in the discomfort of feeling like you’re reiterating. Note: readers are not coming from the same place of knowledge that writers are about any given text. And, answering “why” and “how” questions related to in-text citations and usage of secondary and primary sources--something we can loosely refer to as “second/multiple voice integration”--also proves challenging. Additionally, students are said to struggle with wrapping up ideas and forming conclusions that are something other than a direct restatement of the introduction. Often times, the teachers said, students want to pull quotes out of Bartlet’s and create hackneyed, over-used conclusions that fight against students’ own developing style. They want to not transition well, and instead to conclude a point quickly and move on to the next. Many students, too, are reluctant to experiment with complex sentences and varied sentence structure while they also find writing theses and divided these to be somewhat of a hurdle. Why? Perhaps students are experiencing a low creative buy-in when it comes to sentence structure when the writing is considered “high risk” or graded in fear of being wrong or labeled a bad writer. These writerly complications are also found to be widespread in the ESL department, too. The ELL students also run into problematic areas with basic writing skills such as writing complete sentences, subject/verb agreement, tense consistency, focus, and organization. (I can vouch that I, too, have these same problems in the early stages of my writing process). Common writing assignments are five paragraph essays in preparation for PSSA testing, literary analysis papers, and traditional research papers graded with a rubric which is supplied to students prior; however, in Advanced Placement courses students are allowed to “throw out” the form of the five paragraph essay and are often left perplexed while teachers are left in simultaneous rejoice. Outside of the English department, a required project is a research presentation wherein students are asked to pull together information from various sources, take notes, breakdown the information thematically, and consequently create something whether it be a podcast, newsletter, blog, poster, or typed narration. When the teachers were asked what Writing Zones mentors can do to help the cause, the question was usually followed by a light bulb and a small sigh of wistful thinking. “Engage in conversation about writing.” It seemed that students, and we as a staff have felt like this and also picked up on this, can sometimes see their writing as a scary skeleton in their closet. (This is me vouching again). “Encourage students to get engaged with their writing.” More concretely, teachers encouraged us to familiarize ourselves with the curriculum maps and expectations for writing. Teachers also said they could begin attaching and posting their assignments and grading rubrics on our Writing Zones wiki so everyone--teachers, students, mentors--can be on the same page about any given assignment and make the most of the session on front of them. Another great idea is pulling mentors in for a period to do a mini lesson on what makes good writing and provide prompts, mini peer-review workshop groups, and a discussion-based discourse to get students (hopefully) excited about writing in classes outside the English department. After sharing the first draft of this post with our staff and talking about it and talking about it again a couple days later, someone much smarter than myself told me something about my writing. “You’re trying to say something in there. Why should anyone read this? What is it that you’re trying to say?” Interesting. My writing knows more than me, and this very smart, intuitive person does too. I was in fact noticing a pattern in thought as I wrote but never actually gave it another degree of attention. Thus, we are all writers. The teachers that so graciously gave me their talking time when it could have been something-much-better-time are writers, their students are writers, our staff is made up of writers, our director is a writer, and I am (checking pulse, yes, my heart is racing upon admittance) a writer. Phew. However, what I am trying to get out is that though we are all writers and we all have our own hurdles, challenges, strengths, interests, and processes; and we all currently wear different hats. What my humble opinion is is that we lift our hats high enough to recognize the eyes that peer from under the other brims, but not high enough to forget the hats of our own ownership and expertise, to communicate with each other as writers. A novel idea: let’s get together, share, and accept ourselves and others as writers from different, similar, and foreign places, spaces, and knowledges. Very big and very special thanks to: Carol Aiken, Sarah Bohrer, Jason Cordova, Bill Fritsch, Tammy Gentekos, Chris Gross, Randi Lambert, Liz Nardozzi, Joseph O’Sullivan, Mike Waite, and Liz Mathews.