Writing Zones 12.5 - Latest Blog Entries

"Sometimes It's Like Pulling Teeth" and Getting Past "The White Paper Syndrome"

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:25:00 -0500

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.

Assertion and Access: Remix

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 05:01:00 -0600

By Liz Mathews with Hannah Ashley

At a recent Writing Zones 12.5 staff meeting, our mentors discussed students’ difficulty with introducing quotations. It turns out that using other peoples’ voices—whether through quotation, citation or paraphrase—is an absolutely essential skill in academic writing (see Joe Harris, ReWriting; Graff and Berkenstein, They Say/I Say; or Ashley, “The Art of Queering Voices” in JBW). Even more importantly than choosing “the right quote” is integrating the other voices within, or through, or alongside, the author’s intent. The art is in the remix, as the 2010 Conference on College Composition and Communication tells us, and collaboration is the proverbial DJ.

For many students, the core issue of quotation arises from not recognizing purpose – why they are using a quotation in their paper. A WZ 12.5 mentor will ask exactly that question, sometimes resulting in baffled looks or possibly, “Well, I like it” or “It fits.” A powerful higher order concern emerges – students developing purposeful writing. As its definition directs, purposeful means “intentional” and “determined” (American Heritage Dictionary, 2009): choice, conscious choice.

Purposeful writing incorporates analysis using a student’s interpretive choices and in so doing expresses the student’s voice. The work of WZ 12.5 to help develop student writers’ purposeful writing therefore engages students’ analytical and interpretive skills. Even further, the art of remixing a quotation, citation or paraphrase into one’s own work is an act of identification: not just WHAT am I saying, and WHAT are they saying, but HOW am I saying it and WHO am I being when I do? These questions begin to be answered collaborating with a WZ 12.5 mentor in session.

In a student/mentor session, a mentor might first inform the student of two components of quotation introduction:

· A signal that a quotation is coming—generally the author’s name and/or a reference to the work

· An assertion that indicates the relationship of the quote to your [the student’s] text

University of Wisconsin Writing Center. http://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_quoting.html

The assertion is an occasion for the student to discover purpose through her analysis and interpretation. In a session, the student might analyze the text with a mentor using any myriad of Writing Zones techniques, including questioning, student paraphrasing, and creative solutions:

Context: At the beginning of King Lear, the King makes his three daughters express their love for him in order to determine their dowries. His first two daughters exaggerate their love in order to gain riches, but his daughter Cordelia refuses to participate by saying “Nothing.”

Prompt: King Lear’s quotation “Nothing can come of nothing” (I.i.79)

Using the above techniques and more, the student may determine the line means:

Nothing will be given to Lear’s daughter if she doesn’t change her speech; and

The line is ironic – the whole play happens after “nothing” is said!; and

King Lear doesn’t appreciate that true love is above language.

Suddenly the quotation has multiple, new meanings (and words) from which the student will select to relate her own text. A student’s selection and crafting of the assertion – that phrase she creates to relate the quotation to her text – expresses purpose (WHAT do I mean to say?) and authorship (WHO am I, in this text?). The assertion is now an intentional use of quotation using the student’s determined voice:

King Lear fails to understand Cordelia’s expression of love when he responds “Nothing can come of nothing.”

Here the assertion becomes a moment of developing one's belief and expressing that through the student’s own voice. She is an author and an authority, interacting with another voice, determining her purpose, realizing another’s meaning, and remixing to her own context.

An introduced quotation, a paragraph, a completed assignment – is a student’s newly released remix, a product of the student’s choice, collaborative effort with the text and mentor, and, finally, authorship. These same skills are essential to promoting college access. The college environment layers voice, source, and intention from students, professors, departments, and material. College also demands that students interact by contributing their own voices. A student can use her model of introducing a quotation – analyzing its context, creating her own intention out of her collaboration with the other’s voice, and drawing on her determined voice to remix.

Campus remixes are more elaborate – there can be more layers of voice and intention. There are also more opportunities for collaboration. A student’s experience with WZ 12.5 models for her how to make her own tracks in college, how to embrace collaborative effort, and, eventually, how to remix her own thoughts and text in the important act of revision.

WZ @ NCTE

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:37:00 -0600

Here are photos from Writing Zones mentors and Director at the National Council of Teachers of English conference, November 2009.

What the heck do mentors DO in those sessions?

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:43:00 -0500

We are excited to have started mentoring full-steam at Kennett High School, and as of November 2, will be starting up at the Chester County Alternative Education Program. Dozens of teachers and far more students have used West Chester WZ mentors to assist with all kinds of writing.

But what do mentors do in these sessions with students?

Writing Zones, like all writing centers, works on the philosophy that writers need support to be better writers, not have their writing "fixed." That means that mentors start by listening and asking questions. They also start with "early concerns" such as addressing the assignment (if there is one), focus, organization, development, clarity and coherence. "Later concerns"--word choice, punctuation, grammar, syntax, proofreading, citation--are not ignored, but come exactly that, later.
Mentors are trained to think of sessions as building the writers' capacities to be a better, more engaged, more savvy writer, independently, down the road. On a moment-to-moment basis, what that looks like varies, but can include:
* Reflecting: "Ok, what I hear you saying is that you are concerned with whether you are doing the assignment."
* Clarifying: "Your teacher wrote that your paper lacks coherence. What does that mean to you? What do you think it means to her?"
* Affirming: "As a reader, I am really caught by your opening."
* Stepping back: "So, this college application asks for a piece of reflective personal writing, like a memoir. So, let's make sure we both have the same understanding of what that is--what is a memoir?"
* Developing strategies: "So, you used commas correctly here, here and here. But here you have a problem. So, why did you put the commas in there, there and there? What about here? What rule was in your head? Let's check that in a handbook."
* Modeling: "I know--I can procrastinate sometimes too. I have really had to work on it, and I'm better about it now. What gets in your way of getting stuff done in advance?"
* Writing together: "Ok, let's both brainstorm for five minutes--you on your topic, me on mine."