Bonnie Warne Articles Response

Teaching Conventions in a State-Mandated Testing Context

In this article, Warne does a great job of demonstrating ways to connect student learning of literature, writing, and testable conventions. When students are immersed in good examples of how to use different conventions, they will begin to imitate and include these ideas in their own writing. The teacher just needs to be deliberate about naming the strategies and conventions that the students are working with. I am not sure how much this applies to my current classroom, but I know it is important that I expose kids to listening examples of the concepts I am teaching them to use in their own playing. Including the proper vocabulary not only helps them to do well on assessments, but also allows us to communicate with one another.

Writing Steps: A Recursive and Individual Experience

As a student, I was taught that the writing process was supposed to proceed in order, step by step. This always made it difficult for me to get started, because I felt like my first completed draft represented the final shape of the writing. Now I understand the slinky idea, and I really appreciate Warne's idea of talking with students "about the differences between the general writing process steps and what might happen as they wrote." This helps kids understand that it's okay for the processes of writing to not always "proceed in a linear sequence." These ideas are freeing for writers of any age.

Top Ten Important Things I've Learned about Revision

1. Revision occurs throughout the writing process, not just at the end.
2. Revision is not just changing a few words; it is an opportunity to change the big picture.
3. One reason to revise is to add vivid details so that the reader can "see" what's happening.
4. It can be very helpful to conference with peers and teachers during the revision process.
5. When revising, it's a good idea to look for long, boring passages that can be shrunk down to a sentence or two without losing anything (shrink a century).
6. It is also important to look for important moments in the writing that need to be emphasized more and add description (explode a moment).
7. Good revision requires deep thinking.
8. Knowing that you are going to revise allows you to get a first draft down on paper quickly, without worrying that it won't be perfect.
9. Revision is not a tedious, boring process. Instead, it is fun because you can see the improvement in the work.
10. One part of revision is moving words around, rearranging them like furniture.

Harper Response

Laura Harper's The Writer's Toolbox: Five Tools for Active Revision Instruction

The bulk of Harper's article is spent explaining five tools from Barry Lane's book: questions, snapshots, thoughtshots, exploding a moment, and making a scene. Since I have already responded to Lane's descriptions of these tools, I will focus on what Harper brought us that was new.

First, she provided new examples for each tool, bringing them to life and helping us to see their usefulness. Second, she introduced the idea of a writer's toolbox. In her case it is a manila envelope that is given to each student and gradually filled with cards (tools) that provide revision strategies. This is a great idea because it allows students to independently remember strategies they can use to improve their writing. I think having the cards with their own envelope would also help students to stay organized so they can easily refer to the tools.

I really like the writer's toolbox concept, and I think it would even be worth using in my music classes. This also got me thinking about creating a musician's toolbox to help kids practice their instruments more effectively.

Finally, associated with each tool in the writer's toolbox is a symbol that can be quickly drawn on a student's paper, eliminating the need to write "describe with more details" or other lengthy instructions.

Calkins 13-14 Response

Lucy Calkins' Conferring and Learning to Confer (chapters 13 & 14)

Chapter 13, "Conferring," reminds us that our ultimate goal is to help our students become independent writers. It doesn't take long for them to progress toward this goal by conferring with themselves. With just a little practice, most kids can think of questions other students would ask them and use these ideas to keep improving their writing.

I love the image Calkins gives us: "Writing allows us to put our thoughts on the page and in our pockets; writing allows us to pull back and ask questions of our thoughts." It is hard to grasp the idea of my thoughts being made tangible and placed in a pocket, but it reminds us just how amazing written language (even spoken language, really) is.

Calkins also has great things to say about getting to know our student writers, listening to them, and learning to tell them what they need to hear rather than what we want fixed in their work. Then she ends with the reminder that we are not trying to build classrooms of cloned teachers, but classrooms of independent thinkers who can write with their own voices.

Chapter 14 takes us through different types of conferences and how to use them. It begins, though, with the caution that "we try so hard to be helpful we forget to be real" and "Sometimes the purpose of a conference is simply to respond." No matter how much we want to improve a student's work or increase a student's learning, we must remember that building a relationship with them and recognizing them as valuable individuals is crucial to their success and ours.

The various types of conferences and their descriptions were also valuable, and I can see that it will take practice to become skilled at productively conferring with students.

Lane 6-7 Response

Barry Lane's After the End, chapters 6-7

I see Chapter 6 as being divided into two main sections: shape and point of view. I didn't get much from the graphing examples (maybe they'll hit me differently next time I read this), but moment mapping worked very well for me and I would definitely try it with students. It promotes deeper thinking and helps writers make their work more cohesive. I think this is part of what Lane called "visualizing the shape of the pieces they work on."

The second part of Chapter 6, in which point of view is addressed, also challenges writers to think more deeply. Changing a story to a new point of view makes a huge difference in the impact of the story, and it seems like a fairly advanced skill to me. I wonder how old kids need to be to do this well.

In Chapter 7, Lane provides some great thoughts on conferencing. I like the idea of the absentee conference, because often students know what they should be doing or how to help themselves, but they don't realize it.

"Respond to a student's writing as a reader--not as a teacher" is another important piece of advice that applies to almost any subject. I need to respond to my students' playing (at least some of the time) as a listener rather than as a teacher. Stepping into the consumer role helps us make our feedback more relevant to the student.

Finally, "Create the Atmosphere" has me thinking about what I could do to make my room more conducive to writing. I think adding some touches of comfort could also help students be less resistant to writing in band.

Lain response

Sheryl Lain's Reaffirming the Writing Workshop for Young Adolescents

At the beginning of this article, Lain says that many teachers are nervous about "having middle level students behind the wheel." I am fairly comfortable with this, but I've been concerned that administrators or other teachers will think it shows that I'm not doing my job. It makes me feel a lot better to read all of these articles that show it to be a sound practice.

It seems like many teachers struggle with finding strategies that work for our unmotivated students, especially since most people who end up teaching were easily successful in school. Lain acknowledges this challenge and encourages us that using writing workshop can help us to reach even the students that challenge us the most.

I really like what she says about minilessons: "The recurring pattern. . . is to introduce the skill and then apply it to something the students have an interest in." This goes for music, too. Students learn much better when I teach them something and then let them use the concept in music they actually like. Combining music and writing, I am sure the students will learn most successfully when I let them write what they choose about the music they like.

I have hated writing poetry most of my life and wondered what it was really good for. Lain compares moving words with rearranging furniture. This week I finally experienced this for myself, and I discovered that this really involves some higher-level thinking as we decide what sounds the best and what provides the best meaning. It is also kind of fun!

Rief response

Linda Rief's What's Right with Writing

Rief packed a lot of information into her article. I related strongly with her on the topic of receiving A's on papers that are bland and meaningless, void of my voice. I also was deprived of constructive comments from teachers who could have helped me to improve. I am determined not to do this to my own students!

"Writing is thinking" came up several times in the article. This is one reason I really want to get the kids writing more in my music classes. I know that writing will help them think deeply about the music and what they are learning.

Students need choice in what they write, and I need to do some more thinking about how this will look in band. One thing I plan to do is have them write about the music they are playing. An easy way to incorporate choice would be to let them choice which song to write about, but that feels superficial to me if I am still "forcing" them to write about a song.

My favorite line in this article was the following: "Do it [writing] at every opportunity. And then do it some more." This is helping me, so I have no doubt it will help the students as well.