Response Question- Chapter 8 Stylistic Problems from Nonstandard Dialects

Sarah Orosz

            The eighth chapter (“Stylistic Problems from Nonstandard Dialects”) of Beth Neman’s book Teaching Students to Write presents the reader with an overview of nonstandard-American English dialects that students use and it also presents strategies that an be utilized by educators to help these students learn to speak and write in Standard American English as well as how to keep students motivated and confident throughout the process of learning to compose and edit their writing in SAE. Neman stresses the idea that the “teacher and student- are on the same side, battling […] ignorance which is the source of the mutual problem”(289) she also stresses that a student’s nonstandard dialect is the language of their “family, friends” (284) yet, later in the chapter, she goes on to comment on the importance of making sure students can “draw a distinction between ‘home talk’ and ‘school talk’” (297) meaning that only SAE is appropriate in an academic setting. However, isn’t the very act of using the terms “home talk” and “school talk” portraying to the class that the teacher is drawing a line of distinction, and the student who is learning SAE is inside the line (which is associated with social and economic success in America) so this leaves the student’s family and friends on the ‘outside’ which signifies that the teacher is bias against nonstandard dialects and not on the “same side” as the student?

           

Unit Lesson Plan Outline
Sarah Orosz

I have spent a good deal of time pondering what kind of lesson would be appropriate for my class consisting of twenty high school juniors. The in class group discussions provided innovative ideas that helped me to develop a potential outline for the ten elements of my unit plan. My course title is Language Arts for advanced juniors. The school that I will be working at for the purposes of this project, will most likely be a middle class suburban school. My unit plan will take place during a five-day span, most likely Monday through Friday during the Spring when the students’ energy will be high. This project will commence after the class has finished reading William Golding’s book, Lord of the Flies, The plot of the book will be explored and discussed in great detail with the project that will ensue titled, Lights, Camera, Adaptation! The class will understand the concept of adaptation is because we would have covered it in the previous lesson. This project will give the students the opportunity to create their own twist on a well-known story and therefore should be enjoyable too.
The project will be divided into two parts, both worth fifty points. Part one consists of the class splitting into five groups of four and I will instruct them to create a new scene or alternate ending to Lord of the Flies that somehow adds new dimensions to or changes the plot. This adaptation will be recorded using a video camera (which will be available for students to rent in the Media Lab at my high school) and the finished video will be presented to the rest of the class. I will urge students to use their imaginations, but the videos must not contain inappropriate behavior or language. After discussing each of that we view in class, the second part of the assignment, an essay, is to be completed.
I will provide three very different essay topics and the students, individually, have to develop the topic that they feel most comfortable with. This particular project has its roots in the standards of the NCTE and Ohio Academic Content Standards. The NCTE promotes literacy and language in order to construct a personal/public world of success for all individuals. I kept this statement in mind when developing this project because it is reflective of my own philosophy statement, which promotes establishing skills and confidence in all young writers so they are able develop and create excellent, thought provoking pieces of writing both in and beyond the walls of the classroom.
My method of assessing these projects will be measured using Ohio Academic Content Standards for eleventh grade Language Arts. As of now, my criterion for the video portion of the assignment is to be sure the students can clearly communicate their original ideas visually and orally through their video presentations. The benchmarks that coincide with this standard are: utilizing effective speaking strategies, and presenting an idea in a clear, logical sequence. As the videos are playing, the rest of the class is viewing and developing listening comprehension skills and formulating ideas as they write the questions or thoughts that occurred to them during each of the videos. For the criterion of the essay portion of the project, I want to be sure the students develop the proper standards of the writing process and writing application. I think I will choose one solid benchmark, such as select an appropriate structure to develop ideas, to apply to each of the essay options and grade each of the essays based on that particular benchmark. This process will help me to be sure students have demonstrated their comprehension of that benchmark. This project may have some difficulties arise with the technology and video equipment, but I think these frustrations will pay off when the students get to see how wonderful their finished products are. I also think these imaginative videos will offer some inspiration for the class so they can easily begin pondering and writing their essays.

Bowling Green Writing Center Observation

            As a current student I know that I learn best when I am able to see an experience happening before my eyes rather than reading about it in a textbook. This is the main reason why observing a session at the BG Writing Center was such a wonderfully positive experience for me. By simply sitting at a table during a fifty-minute writing center session, I feel that I personally gained a deeper and more developed insight about what particular techniques to utilize when responding to a student’s writing. I observed mentor, Maria Hummer, and her student, Joe, on Tuesday February 19. After the mentor and student had been introduced to one another the real session began.

            I found it interesting that even though the both Maria and Joe are college undergraduate students, Joe was incredibly respectful and attentive to everything that Maria had to say. I believe that Joe wanted to be at the Writing Center getting help from someone who specializes in English and this is the main reason why he cooperated so well with Maria. Joe seemed to be genuinely concerned about the success of his five page Southern Gothic Literature essay, and his eagerness for advice and assistance from his mentor made the session very productive. A writing conference seems to be more successful when the student is willing to share his ideas with the mentor and receive her feedback with an open mind. At the beginning of the session, Maria asked Joe to explain what his goals were for his essay, and what he felt they should focus on during the session. Joe replied, “I want to make sure the entire paper makes sense. Oh, and I want to make sure the citations are right.” With only a 50-minute session, I was questioning if they would be able to read through the entire paper and have enough time left at the end to check Joe’s citations.

Maria then asked Joe for his permission to read the paper aloud so that if they came across a confusing sentence they could correct it together. Another very important part of the session that needs to be mentioned is when Maria told Joe, “Please, at any time during the session don’t hesitate to ask questions.” I believe this is vital to having a one on one conference with a student. The student needs to feel that they have a say in their own work, and if something the teacher explains doesn’t make sense then the student should feel that they have a right to verbalize their concerns. In fact, Joe did ask questions during the session concerning grammar and punctuation. I also noticed that whenever he posed a question Maria would respond in a routine way. When asked a question, Maria would fire the same question right back to Joe and say, “I don’t know. What do you think?” before she offered suggestions of her own. I believe that this process of putting the question back into the student’s hands for a few moments allows the student to feel that the teacher believes they are intelligent and this also  pushes the student to find the courage to provide their own answers, rather than  relying entirely on the teacher/mentor figure. During the duration of the session, Maria followed this tactic of asking Joe his own questions, and occasionally Joe would come up with the answer on his own and this boosted his confidence level. Also, by sticking to one repetitous pattern of responding to questions, Joe knew what kind of reaction he would get from Maria and he seemed more and more comfortable with the session as time went on.

            It is also important to mention another tactic that Maria utilized during the session that helped Joe keep a strong level of confidence even though his paper was being critiqued. After Maria would find a confusing sentence arrangement or misplaced word, she would read it aloud and pause. Then she would ask Joe what he thought was wrong with that particular section, listen to his input, and then they both agreed on how to fix the problem. However, after a few critiques Maria was always sure to give Joe a dose of positive feedback. For example, after thirty minutes had gone by Maria read a sentence and then gasped for breath saying, “You see, that was yet another one of your run on sentences. I think we should put a period here to let the reader pause between these two thoughts. What do you think?” After Joe agreed and drew in a period, Maria said that she wanted to congratulate Joe on being able to create such detailed and flowing sentences because not many writers can create them so effortlessly. Joe’s face lit up after he heard this compliment and he seemed rejuvenated and eager to further explore his essay. I have always believed telling a student genuine, positive comments about their essays is important and being able to watch Maria use this method truly solidified the significance of  this practice for me.

As the session came to an end I was thrilled to see that Maria and Joe had completed the reading and revising of all five pages of the essay, and there was still about seven minutes remaining for checking Joe’s citations. Maria gave Joe a citations manual, and together they checked to make sure his MLA citations were correct. I left this session at the Writer’s Lab with a hopeful heart because I look forward to to one day seeing a student leave one of my conferences with a smile as radiant as Joe’s was after his session had concluded. I am going to try to get a job at the Writing Center next semester to that I can get a head start helping my fellow writers create the best papers possible.

 

Response to Write in the Middle: Building a Community of Writers
Sarah Orosz
When I began watching “Write in the Middle” I was unsure of what to expect because I had no prior details about the video. However, although it was a bit longer than I expected, parts of the video intrigued me because they covered several broad elements of teaching writing. The video captured my attention right away with its ideas on “What is at the heart of a writing workshop”. This segment provided many motivational aspects as to why teachers teach writing. One of my favorite statements was, “Teachers need to give students meaningful reasons to write so they can become independent, competent writers”. I wholeheartedly agree that all writing should be meaningful and should also provide each student a sense of pride in their writing accomplishments.
I also want to comment on one of the teachers who is a main focus of the video. First of all, I really liked the opening words from teacher Jack Wild as he was explaining his process of how to eliminate the feeling of intimidation when it comes to sharing writing. Jack mentions that he not only makes his students write about a topic, but he writes with the class and is an equal participant in all writing activities at the beginning of the school year. This idea of “teacher participation” was like a breath of fresh air for me! I love the idea of sitting in a desk and as Jack said, “Doing it with them”. I feel that this sort of practice will truly make the students feel that the classroom is a place where every one writes and shares parts of their compositions. In other words, over time the students will develop a sense of kinship and trust with the entire class as well as the teacher.
However, I do not want to give the impression that I agreed with every minute of the video because that is far from true. There were some scenes that upset me and made me raise my eyebrows. The scene when Jack is doing his “read aloud” activity with his students made me feel a little ill. Whenever Jack asked a question he would give each student less then a few seconds to respond and as the kids where desperately trying to verbalize their ideas Jack interrupted with “Uh-huh” and “Right, right”. Also, the only feedback I heard from Jack during the entire activity consisted of repeated ‘Okays’ and ‘Rights’. Why doesn’t he give them better feedback? He needs to give more details explaining to the students why they are “Right”. It irked me that Jack was firing off questions at a rapid pace like a drill sergeant as he stood in the front of the room looming over his small pupils. I was intimidated just watching the lesson, and I was in the safety of my home! I am a firm believer that in an English classroom where there will be a great deal of class interaction and deep discussion the room needs to be arranged in the shape of a circle. The video pushed for the “U” shaped classroom, but I am currently in a class during which our tables are in the “U” shape and I still feel isolated from half of the class and the professor. The circle makes me feel that teacher and student are eye to eye. It also allows me to feel less intimidated by the instructor. I believe that by joining the circle a teacher sends the message that, “I want you to know I am here as an equal, and I will be learning with you. I am not here to preach to you because we will be teaching each other and learning together”.
One last thing I need to mention is the fact that the entire video centered only on middle school students. I am curious if the methods described in the video for making students feel comfortable sharing writing will work in the high school setting, because that is where I will be in the near future. I wish the video had entered high school writing classes as well so that I could have felt a closer bond to the materials and ideas presented.

Response Question- Chapter 14
Sarah Orosz
The fourteenth chapter (“Assigning Writing”) of Beth Neman’s book Teaching Students to Write reveals the key ideas that serve as the building blocks for teachers of writing so they are able to create a focused and well-organized writing assignment: the pros and cons of teacher assigned writing and student created assignments, the goals a student should achieve upon completing an assignment which include academic/rhetorical goals, and developed writing skills(539), methods to engage student writers, and lastly the importance of heuristics and pre-writing. A recurring theme in the text stresses the struggle between student’s imaginative freedoms and teacher control when deciding on the focus of a paper and how it should be organized, and Neman then argues in the middle of the chapter that writing assignments should follow a rule because she says “The best assignments thus offer both comfort and challenge” (540). However, the two words ‘comfort’ and ‘challenge’ do not seem to fit together very well, because in my mind I would consider the comfort of an assignment as the student’s degree of freedom and the challenge as the newer and more difficult writing skill the student’s need to achieve by completing the assignment, and so I wonder is there is a surefire method for new teachers to be sure that there is a way to equalize the comfort and the challenge, or is it better in reality to have more comfort than challenge so as to not discourage student imagination?

Response Question: Chapter 3
Sarah Orosz

The third chapter (“Teaching Prewriting: Invention and Arrangement”) of Beth Neman’s book Teaching Students to Write presents the reader with an overview of the two main elements that serve as the framework for prewriting: the first is invention of the organizing idea and its supporting points through deductive and inductive invention and heuristic strategies, and the second element is the arrangement or organization of writing material through effective structural plans and a number of organizational tactics including: problem and solution, logical reasoning, and the rhetorical principle. Although Neman argues her strong support for prewriting practices at the end of the chapter, “I would contend that time spent on lessons in finding organizing ideas and creating structural plans is far from wasted […] our real goal is to develop within each student the habit of approaching all expository writing in these terms (107-8), in a section located within the same chapter, Neman states, “Research has pointed to the dangers associated with […] any prewriting strategy”(76) and she goes on to quote James Williams, “It seems extremely easy for prewriting activities to become systemized to the point where they simply fail to help students plan […] students come to believe that no writing can take place unless the designed prewriting activity is completed”(76). How can prewriting activities be labeled as a danger if writing teachers are trying to make prewriting a habit with students, also, how could students’ constant utilization of prewriting “fail” to help them plan if it is assisting them with the organization of their thesis and supporting ideas?

Response to Write in the Middle 2: Making Writing Meaningful
Sarah Orosz
This writing workshop was incredible! The fifty eight minutes spent viewing the video went by in a flash because I was so incredibly immersed in the material presented. I suppose it was not only the great ideas portrayed in the video that caught my interest but also the teachers chosen for this particular segment. All of the teachers made the keen observation that I wholeheartedly agree with, and it is the fact that young adolescent students tend to dwell on one topic; themselves. The teenage years are a time of confusion, moral and intellectual development, and self discovery. I never realized before viewing the video how troubling adolescence can be for a teen. On top of all of the small tribulations of teenagedom, they have the added pressure of going to school every day to gain knowledge for the future paths they will follow as adults. I truly enjoyed the comments of teacher Allen Teng when he stated that kids need to write about topics that have important relevance to them, topics that fit into their teenage realm. I discovered by the end of the video a teaching tip that will inevitably help me one day in class, it is when you trust young students to choose their own writing topics; they will pick a topic that will draw them in and urge to learn more. That is what learning is all about, the desire to know more about life and the world around you. And it is a wonderful chain, because the student chooses a topic, they like the topic, it creates an emotional reaction or opinion in the student, therefore the student will create effective, meaningful writing.
To continue praising the teaching methods presented in the video, I want to shift over to English teacher Damond Moodie. Moodie was my favorite teacher in the entire segment. Moodie’s words were very influential to me and I found myself physically nodding in agreement whenever he made a statement directly to the camera. I really loved how Moodie explained to his young class that writing is a release of emotion. He told them that if they are feeling scared or excited then they should transmit those feelings into words through writing. Moodie says writing allows self expression, and it allows students to look back and reflect upon their feelings so that they are able to understand why they felt the way they did. Moodie’s words were the highlight of the video for me because he presented ‘writing’ to his class in a positive light. He made them see writing from a positive perspective, so they were able to comprehend that writing is a good thing. His students were able to see writing as a way to release tensions or emotions when there is no other way to let them out. To Moodie, writing is a form of expression, and I honestly like that idea. I hope to share it with my classes one day.
There were so many great teaching practices in this video I wish I could comment on all of them, but instead I want to focus on a certain discussion that took place in the eighth grade class of Allen Teng. Teng and his students were using a teaching method called popular media, and this method entails allowing students to read and write about current cultural happenings and how the today’s culture can affect the students themselves. In the video Teng and his class read a short story together called “The House the Crack Built”. I am aware that Teng is attempting to delve into real world problems with his class, such as drug usage, and he covers other raw, real topics such as domestic abuse, and teenage pregnancy. However, I am concerned that topics such as these might be a danger zone to such a young age group. What if a certain story topic hits close to home in a student’s personal life? I want to know if there is a line concerning classroom topics that needs to be drawn.

Response Question: Chapter 2
Sarah Orosz

The second chapter (“Understanding Expository Structure”) of Beth Neman’s book Teaching Students to Write first provides helpful activites which allow novice writers to understand and familiarize themselves with the concept of the organizing idea of expository writing, and the chapter then delves into more a detailed and advantageous series of steps which a professional can utilize to guide writers through the process of creating their own expository essay: the purpose of writing an essay, the dual function of the organizing idea, rhetorical function, structural function, formulating an arguable thesis statement, narrowing down a thesis statement and using the “although cause”(51). This entire chapter is overflowing with helpful strategies that seek to make expository writing a smooth process for the novice writer and Neman argues during the last several pages of the chapter that the “although clause” is a syntactic device that holds “extraordinary usefulness”(52) and should be constantly used “as a tool both for thinking and for composing”(52). However, as the chapter draws to a close Neman shifts her stance on the “although clause” by suddenly stating “it need NOT -and often should not-appear in the finished composition”(53) yet after making such a statement she does not go on to give examples or strategies explaining how to remove this clause from a final paper, and I want to know how to wean my students off of the “although clause” that according to Neman, is a student’s lifeline of expository writing?

Response Question: Peter Elbow Interview
Sarah Orosz

The essay “A Free Conversation with Peter Elbow” by John Bush focuses on his in-depth interview with Professor of English and noted author Peter Elbow, and the duration of the interview reveals Elbow’s intriguing concepts and methods for molding students into adventurous and confident writers by implementing: safety, self-esteem, multiple drafts, peer reviews, non-evaluative feedback, classroom contracts, and refined cognitive abilities. At the opening of the interview Elbow is asked how he enables students to produce high quality essays and his primary response is, “Safety” and that, “Safety is building confidence” and after uttering the previous statement, Elbow immediately argues the importance of self- esteem because he believes it is a vital component for all novice writers to develop. However, if Professor Elbow is truly concerned about the self-esteem of his students why would he tell them on the first day of class that if they complete their work they “are guaranteed a ‘B’,” grade for the year, and so it appears that Elbow is labeling his student writers from day one as ‘B’ students, so why wouldn’t Elbow hold higher expectations for his class and tell them that they are all capable of becoming ‘A’ students, thus raising their self-esteem, because after all, telling a class, “For those of you who are really pushing to get a grade higher than a B…” is the same thing as telling a class that some of them will never learn to develop the skills and determination to become an ‘A’ writer.

First Response Question: Chapter 4
Sarah Orosz

The fourth chapter (“Teaching the Writing Process”) of Beth Neman’s book Teaching Students to Write presents the reader with an organized collection of key topics that all novice writers should be aware of in order to succeed when creating an expository essay: the introduction, the central point (theme), paragraph structure, and the expository conclusion which involves rereading and restating the central point at the end of the paper (135). Although Neman stresses the professional strategies that novice writers need to utilize during the writing process such as: organization, scaffolding, and elevated diction, Neman argues that writers must “Look into thy heart and write” (117) in order to appeal to the pathos of the reader and connect the reader to the text in an emotional way. However, at the end of the chapter Neman contradicts herself when she says “Students are free to be creative/emotional”(141) then she says teachers should discourage “flowery”(141) language, so how can future teachers of writing draw a distinction between the emotional and the flowery language if as Neman states, “There is no good answer to this question”(141).