Another blog--it's long

Emig—we discussed last week how writing is deliberate. Vygotsky discussed this extensively in Thought and Language—writing is an expansion of inner speech. Students would probably have at least a little bit of an easier time writing if they knew they were “allowed” to write what they are thinking. So often a student will ask me, after a discussion about their writing topic, “So, should I write that?” I always say, “Well, what else did you plan on writing?” But it still never fails…they’ll come back up and what they have on paper is not even close to what they said to me. I’ll tell them, “No…what you actually said to me is much better than this…it’s more clear…it’s more detailed.” Their response is always the same: “Oh. So…am I allowed to write that?” Yes!!!! Writing is a learning process very weaved in with reading, talking, listening, and speaking. It’s about being aware of your emotions and what you are feeling, your opinions…and that in and of itself is a learning process for kids. Using the language to explore that.

Berlin-I have to be honest. I had to re-read many, many, many times. Very wordy. I had a hard time getting thru a paragraph without looking at least one word up. I am going to have to talk this one out in this blog. Page 719—“Ideology enters all features of our language experiences.” That’s deep. That’s not conscious thought…this is sitting down with people who talk about why they think how they think and where it comes from. Philosophy. In terms of writing anyway. I don’t get it. Who does that? Is he actually talking writing or …what…he says something about “what remains outside of the field of phenominonological experience.” What the hell does that mean? Is he saying that the ideology behind writing class is based on our beliefs of what structure and “normal” is? Page 721-I think, possibly, that what he is talking about is getting into the brain processes behind how kids write and the steps they take in their heads—why they compose the way they do…??? “Composing behavior” ???? Gosh I am having a hard time with this one. This is all very scientific. Ok, 722…all this to talk about the mental process in writing? To pick apart the cognitive structures? How can that be done? I think we had this discussion last week. Is the idea here (723) to access the mind of a good writer? What is it that makes them self-aware? How do they guide themselves? But, I hate to say it…just like with kids in school who just will never do well…don’t we just have kids who will never learn to put their ideas on paper because well, maybe there just isn’t much thought going on? By the way, “reitification” on page 733 is not in the dictionary. At least the one on my computer. I’ve about had it with this article. I’m not dumb, but this sure makes me feel like it. Either the concepts in here are way over my head, or he is saying that writing is a discourse that caries with it everything the writers carries emotionally….the unchangeable social system the writer is in, the economic system the writer is in…am I at least on the right track??

Burnham-I really should have read this before Berlin. In one fell swoop he explains the point of Berlin’s theory that all pedagogy is ideological. Maybe I was so caught up in the wordiness of Berlins article that that simple translation escaped me. But it did. The whole idea, and again here is this inter-woven connection among al the readings…that the writer is the center and their understanding of writing is directly related to how they think, where they come from, what they believe, and their own ways of seeing the world. It is the teachers job to have a theoretical base from which they teach and use various resources to help writers develop. It is not about the grammar-in the beginning or even in the middle-it’s about helping the writer make meaning of the language in their head by putting it on paper.. Page 23 discusses peer writing groups. I have seen good things come from this idea. I use it in my LA class, and, when given the right tools, students rally do use it to their advantage and gain from it by testing their potential audience. This whole idea of expressivism and its grounding in the relations between language, meaning-making, and self-development (page 25) …there’s a lot of thinking going on with the writer. They are both participant and spectator (26) They are reader and writer. What I keep thinking when I read all this is that…all these processes go on in a writer’s head, but they don’t know it. Just the simple act of re-reading what they’ve written can send a writer into a tailspin, and they have no idea that the reason is most likely because they suddenly became their own audience…but they would never be able to articulate that. I guess the whole idea is to make the writer conscious of those very thought processes and self-awareness.

Elbow- Looking forward to this one already and I’ve only read the first paragraph. I LOVE the idea of “ink-shedding.” It’s a new word to use with the kids…and serves a great purpose. I can use it as the “topic” portion of the Six Traits model or for free-writing…the part where the students say they have “nothing” to write about when they have an assignment.

And “figuring out what we mean”…boy so true…I can’t tell you how often I’ll have a conversation with a student regarding some topic of a writing assignment, I’ll ask them to sit and think about our conversation and write the details. They come back up with half the details missing…and they were the best part of the conversation. Then, just like in the article, they’ll say…OH! Well, that wasn’t what I really meant. ??? They articulate it so well, but then it all gets lost in the translation between head and hand. What happens?

Wow…I am using what’s on page 17…it’s not what you say but how you say it. I actually just came out of a meeting where that was the pinnacle of a problem. Just because you say it nice doesn’t mean it was a nice thing to say. That said…words mean everything. Speaking or writing…they hold a lot in their hands.

I don’t usually like to break down articles like this, but this one merits it. So many good ideas. Anyway…intonation…getting that meaning out. That includes reading with emotion and feeling. It’s all part of the comprehension process…and that includes when someone is reading what you’ve written. If you’ve written it flatly, then that’s how it’s going to be read. It’s not something that’s easy to teach students. Even if they full well how to use punctuation correctly, they don’t know how to read it…I’ve heard students read a sentence that clearly warrants even a little mustering of excitement, but they read it completely flat. Maybe they are embarrassed. But this sort of thing I’m thinking inhibits them as writers. They read flatly. They write flatly. How are they supposed to get a reader as excited about their written narrative or be influenced by their persuasive piece if it’s all so...well…flat! Just like that episode on Seinfeld where Elaine gets insulted that her new guy writes a message that her friend had a baby. He wrote “Friend had a baby” She was incredulous that he didn’t have any exclamation points…and she proceeded to yell at him and draw exclamation points in the air for every sentence…and her major complaint was, “How can you NOT put an exclamation point on a memo that says my FRIEND had a BABY!?!?!?!” This whole thing ended their relationship. And rightly so. If he writes flatly, I’m sure everything else he does is just mediocre, too. ☺