So I just read the article "Passion and Craft in Writing: Finding a Balance"...I need this! I feel so blasse about writing right now. I definitely find myself just grading my students writing and not really reading it. I agree with his point about process and product. You need to look at how you get there, and what you get in the end (so the craft and the passion).
One idea he had that I thought was really cool was a notebook organized in 5 sections: Vocabulary, Language, Literature, Nonfiction, and Writing. How could one implement this in the middle of the year? Should I just wait? Its hard enough getting my kids to bring a notebook and pencil, nevermind something so organized...I wouldn't feel right asking parents to buy a 5 subject notebook in April...
For the most part I liked this article but I wasn't sure how much was applicable. Ianacone made it a point to say he works in a very affluent district with high schoolers...however I have a very different group of 6th graders. One question it brought up for me is how applicable some of these teaching resources are for innercity schools. I worry about things like investment since, for example, many of my kids would not have much of a connection with the texts he writes about. I also want to make sure I use models with a similar cultural heritage but I don't always know where to find these.
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Oh no! I can't figure out how to post! I went down and watched Professor Hyman show us how to do it, but now I can't figure it out. So, I'm just posting what I wanted to say as a comment. I hope that's okay...
ReplyDeleteAn alternate point of entry to my current unit:
My current unit is Science Fiction, using The Giver. Our ultimate performance task is to write a compare/contrast essay about the differences between the real world and the world in The Giver. As we read, we are practicing skills such as theme, inferences, character analysis, etc.
If a student came into my class in, say, 3 weeks, two-thirds of the way through the unit, I have several thoughts for what that student could do.
• First of all, the student could study the skills that we are studying as a class, but could start his reading at the beginning of the book. He could see a mini lesson about, say, the motif of the story, but then could find examples on pages 1-10 instead of 60-70.
• Secondly, the student could do a performance task on the same topic (compare/contrast), but using a book he has recently read.
• Thirdly, the student could start out reading the beginning of the book and completing exercises we had done earlier in the unit, and he could meet with me during lunch or after school to complete more make-up work. My guess is that he would quickly catch up at least enough to follow along in the reading, and he could continue doing make-up work and be able to join us where we are with the performance task.
-Meg Cassedy-Blum