This Is It...

Okay, here I go, my final blog for this assignment.  As I mentioned in the last post, the book Content Area Writing I've been reading and blogging about broke down writing into two major categories, writing to learn, and public (polished) writing.  The last two ideas I'll share here are two of the suggestions they give to provide teachers with alternatives to the traditional research paper.  So here they are:

1.  Social Action Writing Project - the authors start this section by saying, "By social action, we mean any activity in which students apply classroom lessons to address real issues in a community group, or organization...This could be as simple as a student's attempt to improve her family's diet or as far-reaching as the investigation carried out by a group of high school students on the wrongful conviction of an innocent man, decades past, in another state" (p. 216).  Now some of you will probably think, where would I find the time for this?  Which, I understand, it's a completely valid concern, with pressures to "cover curriculum" and get kids ready for the test, which is tied to our names, we are under a lot of pressure!  But, the authors made a great point, when they asserted, "We talk a lot as educators about preparing students to become responsible citizens in a democracy...Don't they learn by doing? We send a contradictory message if we imply, 'We're telling you about something that's really important for you to do, but we don't really have the time or inclination to do it here in our classrooms" (p. 217).  Now, for this idea to take the place of a different kind of research project, yes, it would take a lot of time.  But, I think many of us could incorporate at least small ways of having kids participate in social action projects, some of the smaller ideas they posed were:  promote public awareness of unrecognized local heroes or public figures, reducing consumption of a particular resource, like electricity, volunteering at an elder care facility, or participate in local environmental projects.  I think many of these could be justified by content areas such as social studies or science, and incorporating writing would help students research why those are important actions in society and reflect on their participation.

2.  Learning Fair - We've all seen (or even done ourselves) the parent generated and produced science fair projects.  This idea is an alternative.  The project they described most in depth is one that students produce for their English, Biology, and Geometry class.  When I first started reading, I was wondering how on earth the kids would utilize skills from all three of those subjects in a project based on a person in their family, but those teachers really made it work.  So, in a very abbreviated version, this is how it worked.  Students brainstormed one member of their family they'd like to know more about.  They interviewed that person at least once, and sometimes twice, or sometimes they interviewed a different individual as a follow up on something the first person said.  The writing for English was based on those interviews.  In Biology, students created a genealogical chart, then studied a specific phenotype, and in the end, created "a pedigree chart along with the monohybrid cross charts that illustrated one of the phenotypes" (p. 232).  The authors did mention that there might obviously be issues such as adoption, foster children, estranged family, but they did not give suggestions for dealing with those issues. And for Geometry? I thought this part was really cool.  Students had to create a scale model of "a structure that has some significant connection to the family member being studied in English class" (p. 232).  What about the fair?  All three pieces are worked on through the writing/creating process - drafting, revising, editing - and then students created a visual display with the information.  On the day of the fair, students had to be ready to give oral presentations to a small panel of judges, as well as answer any impromptu questions from anyone who attended the fair.  Students are scored by the panel of judges (they used other teachers and former students who were familiar with the project) based on a rubric.  And there is an appeal process if there is disagreement with the judges scoring.

Okay, I know this is already long, but since it's the final one I'd like to have some kind of conclusion.  I guess what I'd like to say is the book gave me a kind of "boost."  I'm always trying new ideas in my class, but a couple of rough years with a tough administrator really had me in a rut.  Taking this class and reading my book has me re-energized with new ideas, and theories behind those ideas to show that I know what I'm doing.  I'm excited to have students do a wide variety of writing pieces, which, as Rosenblatt mentioned, will allow students to practice writing at various stages of the efferent-aesthetic continuum.  I also took away from the Rosenblatt article, how important it is that writing, "should have as its first concern the creation of environments and activities in which the students are motivated and encouraged to draw on their own resources to make 'live' meanings (p. 27).  So with many ideas in mind, I'm excited to guide my students in writing A LOT this year, I'm sure they'll be just as excited as I am.