#write beside them

[readeralert-blog]

Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle

"So we need both: writing about literature and not writing about it." pg 153

We need students to collect evidence from a text and we also need them to make choices about topics that they want to write about. I feel both ways of writing help us discover more about ourselves and the world around us; you get to discover secrets in a book and you get to discover things about yourself when you write about something you are passionate about.  I feel it would be really important to include both ways of writing in the classroom.

"In our organization as a school over the last few years into professional learning communities, we have embraced teacher collaboration as essential." pg 155

I think teacher collaboration would be so helpful!  Especially for new teachers who still need help learning the ropes of teaching.  I'm curious about the professional learning communities thing, though. She has talked about it a couple of times in the book so far and I'm not quite sure what it means.

"Dependence does not prepare them for college." pg 158

Correct! Being dependent on a teacher will NOT prepare our students for college at all.  Our students need to learn to be self dependent.  They need to be writers and not just students who can respond to books.

"I passed out the index cards with genre names on them and said we were going to create a class multigenre project." pg 171

I LOVE THIS IDEA!  I think it would be a great way to introduce the class to different genres of literature as well as if you were planning on having each student prepare their own multigenre project later in the semester after going over the different genres of writing.  I really like this idea. Hmm.

"My work is about the process of writing, not the product.  The process is about rough language and rough ideas and a search for meaning.  The products are just a small part of my mission.  The products will not teach more if they are Acceptable.  The products will still just be products, only part of what I teach." pg 187

Well said Penny Kittle.  I feel that too many teachers focus on the product rather than the process. The products are just showing the finished work, but what about all the steps it took the student to get there? I think that that is an important part as well as the product.

[readeralert-blog]

Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle

"We underline the claim and find the supporting evidence for each subclaim   We look for how the writer addresses the other side of the issue, then how the writer responds to this other point of view.  Last, we identify where the writer involves the reader.  Is there a call to action? I find students need a lot of practice with this." pg 134

I think it is very important to use a mentor text with your students so that they understand what parts of writing they need to watch out for when they are writing their own pieces.  Whenever they look at the mentor text then they are able to see a sample piece of what their writing "should" look like in the way the elements work together and how the writer involves the reader. It really works to model text.

"Which line of evidence is most persuasive in my plan? It should be the last one presented in the essay since the readers remember the last information with greatest clarity.  The second most convincing evidence will go first, and the least convincing evidence should go in the middle since it will least likely be remembered." pg 142

I didn't know that.  I think I was taught that the first part of the essay should be the most persuasive to catch readers attention, but Kittle says that the last one presented should be the most persuasive.  I guess that makes sense since the first part is about grabbing attention and the last is keeping attention by giving the greatest evidence.  Hopefully I can apply this stuff to whenever I teach my students about writing.

"Writing is as simple as pen to paper and as complex as orchestrating scene within video." pg 150

I remember whenever I was in 10th grade, our English teacher always gave us so many projects to do.  They were all very creative like creating a shoebox scene from the book or writing a song about a book. We always did them with books, though, but I like how she strived to make us do more creative things than all of my other teachers did.  My other teachers focused more on pen and paper while she helped us to discover some of our hidden talents.  I really like the idea of giving students creative things to do that aren't just busy work.

[readeralert-blog]

Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle

"The single most efficient path toward success as a teacher lies in knowing your students in important ways.  Not if they complete their homework, but how and why they do.  Not if they arrive to class on time, but what they're thinking as they move through the halls.  Not if they have a sister, but the relationship between them." pg 102

From all of the texts I have been reading, one of the most important things I have learned is that you need to know your students.  Students need to trust us as their teachers.  Having students trust us helps to keep them engaged in school because they are aware that we care for them.  Students come from many different backgrounds and if they trust us and know we care for them, then hopefully they will become more engaged at school.  The motivation our students need to have to write comes from their desire to answer their own questions.  We don't need to test the students to know how proficient they are at writing; if we look at the drafts of writing they create we can measure how well they are writing and even learn about their writing style and perhaps even certain parts of their lives.

"Once students have written that first narrative, while lessons are still fresh in their minds, we go after this same genre again in hopes of raising the quality of narrative writing." pg 106 "I have found this second unit on story extends thinking." pg 107

I really like this idea.  Students are more likely to know how all of the elements of a story work once they have a solid foundation in the structure of story.  Just having one unit on story won't allow students to grasp the whole idea of how stories work, it will just allow them to get a glimpse into the total idea of stories.  This second unit gives them a second chance as well as allows them to explore their ideas even more.

"These kids understand what Bruce Pirie said about writing: 'The five-paragraph essay doesn't 'teach structure' any more than a paint-by-numbers kit teaches design.  We teach structure by sitting down with students who have something they care about saying, helping them sort out how they might say it, and looking at examples of how other writers have structured their work.'" pg 125

I do not particularly enjoy the five-paragraph essay.  I understand the value it has in first engaging students in how to write papers, but it leaves no room for imagination.  It is the first step in actually learning to write a paper.  It is not "the way" to do it, but in terms of first learning about writing it helps students to understand that their needs to be an introduction, a body, and a conclusion, though none of them need to be limited by just five paragraphs of six to eight sentences.  Students need to know that this is only the first step and not the only way to write.

[readeralert-blog]

Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle

"I will always be working on whatever genre we are studying together so that my understandings of what writers need to work in that genre are fresh and helpful." pg 66

Once again, I feel it is SO important to know about what you are teaching, whether it be writing or reading.  If you don't write with your students and understand what you are writing, than how are the students supposed to understand?

Feedback pg 69

Kittle makes the important point that feedback is much more important than evaluation.  Feedback allows a writer to grow as they work on a piece while evaluation makes the writer believe that it is the final piece and that they cannot change anything else in it. 

"I post an agenda on the whiteboard and list the model texts we'll look at and the skills we'll focus on." pg 70

Dr. Sitler, in my Teaching and Evaluating Writing class, writes her agenda on the chalkboard each class period.  I like that she does this because it gives me something to focus on and prepares me for class.  This might also help special needs students so that they can see instruction as well as hear it.  For the teacher, it helps them to keep track of where they are and how much more needs to be done during the class period.

"I confused rereading with editing."  pg 80

I have fallen prey to this so many times.  Rereading is not editing.  In high school, when a teacher told us to trade papers, we edited the other students work.  We usually did not critique it apart from grammar or structure issues.  I really wish we would have, though, because it would have prepared me for college so much more having had that experience.  At least now I know how not to teach writing.

"Students speak first.  They need to tell me what they're struggling with and how they think I can help them work with their writing.  Second, I decide as I'm listening what is best to teach this writer." pg 86

We need to learn to listen to our students.  We need to listen to what they, personally, are struggling with so that we can help them to the best of our abilities.  As a part of our role as teacher, we also need to encourage our students to write and to write well.  Kittle suggests beginning the conferences with a "How can I help?" or a "How's it going?" to try and strike up the students side of the argument rather than have the whole thing teacher led.  We are trying to give our students a voice, so we need to let them express their concerns to us.

[readeralert-blog]

Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle

"For 10 minues out of each 90 minute class, we read a book. Any book. A comic book, magazine, anything [...] And when we wrote, it was about what we wanted to write about [...] Mrs. Kittle emphasized embracing your own literacy; owning what you write, reading what you want." pg 4

I really liked this idea of having students read a little at the beginning of class, something that they actually WANT to read.  Students never really have time to read what they want because they are always focusing on what classes require them to read and respond to.  Also, with writing, there is always a direct focus on what students need to write. "You need to write a response to this quote pertaining to the plot of To Kill a Mockinbird," is one of the prompts I had in high school.  I didn't usually get to write what I wanted to write, apart from a relatively short unit in ninth grade on fiction.  High school is about discovery and when we allow students to discover what they like to read and what they like to write, we are helping them discover themselves.

"I believe you can't tell kids how to write; you have to show them what writers do.  I believe you have to be a writer, no matter how stumbling and unformed that process is for you; it's essential to your work as a teacher of writing." pg 8

My belief is that you shouldn't make students do an assignment that you have not done.  This goes the same with reading a book; if you haven't read it and understood it, how can you expect your students to?  If you have not done any writing, how do you expect your students to be writers? By allowing your students to see the process of you writing, you are helping them to see that it doesn't all come naturally.  It is a process and it takes time.

"This is because I allow them to continue to revise all semester and they want to improve their grades, but also because as their skills improve they know how o make their writing better." pg 15

I really wish my high school teachers did this, allowing their students to revise throughout the semester.  I think there is always something that can be improved in a piece of writing and continuous revision helps the students with the writing process. If a student wants to keep working on a paper, I think the teacher should allow them to turn it in.

"Quick Writes" pg 29

The three rules to quickwriting are write the entire time, write quickly without letting the critic in your head censor you, and relax, have fun, play.  During a writing unit, to help students discover their voice, I think quick writes at the beginning of class help set the tone for the rest of the period.  It's also important to model quick writing with your students.  If you are giving students 10 minutes at the beginning of class to quick write, you better be quick writing, too.  As Kittle says, "I write beside them to stay in touch with what I'm asking of my students and to practive my craft as their writing teacher." pg 33

"Interest Journals" pg 47

I really really really love this idea! The interest journals are there purely for entertainment and they let the students experiment with different topics without making the students sign their name on the work.