"I also like the ideas of always writing with an audience in mind, and celebrating writing by publishing the stories. However, I’m a bit spooked by her plan to allow the students to see me write, and watch my struggles with composition and editing. It makes logical sense that they can learn much more from seeing the process at work, than in simply reading the finalized product. We show the students our work in math. We practice the skill with kids when we coach a sport. So, applying this to writing makes sense … yet it is still disconcerting, right? I guess this comes from my own concerns about my writing skills, and I need to remember that true learning requires effort and some struggle within our student’s minds, so it is seeing “the actual struggle that helps them learn”."
I like that Ed mentions the spookiness of writing. I compliment Ed for his honesty and attributing the said spookiness to his own struggles with composition and editing. This seems logical: if a skill is less developed, it is often difficult to coach or pass on knowledge and confidence. Thankfully, as adults, we can be resourceful learners and practitioners now. I am not feeling overwhelmed by the task of sharing my writing with others because I have always enjoyed the process...and I feel strongly that no matter how one goes about it, strategy can be involved. This segways to Bird by Bird. One bird at a time. There is a method to writing. Structure. Any writer can become overwhelmed by the task of doing it all and doing it all well at one time. Rome wasn't built in a day, so why do we expect our writing to be brilliantlly perfect? I think it's unreasonable! To that end, why would I expect a second grader's writing to be perfect? The approach is stepping stone by stepping stone. Why not encourage inquiry? Veering from this, I am looking forward to our vignette writing experience.
1 comment:
I too was spooked by the thought of writing in front of my students. However, I think that not only is it important to model what we want our students to do, but it serves as a reminder to us about the difficulty of the task we are asking them to do. My response is that in addition to being a good model, we can create empathy with our students by performing the task we want them to do.
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