Category: Teaching Writing

 

By: Ben Causey

Ben Causey is a MA in English (Teaching of Writing & Literature concentration) student at George Mason University. He is also an active-duty Marine and currently teaches instructional methods at Marine Corps University in Quantico, Virginia. You can contact Ben at benjamin.causey@usmcu.edu.

Students are often encouraged to formally prewrite, outline, or somehow plan their written course work. Often, they are reluctant to conceptualize their thoughts outside the pages of their written assignments. Over forty years ago, Janet Emig (1983) realized that “able student writers voluntarily do little or no formal written pre-figuring, such as a formal outline, for pieces of school-sponsored writing of five hundred or fewer words” (p. 92). Since then, we have recognized the need for students “to draw upon a wider range of communicative resources than courses have typically allowed” (Shipka, 2005, p. 299), Students have also gained access to a host of software and media tools that allow them to compose in creative new ways. Infographics can fulfill the need for students to plan and re-conceptualize their written work, as well as provide a fresh alternative to the typical written assignment. When students are too preoccupied with language, grammar, and form to participate meaningfully in the disciplinary discourse, infographics can free students from some of those restraints so they might think more clearly.

By: Helen C. Sitler

This post is a thought piece on how important aspects of the student learning process are sometimes obscured by the assessment expectations placed on professors.

Helen Collins Sitler teaches in the English Department at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where her favorite class to teach is Basic Writing. She is a composition specialist and also works with the English Education resource pool, teaching some methods courses and supervising student teachers.  You can reach her at hcs@iup.edu.

The lightbulb moment. The moment when we see understanding flood a student’s face makes the hard work of teaching writing worthwhile.

In my basic writing course some years ago, Jeremy struggled to find his voice. His papers were forced and predictable. Near the end of the semester, our class took a day to wander the campus in small groups and write about what we saw. There was no pressure to write a thesis statement, to use perfect mechanics, to develop ideas. The task was simply to write. When we returned to the classroom to share our experiences, Jeremy regaled us with his vivid, humorous account of a few minutes he had spent in the library. It was a startling shift from his usual stiff formality, and the first time his voice appeared in his written words. The whole class loved it. A few hours later, Jeremy presented me with a typed copy of what he had written, reporting that when he got back to his room with the hand-written original, he had written more. He said, “I couldn’t stop writing.”

By: Donald R. Gallehr

Donald R. Gallehr is an Associate Professor in the English Department at George Mason University.  His research focuses on learning beyond the cognitive and its application to the classroom, as well as how meditation enables the writer.  He teaches courses in advanced nonfiction writing, the teaching of writing, and theories of composition. You can reach him at dgallehr@gmu.edu.

As we all know, the process we use as writers is central to the writing we do. It can prevent such things as writer’s block and it can lead to high quality revision. In a previous blog post called “The Sticky Note Exercise,” the video shows us how one poses several questions to her students about writing, then gives them sticky notes for them to answer her questions and places these notes on the wall next to the questions she posed. She then forms students into small groups for them to share their ideas, and later the whole class discusses their comments. This gives everyone in the class knowledge of what they’re thinking about writing and writing processes.

No matter what discipline we teach in, we’re all assigning papers and giving our students advice on how to make their papers the best they can be. One problem that students in all our courses at times face is postponing their writing until the last minute. If we talk to them about the impact that their processes have on the final product, they are more likely to start their papers earlier in order to have time to think things through and to make the revisions that are necessary. This article will show you how to focus on the writing processes of your students so that they produce really good papers.