For this week's blog reflection, I would like you to go back to the reading I assigned for Week One: Don Murray's seminal essay "Teach Writing as Process Not Product" and Bob Yagelski's hopeful article about transforming the way we teach writing so that it's more about the writer writing and less about the writer's writing. As I explained to you in class, these two pieces of foundational writing help to form my beliefs as a teacher of writing. Now, you can begin to figure out your own beliefs (I hope you do!) by reading the things that have influenced me as a teacher and by forming your own epistemology and beliefs about how people learn to write and learn to see themselves as writers.
This is not to say that you should spend your time here on the blog poking holes in our readings. This is not English class; this is about pedagogy and tangible things like real students and paper and pens. And, when we read about and discuss pedagogy, we are not looking for "BAD" or "GOOD" ideas; we are looking for POSSIBILITIES. So, please, put your teacher hats on when you write this blog post this week, and play the Believing Game...try to push aside your "doubters hat" and to envision the possibilities inherent in creating a classroom that welcomes student writers and student writing, errors and complexities and all. What does it look like NOT to teach writing as a product or as an assessment? What does it take on the teacher's part to actually teach writing as a process? What does that require of us as humans?
In 300-400 words, tell us what you took away from the Murray piece AND the Yagelski piece (especially because Yagelski discusses teaching a class exactly like our class and discusses his students who are English teacher candidates at SUNY Albany). As you're composing your thoughts, please remember that the purpose of this blog post is for you to demonstrate to me that you understand what the authors know, you've processed what they said, and you're attempting to make sense of their perspectives in light of your own. I look forward to reading your comments and reflections on these readings. Also, please try to revisit the blog before our Wednesday class to read and reply to some of your classmates' comments as well. As we move forward, I hope to cultivate the give-and-take that blogging requires of us.
Murray shows us that writing is how we discover our world and how we feel about it. By doing this, we are able to navigate and uncover our own moral compass. The final product becomes a life manual seeped in our own truths. The act of actually doing the writing ourselves is what guides our minds and hearts towards our souls where we can feel what resonates within our beings. Through the writing we reveal what haunts and excites us most and what drives our actions. It is where we find our inner voice. It is where we find meaning. It is how we communicate with ourselves. With the words we unearth we are able to communicate with our world. Students can make all of these discoveries too.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that kept running through my head as I read Yagelski’s piece was that what matters is the journey, not the destination. When we teach free form writing without a grading scale, the possibilities become endless because the pressure is lifted off the student. The universe opens up and allows them enough space to fly around until they stumble upon things that matter to them. The idea’s they want and need to delve deeper into in order to understand more fully themselves and their world are explored. In the free form writing style illuminations and insights abound because they have enough room to tumble out. Without sign posts of rules like “you must include this” and “make sure you show us that you understand that” to hold the student back, they are able to write about what matters most to them. The pen and keyboard acts as a divining road between thoughts and words. These written words become the language of our being.
As Murray said “all writing is experimental” and that is the best part. There is no formula. There is no wrong or correct way of doing it. By allowing our students to simply just write, we are allowing them the largest playing field of freedom. It doesn’t matter how it is graded, the act of writing is test enough and as a bonus they may even enjoy it so much that they continue to write on their own. There is no greater power to hold than that gained through finding your voice. That is the greatest gift we can give our students!
Jocelyn, Thank you for such a thorough and thoughtful response to the readings. I can tell from your word choice, tone, and the metaphors you use that Murray and Yagelski's perspectives resonated with you (and stuck to your ribs, so to speak). The line I love the most from your post is this one: "The universe opens up and allows them enough space to fly around until they stumble upon things that matter to them." To me, this line of yours represents visually what I imagine the freedom of writing feels like to those lucky enough to feel it. But, as you point out, we can't really feel it until we get rid of the "sign posts of rules." When a little kid wants to learn how to play basketball, do you throw her a basketball and tell her to start dribbling and shooting or do you throw her an NBA rule book and tell her to start reading the rules of the game? Our approaches to teaching--to lighting the fire inside of kids--in schools are largely ineffective because we talk about learning more than we engage in learning. Thanks for your great ideas and ruminations, Jocelyn! And for your prompt attention to the homework assignment. I notice things like that!
DeleteReading these works were extremely eye opening and empowering. To start, I want to look at the fast paced, in your face, piece by Murray. Reading Murray’s “Teaching Writing as a Process Not a Product” at first almost gave me a heart attack. As a student who has written extensive papers trying to showcase a mastery of words and putting those words together, it came as a surprise that Murray thinks that product doesn’t matter when it comes to developing writing. Reading further, I became engulfed with his concepts of the process of writing making a person grow. On the idea of a writer, the quote “He doesn’t test his words by a rule book, but by life,” really resonated inside of my head, and I began to truly understand what Murray was saying. (4) In this article Murray tore apart my ideas about the purpose of writing for school and restructured them in a way that seems like it would create more interest in writing among students, saving the mechanics of writing (the most frustrating part) for the very end of the writing process. This article has really started me thinking about my preconceived ideas of writing.
ReplyDeleteYagelski’s piece continued the concept of the process of writing being the most important when he brought up the idea of writing to simply write. Yagelski brings up his own experience of throwing something that he wrote away. I was really drawn into this article when Yagelski begins to speak about writing being a time to examine oneself, the events of life and how they have effected oneself. I find the concept of students just writing to write being a rare but very interesting one and I can see some resistance at first due to all the negativity surrounding writing in school, but after a while, it seems students would warm up to it. This is actually something I have been attempting to do at my work. Having the kids in my program write lists of things they want, or ideas they want to change if they say they are bored. I have even attempted to suggest to children with anger management issues to write down how they feel when they are on the verge of an explosion and it seems to be helping. I personally look forward to exploring the ways writing can help students with their issues.
Nate: Thanks for a thoughtful response. My favorite line in your response is when you say, discussing Murray's ideas, "the process of writing making a person grow." Writing is an ADDITIVE process. It takes nothing away from it; it only adds something to the richness of our lives. When I write a text message to my friend, it adds something to the world. A communication, however poetic or mundane. Writing is adding; it's contributing, you know? As such, it should make us feel good, like we are doing something good, adding a little piece of us to the big IT. I love hearing that you're trying this out at the Boys & Girls Club, Nate. Writing lists is a powerful act! I do it all the time! I love knowing that you're teaching kids this discipline; write to make sense of what you are thinking and feeling. The world would be a much nicer place if we all had to pause to write about it first.
DeleteYagelski and Murray—the Process of writing
ReplyDeleteI read the piece by Donald Murray first, and I think choosing to do so made a difference in the way I ultimately responded to the Yagelski piece. Murray got me excited about teaching writing and about writing with my future students. After that Yagelski inspired me to begin to think of myself and my students as writers and intellectuals.
The concept of the process of writing being even more important than the product in some cases was baffling to me. I’m sure it is initially baffling to the student and the teacher in all of us. You mean we don’t necessarily have to produce or assess a finished product? Then what’s the point? In thinking back to all the writing I did as a young high school student, though, I am struck with the undoubtedly positive aspects of this approach. When I write for myself I do it to get something off my chest—that thing may be a strong emotion I’ve been feeling or just a random line that has been floating around in my head. Either way it is writing which helps me make sense of it. Why shouldn’t I give that gift of sense-making to my students?
Yagelski’s piece discussed not only the importance of writing as a process but also as a way of helping our students make meaning of their own lives in and out of school. Yagelski mentioned that writing enables “thinking that can give rise to a conception of the self as autonomous and intellectual” (10). I think that our students have some trouble viewing themselves that way. As a matter of fact, sometimes we as teachers and future teachers have trouble with that as well. How can one write confidently if one does not feel like an intellectual? Like a writer? Helping our students harness the power of writing to such an extent that they begin to feel like writers will open entirely new doors for them.
Allie
"You mean we don’t necessarily have to produce or assess a finished product? Then what’s the point?"
DeleteYou raise a good point, I think it is important to see progress in a finished work just as much as it is important to see a student's writing process.
Allie: It makes me so happy to read this, "...to begin to think of myself and my students as writers and intellectuals." I can't think of anything more powerful than starting to believe that the work of thinking--and of encouraging and inviting young people to think, even when they don't want to--is important, maybe THE most important work that we can do. Examination, reflection, thoughtfulness, mindfulness, kindness, analysis, perspective-taking, hypothesis...all of these processes are part of teaching and learning and being a student. Yet, we don't let these processes unfold and grow and develop as they should, as they need to. We cut them with jagged scissors and stuff them in boxes marked with bar codes and numbers. I'm so happy that you feel somewhat liberated upon reading these two pieces. If you can get yourself into this frame of mind, it opens so many doors in the classroom. Thank you for your thoughts!
DeleteBoth Murray and Yagelski mention writing not needing to be a product, rather, it is the experience that matters. Yagelski in particular, appreciates writing as a process, and the result is only relevant to the writer. He also notes how writing is more a way of being, a way for the writer to discover their selves. Writing uses language, and language is used for discovery and expressing what was discovered. For writers, being able to express thought helps them discover things about themselves that, otherwise, they may not have seen before.
ReplyDeleteTo get to this point of discovery, knowing how to write is essential. That is why, as teachers, our objective is to teach writers how to write, and not what they write so much. As Murray mentions, “We teach writing as a product, focusing…on what our students have done”. Because of this, students become discouraged about their writing and see it as “not good enough” and thus, no longer enjoy writing. In many cases, writing is more or less a chore because they go through the same routines and have the same questions over and over again. There is not any room for them to write about things they care about.
But they need the experience. Instead of teaching them to write what we want, it would be better for them to write what it is that they are passionate about. As I have discovered with my own writing, writing more helps you become a better writer, which, in turn, allows you changes to write more and enjoy it. As Yagelski mentions in his article, “In short, because language is integral to our awareness of ourselves as being in the world, so is writing”. By knowing how to write effectively, one could use language to provoke self-discovery.
This could mean that one, writers can see how well they wrote previously; two, can see how their tastes and talents have progressed over time; or three, what was relevant during that time. And because it is recorded, others can see what was written even years after it was thought out. Also, as with anything, the more you do something, the better you get; and that is just how I want my students to see writing, as a way to better themselves and see just how talented and creative they actually are.
Danielle: Thank you for these thoughts. So much of school seems like it is designed to cut down students, young people who need encouragement and mentoring and kindness. School is punitive, it's punishments can affect the rest of your life, and yet we take it so seriously, all this grading and testing and rules and regulations. With all of that stripped away, even just for an imaginary second, what becomes possible? It is though we have lost our educational imagination. Textbooks and Scantron sheets have clouded our idealistic visions and hopes for the next generation. Murray and Yagelski remind us that our job, sometimes, is to wipe away all that nonsense and clutter and to get to the heart of what it is we are doing. We teach children how to love their lives. That's our number one job! So, in that framework, why should anything in school, including writing...especially writing...be painful?
DeleteMy favorite line is this one: "As I have discovered with my own writing, writing more helps you become a better writer, which, in turn, allows you changes to write more and enjoy it." This is where your "I voice" enters the piece of writing. I'd like to hear more of it! Hint, hint.
I feel that too often, in multiple aspects of life, we are judged on the final product instead of the process by which we reach that product. It is the whole reason that plagiarism exists. Students feel that the process by which they complete the paper -- namely, by appropriating the words of another and passing them off as their own -- is a trifle compared to the end result: producing an "A" paper. Murray's article "Teach Writing as a Process Not Product" states, "Too often, as writer and teacher Thomas Williams points out, we teach English to our student as if it were a foreign language". Though I never thought of it that way until I read this article, I have to agree. I have seen these insecurities come to light first-hand as a tutor in the Writing Center. Though I only started working there this summer, I have already had a number of students who are self-proclaimed "bad writers" produce papers that are stagnant and unimaginitave, yet when they explain what they wanted to say, it is full of insight and personal flavor. My most-used piece of advice thus far is, "Write exactly what you just said!" It is due to teaching strategies such as those condemned by Murray that installs those inhibitions.
ReplyDeleteYagelski's article takes Murray's ideas one step further, into the realm of being changed by the process of writing. If I was asked a year ago to comment on this, I would say that the idea sounded nice, but I had yet to experience the power of writing. Now, however, I am regularly journaling for a project, and I can't agree more. I do, however, also find use in the product of that writing, for it is through the product of those journals that I am seeing my change and growth. However, every time I sit down to write I find myself thinking more and more critically about my own beliefs. I believe that Yagelski's article advocates for reflective writing, such as though journals, and I believe in this as a teaching strategy as well.
For me, what really hit me hardest and drew me in was the beginning of the Yagelski article, where he tells his audience to imagine 1000 writers writing, and mentions the difference between the writing they have just done, and the text they have just produced. This echoes what Murray mentioned, about the act of writing being what needs to be taught.
ReplyDeleteOverall, the concept that the act is more “important” than the finished product (not that the product isn’t important, far from it, but the process is being taught to give students voices, and let them uncover their truths, and overall, that will allow them to flourish, and grow) is something that I will definitely try to remember when I am someday teaching students of my own to find their voices.
As I said, the distinction of “text” and “writing” is something that almost never occurred when I was in high school. If we learned “how to write” poetry (and I enjoyed the section, even though it was this way), we learned the format we had to follow, we discussed slant rhyme, etc., and then we were given a graded assignment requiring so much of this, so much of that, etc. 1 draft, that was it.
Now, I enjoyed this, I did well on this, but looking back on it after having read these articles, I realized that if instead we had worked on developing poetic voices, more students might have enjoyed it as much as I did. And then, it might have been able to strengthen my writing overall.
The story of Terry, a quite heartbreaking story, showed the power of writing. It can be used to relive experiences; it is a way to channel the power of direct experience, or imagined experience, and use that power. Writing is a way to bend it to one’s will, a way for writers to not only develop their voices, but use them in any way they so choose.
And as future teachers of writing, we should help our students to realize this. At least, in my opinion.
There were many things I found interesting and eye opening in these two pieces. The first thing that really stood out to me was taking the focus off of the product of writing, and taking value in the actual act. Yagelski, along with other sources he cites within the text, reports that the actual act of writing is one that connects the writer to the rest of the world. The act of writing is one of mini enlightenment. By writing, you are leaving yourself open and vulnerable, and whatever you are writing is a gateway into your most inner workings. Students in secondary schools very rarely get a chance to just write to write. The closest thing they get to this is writing down and gathering your thoughts before a discussion.
ReplyDeleteWithin Yagelski article, he uses the student Terry as an example of overlooking the value of writing can have on the individual. All too often do we put too much emphasis on the form and content and because we do so we stop kids from finding the self-enjoyment in writing. To them writing is synonymous with term paper and research, often times, the writer cannot find themselves connected to their own work. Like many other things in life, adults tend to make life overly complicated. By bombarding students with tedious trip ups like structure and writing etiquette we have turned them off to the most personal way they can discover themselves.
Transitioning from the disconnection students feel to their work, I move to Murray’s piece. Murray starts out by saying we analyze student’s work as if it were literature. He explains we should stop teaching finished writing and focus more on unfinished writing. I know that one of my biggest problems with writing a professional text is that I get overwhelmed on trying to make everything perfect on the first try.
One of the strongest ideas that stuck out to me from Murray’s piece is Implication No. 5 from his ten point list. This implication calls for students to be able to write in any form they think will help them communicate their point across. Leaving students to this choice alone is empowering and a way for them to make a connection to their work. They are able to think outside the box and play with some creative ideas. This is a sure way for them to learn through trial and error what can work and what can’t for the problem they are working through.
When I read Yagelski and Murray's pieces, I can't help but think of National Novel Writing month, which is coming up pretty soon and I have been on the fence about trying ever since I first heard of it a few years ago. The idea that there will be this cloud of writers doing authentic and valuable writing all at the same time is just touchingly beautiful. And these writer's are not doing this in order to win their fame or have a "product". The text that they will have at the end of November, whether finished or not, abandoned or awaiting further editing, will have been, and that it the important part. Getting into the act of writing sets up the author for further writing and for those just making their way into the writing world, this practice is a huge step. These "beings in the world" pushing others to up their word-count or encouraging through praise are teaching in a very incidental way, but it is still teaching, and those lessons will stick far longer than a dry, dissected literary analysis that occurs in many classrooms. The compositions that these writers write are merely shells of the ideas that live within them. The growth is what is most valuable and as in the case of Terry, this can't be underestimated as a tool of healing, of processing the truth and distributing that truth to others. A text is a product, but only in the sense that it is the sweat of a literary brow; sure it is the evidence that the work was done, but it is not the work itself.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't help but agreeing with Murray's perspective on teaching writing, especially his take on the writing as process.I like how the author diminishes the role of the criticism the teachers tend to contribute to their students as part of the feedback; when what matters the most is just the process of writing itself.
ReplyDeleteMurray also refers to the process of writing as to "the process of discovery through language.' And it is so true. To write is to experiment with words, phrases, collocations and idioms and, ultimately,- ideas (here is Murray's idea of "experimental writing").
The author also mentions three stages of writing process (pre-writing, writing and rewriting). While, according to Murray, most writers go through these processes, not all of the students pass through the pre-writing phase of outlining, I think. And the question here lies in the students' motivation. Therefore, per the author's say, the teacher's job is not to critisize or even motivate, it is to receive and read ("we are the recipients, the readers".)
Interestingly, R. Yagelski continues on the note that what matters is writing itself and not its product, a text, a writer writing not the writer's piece of writing. Thus, Mr. Yagelski, picks up Murray's idea and continues to develop it, the fact that we write and NOT what and how we write is important, Students have to be less locked in the format and time requirements to have their ideas flowing, As, according to Yagelski, the writing is a process of our inner transformation, as it "opens up possibilities for awareness, reflection and inquiry".