It's March, and March is for slicing. Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices!
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With a bit of skepticism, I drove the 45 minutes to the conference. Months ago, it had lured me in with the promise of providing strategies that could help EL/ML students exit the program. Would the presenter really be able to provide some secrets that could help some of the students receiving in our ELL program exit the program?
Spoiler alert: There were no secret strategies. Effective instruction for students who are learning English mirrors effective instruction for many-- maybe even most-- students.
For most of the day, I agreed with the things the presenter declared as truths, and I know many teachers who are already implementing many of the strategies for teaching speaking, listening, and reading. She emphasized the importance of readaloud, turn and talks, building background knowledge, and developing vocabulary. I could see using several of the strategies and resources, although many of the referenced books were dated or featured animals as the main characters. I wished for more current books with characters that provided possible peeks into lived experiences.
But then, she presented thoughts about writing, at first I nodded along as she talked about sentence structure and teaching students how to combine words. She referenced the languages standards and talked about using play and games to build excitement and engagement. Yep, She was in my wheelhouse.
But then, she delved into genre-based writing, and the first genre she talked about was narrative.
"Personal narratives are the easiest for students to write," she said.
At that moment, it was probably good I was sitting by myself and at the conference without a colleague. I'm pretty sure my whispered disagreement would have been audible.
Since I was by myself, I sat on my hands and pressed my lips together. I wanted to ask about what made her think that. I wanted to ask for who? I wanted to point out that for some students, personal narratives might be the hardest. "Fictional stories are much harder to write," she went on to say. Again I held my tongue, despite wanting to talk about how easily second-graders were coming up with troubles that involved unicorns and dragons.
It was not a conference that invited debate and discourse. There were invitations to try out activities and ideas, and there were some hands on crafty experiences. There was even a read aloud and a reader's theater. I appreciated all those. But I left wondering about the importance of offering opportunities for discussion in a presentation. And I left REALLY wondering about who personal narratives are the easiest form of writing for.
The student who has experienced trauma? Probably not.
The student who does not see the special moments in life? Probably not.
The student who struggles to remember the details of an event? Probably not.
In hindsight, I wish I'd opened my mouth and said something about the variation of what is hard for different people at different times in their lives. As someone who writes a lot, I'm not sure I can say there is a consistently "easiest" genre to write (I may well be able to whip off an informational text faster than I can concoct a captivating story), and I'm fascinated to see what anyone who stumbles on this post will say about this.
All good things,
I think maybe the overarching statement is that writing is hard and soemthing we need to practice lots and we should do so in many genres and many formats, including graphic format. I do think it may easier for some to write about what I know and I wonder if that is what the presenter is calling "personal narrative". But you make a great point above in stating 3 students who would struggle with writing a personal narrative. So glad you wrote this. I'll continue to ponder this today. Thanks for sharing. - Sally
ReplyDeleteI agree. “Easy” probably depends on the child. For some, there is no easy. But I can think of students that prefer informational writing because it is easier for them to write what they know…facts. Others are brimming with stories or fiction ideas. There are no absolutes ❤️ Jess.
ReplyDeleteHi Melanie,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. There is no easiest genre. The easiest genre depends on the day, the student, and any other number of factors. Have you read MAKING AMERICANS by Jessica Lander? I read it because I interviewed her on Chalk + Ink. Her episode will drop 3/31. It's a fascinating read and she suggests eight pillars for immigrant student success:
1) opportunities for new beginnings
2) supportive communities
3) assurance of security
4) chances to dream
5) committed advocates
6) recognition of students' strengths and assets
7) acceptance for who students are and where they come from
8) opportunities for students to develop their voice-and valuing those voices
And if we're committed to number 8, we have to provide students opportunities to write across all genres.
Thanks for the great post, for soliciting other people's opinions, and for the presentation tips.
Kate
Melanie, I believe you are correct - she is probably superimposing her own "easiest" and making assumptions that we all live with roofs over our heads, enough food on our tables, working lights and heat, and that all children have two parents, 1.5 siblings, a cat and a dog and live experiences that they would want to write about daily. Easiest is relative, but there is nothing easy about writing, because it doesn't just come naturally. It comes with hard work and, in my opinion, immersion - - just like language acquisition. It's "easy" to say that something is "easy," but I feel defeated when things come "easily" for others and not for me. Because of the truth: 2 + 2 is still not "easy" for me. And that's my 2 Cents :).
ReplyDeleteP.S. Update: remember the 301 Writing Prompts book, the gift for the writer at the Slicer meet up? The one I picked and then used with my middle school writers and one chose the "be a mannequin for a day and write about it" prompt? She submitted it to the Young Georgia Writers contest and it won 7th grade for our region. She now goes to the next level. THANK YOU for the book. I shared that story with them yesterday, and they loved the story of the dangerous slicer's walk to dinner and how the gift was exchanged and the prompt and winning came to be.
DeleteMelanie,
ReplyDeleteI suspect the speaker is coming from both a conventional wisdom paradigm many of us have heard and taught for years; the idea being it's easier to write about oneself because we know ourselves and don't need additional research. However, that's a privileged point of view, probably birthed by someone who did not or has not experienced the kind of trauma many students have endured. Like you, I think difficulty level and what's easiest comes from w/in an individual, but I have not always thought this because I internalized what I was told, indeed, what I was taught. I don't write publicly about the hard things in my own life because they are---well--hard, and frankly, I don't trust people w/ my story. Asking students to drip ink onto a paper, asking them to narrate their trauma, or anything personal, requires trust, so it occurs to me that narrative--personal narrative, specifically--might be better delayed, and for many students, not required. I wonder how many students have not had their creativity nurtured because they were forced to write the wrong kind of narrative for them.
Glenda captured the essence of the issue. I couldn't agree more!
DeleteI do agree that how 'easy' a genre is for a child to write in, can be quite subjective. I have found it to be the easiest intro for my second language students in India who are poor but not really traumatised. They can all write about something that happened in their holidays. Your post was very interesting and lots of food for thought from different perspectives.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to push back on a speaker, especially when you are a person who knows what it's like to stand in front of a room as a presenter, when you're in the audience. You want to be respectful, but you also don't want misinformation or a single (in this case privileged) perspective out there impacting the way other people think. Perhaps an email to this person IS the perfect next step. Perhaps it'll open up a dialogue and change her future presentations.
ReplyDelete