KateMcCarrollMoore

It happened again today…driving along, listening to NPR’s Science Friday and this lovely woman is describing her passion. She’s talking cattle. She knows, it seems, everything there is to know about Texas Longhorns. She knows their history, their lineage, their DNA. She’s explaining to the interviwer and the audience the how’s and why’s of cattle-ranching, branding, fencing, and cowboys. She’s quick to explain the similarities and the differences between these bulls and the fighting breed in Spain. And it dawns on me, I know nothing at all about this. My bovine knowledge void is as expansive as all of Texas.

How, I wonder, does someone become so enamored with something so specific? When did she discover that her true passion lay here, and not say, in horses, or butterflies, or violin concertos? What combination of genetics and environment causes someone to realize, I am destined to become an expert in THAT, not This??

A few hours later, driving home, I heard an expert on the rock art of Texas. (I’ve already been on-line, looked at all the photographs posted, watched a video, and ordered souvenir notecards). I learned about Shaman figures, panthers representing power, and reverance for the ancients. Stories preserved on limestone walls. They used their paint to tell the news, the archeologist said, like newspapers or radio broadcasts today.

There is so much I don’t know, that it leaves me dumbstruck. A hundred lifetimes wouldn’t be enough to find out all there is to know. But today I feel a little less ignorant about cows and caves. A little more grateful for the mystery of the great unknown.

Last month I began going to the local continuation high school at the end of the day for drop-in writing sessions. The Wednesday before winter break, two African American students showed up. We talked about books and school for a bit, then I gave them each a sheet of binder paper, a pencil and we began. I tossed out some 2 minute writing prompts: “door,” “happiness,” “second grade.”

They both made involuntary little gasps with that last prompt, then began furiously writing.

Here’s E.A.

2nd grade was a tough year. Not for me, but for outsiders. Those who didn’t fit in. Weren’t cool. 2nd grade I loved to rule the school. Be the boss. You either stood behind me or bside me, but never in front. I was dominant. And I did what I want. 2nd grade I had a little brother to watch over. You mess with him, you mess with me. But I swear I wasn’t a bully. Just a girl trying to find her voice. Just wanting to be heard, because as soon as school got out, I was ignored.

And this is from D.H. (who happens to have an infant at home):

Second grade is the worse grade, the grade I was transformed into a mean slime ball, the grade I was teased in, the grade I almost got kidnapped in, the grade where I became stressed, the grade where I set my life goals, the grade I moved to North Carolina, the grade I met new people, the grade that I cried the most in, the grade I experienced a drunk driver, the grade I got into a car with a 12 year old, the grade I felt stranded, the grade that made me hurt, the grade I felt unusual pain, the grade I had to repeat.

Writing down our stories matters – finally, a chance to be heard.

     Writing workshop is a model of instruction that focuses on process rather than product. In a writing workshop model, students write often and for long stretches of time. Generally, writing instruction is divided into specific units of study (narrative, persuasive essay, literary response essay, etc), always beginning with idea generating and moving through drafting and revision to publication. The writing workshop classroom is a student-centered classroom with the teacher acting as coach, guide, and facilitator rather than assigner.  

            One of the most powerful outcomes of writing workshop is building a community of writers who come to know (and understand) themselves and each other through shared stories.  Students have choice in a workshop classroom; they learn to develop and craft pieces that matter by thinking deeply about the issues that matter most to them. They learn that they have important things to say.

            I have been a writing teacher for more than thirty years and I have always taught through a workshop model of instruction because initially, that’s what made sense to me. As a graduate student in the late 1970’s, I was introduced to the work of Donald Murray, Donald Graves, and Peter Elbow. Their research supported the idea that writing is a process of discovery through which we learn about the world and ourselves. It is through writing that these discoveries take shape; we don’t come to the writing with ideas fully formed, rather we discover what we think as we put the words on the page. Pulitzer Prize winning novelist and teacher William Kennedy summed it up this way: “Inch by inch, the words surprise me.” I have found this to be true and have seen it borne out year after year in classroom after classroom, in student after student.

            When I wrote my Master’s, “The Effect of Writing Workshop in a Continuation High School Classroom,” (Moore, 2007), I saw this played out quite effectively with previously disengaged students.  Over the course of several months, they moved from a place of empty notebooks and empty stares to become a group of adolescents sharing the stories of their lives. In a just published book on teaching writing, The Essential Don Murray: Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing Teacher (2009), Thomas Newkirk states, “To write like this is to take your life seriously.”

            I find it interesting to note that this most effective method of instruction is least employed with students who are struggling. Instead of giving them tools for reflection and active participation in the world, they are given drill and kill exercises which do little to promote literacy, critical thinking and taking ones’ life seriously.  It’s time for a change.

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!