Well, I read both chapters of Best Practices and the Nancy Rankie Shelton and Danling Fu article on Creating Space for Teaching Writing and for Test Preparation and all I can say is, assessment gives me nightmares. Since I started this reading I have dreamt every night that I’m taking a horrifying writing test of some kind or another. The two more vivid were one where I was just starting the test when the lights went out and no one seemed to notice but me. I couldn’t read the test, and I couldn’t see how anyone else could, but no one else was complaining. They just kept going. I rose my hand and tried to get the proctor to listen to what I was saying about the light situation, but he refused to see me. The next night I dreamt I was a prisoner in a school building and wouldn’t be released until I could pass this particular writing test. I kept taking it and failing even though I was positive that I had produced good writing. I couldn’t figure out what it was they wanted from me and I kept being forced into a new classroom every time I failed. Finally, I felt like I had it down, I was on a role and only had one more section of the prompt to cover before completing a perfect essay that covered every single thing they (whoever they were) could possibly want, when the test was over. I was freaking out. I was so close to finishing but they ripped the paper out of my hand and I failed again.

I don’t know exactly what this means, but I know I am feeling stressed by the fact that I seemed to retain nothing from the Best Practices chapters. I read portions of them three and four times and still it was like I was reading Greek. It just didn’t gel for me at all, which is scary because I know this is going to be a big part of my job, but I just had a complete mental block about it.

The article left me conflicted. I was glad to see that Nancy made writing workshop work for her. She seemed ready to experiment with other ways to incorporate test prep, and even seemed likely to abandon it all together if she felt confident that her writing workshop alone could prepare students for tests. It was nice to see that there is some hope for breaking out of teaching to the test. Still, my experience with field work this year showed me that students in struggling schools have been completely brainwashed into believing that tests are all that matter. In one class I observed this semester, a teacher asked her class why it’s important to learn grammar. A student answered, “So we can do better on tests.” The teacher said, “Right.” There is something so fundamentally wrong with that. In other classes, I noticed all the students care about is finding out what their grades are. One teacher purposely puts no preliminary grades into the school’s system because the students obsessively check it. There is a total disconnect between grades and the purpose of education.

In looking over Chapter 7 again, I find I do get a lot out of the strategies on revision. Certainly, I see how reading and writing work together, because without the ability to read critically, you can’t critique anyone’s writing, including your own. As a former editor, I know that revision is essential to good writing. Very few people (maybe none at all) can produce high quality writing without revision. That’s why I find it so insane that we make kids take these writing tests where time is so short that they have all of five minutes to plan and maybe five minutes to proofread, but no time at all to revise. That’s not really writing. That’s the Jeopardy of writing. Just because you can’t hit the buzzer as fast as the guy next to you doesn’t mean you don’t know the answer. Some people need more time to write and more revising time than others. That might actually mean you’re a better writer overall. But we don’t seem to care about that. Certainly, if all you’re doing is teaching to the test, there is little place for revision. Yet it is maybe the most important part of the whole process.

I’ll have to give Chapter 13 another try at another time. I just don’t know what happened there.

But there is one other thing that has been confounding me. All of the examples of actual classroom experiences in Best Practices are K-8. I’m feeling unsure about what this means for high school teachers. How is high school different from what we are learning about here? What are kids supposed to be doing in high school? In my field work, it seems they are reading short stories and catching up on what they should have already learned, but none of it is being done in a coordinated way. I’m feeling very nervous about the prospect of teaching in high school because I feel so unclear about what I would be teaching or what I could or should expect my students to know.

What’s great about the Overmeyer book for me is the real concrete advice on how to keep track of your thoughts and notes on student progress.The analogies to dancing and athletics are also right on. Writing is one of those things that you have to do badly before you do it well. There’s no way around that. So how can you give students a poor grade when the act of creating flawed writing is the only way to get the student to produce better writing?

Overmeyer’s tips for talking to students about writing, his advice on allowing students to participate in the creating of rubrics and his charts for keeping track of student progress all seem like things that can really be used in the classroom. It’s not theory.

One of my favorite things in this book is the Writing Checklist on page 33. It’s straightforward and boils writing down into something so simple, yet not simplified.

Another thing that really helped me about this book is seeing the actual student writing along with Overmeyer’s assessment of it. There were a few pieces where my first thought was, “I wouldn’t know where to start assessing this.” But Overmeyer was able to find the places where the student was doing well even if the student’s mechanics were extremely problematic. He was able to see that a student like Owen, who wrote about Brussels sprouts, was strong on detail and main idea even if his organization and mechanics needed help. So now I feel I’ll be better able to see past problems, especially on the mechanics side, and look for what is working in student writing. This was a hugely helpful book.

Another issue this book made me think about is this notion that students should write without any help whatsoever. Where on earth did this idea come from? I was a professional writer and editor for 14 years and I never wrote or edited a piece that went straight from the writer to publication without someone else stepping in and advising and changing/improving the piece first. Professional writers refer to a dictionary, a thesaurus, a style and usage manual ALL THE TIME! We consult with coworkers when we’re stuck. Reading about teachers discounting students’ accomplishments because they used a word they saw on the word wall instead of having it pop like magic out of their own brain is so incredibly ridiculous. I think this attitude toward education comes from a time when the goal of education was not to educate all kids but to weed out only those who are considered “exceptional” and throw the rest to the curb. Except “exceptional” generally meant, “just like us—the ruling class.” If that is no longer the purpose of education, then why do we still use these outdated notions toward writing. I have to admit, the writing prompts that Overmeyer mentions really freaked me out, because I don’t know if I could read that prompt and just start writing on that topic. I don’t know if I would do very well on these writing tests, although I’m pretty sure I’m a decent writer.

And another thing on punctuation. It is extraordinarily difficult to find errors in your own work, because you are so close to the content. You’ve read it so many times that you become blind to basic things that a fresh set of eyes will see right away. This is why we used to pay proofreaders in professional publishing. Now, we just accept lower quality and lots of errors. Because even an editor (as opposed to a proofreader who is only looking for mechanics and punctuation, not content) can overlook things once they get into the act of reworking sentences and what not. It’s just crazy to me to think that a student shouldn’t use tools, like reference books and peers, to improve their writing. Professional writers couldn’t work without them. Why should students?

Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within, by Natalie Goldberg, is a fantastic read for anyone looking to free themselves or their students from all the preconceived notions about what writing should be and all the doubts and criticisms that we inflict on ourselves.

It’s far from a manual on how to write. Rather, it’s a long talk with a good friend—the kind that helps free you from some hang up you hadn’t even been willing to admit had been holding you back until the two of you got together for dinner one night and just started talking.

This is not to say that there isn’t advice on writing that you can grab hold of. There is. The entire book is really about the concept of writing practice and how all writers can benefit from open, honest and regular exercise in timed writing practice. Goldberg says very early on, on page 8, “You may time yourself for ten minutes, twenty minutes, or an hour. It’s up to you.” And she gives concrete “directions” on how to go about starting writing practice. She says,

“1. Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)

2. Don’t cross out. (That is editing as you write. Even if you write something you didn’t mean to write, leave it.)

3. Don’t worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar. (Don’t even care about staying within the margins and lines on the page.)

4. Lose control.

5. Don’t think. Don’t get logical.

6. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.

Goldberg says the aim of this process is, “to burn through to first thoughts,” (pg. 8). First thoughts are, “the way the mind first flashes on something. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash,” (pg. 9).

Goldberg compares writing practice to physical conditioning. “Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don’t want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don’t wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run. It’ll never happen” (pg. 11).

From these early discussions on the reasons for and benefits of writing practice, the book takes off on a meandering path, alternating between chapters that focus on strategies for getting the creative juices flowing—like why to get out and write in restaurants and how to do it to best effect—and others that tap into the spiritual side of writing.

My personal favorite of these Zen-inspired spiritual chapters is A New Moment (pg. 120). “Tulips come up in the spring for no reason. Of course, you planted bulbs and now in April the earth warms up. But why? Becasue the earth spins around the sun. But why? For no reason except gravity. Why gravity? For no reason. And why did you plant red tulip bulbs to begin with? For beauty, which is itself and has no reason. So the world is empty. Things rise and fall for no reason. And what a great opportunity that is! You can start writing again at any minute. Let go of all your failures and sit down and write something great. Or write something terrible and feel great about it.”

This book touches on every aspect of writing—the where, as in creating a writer’s studio, writing in restaurants, writing in laundromats; the how, as in tips for adding detail to your writing, as simple as, “Don’t say ‘fruit.” Tell what kind of fruit,” (pg. 77); the why, as in, “Baker Roshi from San Francisco Zen Center said, ‘why? isn’t a good question.’ Things just are. Hemingway has said, “Not the why, but the what.” Give the real detailed information. Leave the why for psychologists. It’s enough to know you want to write. Write.”

What is best about this book is that it mixes a discussion of the spiritual aspects of writing with more practical considerations, like how to add detail and the need for frequent writing practice. If this book is on your shelf, you will be able to pull it down whenever you’re feeling stuck, in need of inspiration or just want to get your mind going. Each chapter is self contained. If you flip through it and open to the beginning of any chapter, you will find a few pages of succinct, heartfelt and caring advice from one writer to another. Somehow, I believe, whatever chapter you stop on, it will be exactly what you need at that moment in time. It’s just that kind of book.

I read Chapter 3 in Best Practices this week, and I found the concrete, step-by-step approach to teaching narrative writing to be very helpful. There were a few areas of confusion for me though. First was the rubric on page 60. I didn’t quite grasp how this was supposed to be used.

I also fell off a bit of a cliff on page 66 when the authors discussed the phenomena of students falling back in competency as they began to incorporate more complexity into their writing. It’s not that I didn’t understand the concept. It’s just that I didn’t quite get what a teacher’s strategy should be for this. Should we circle back and review concepts already covered or press on? Still, it’s very enlightening to know that this is a normal part of the process.

I found the storyboards a wonderful way to help students visualize the progression of a narrative. Also, the story plot planning sheet and the cartoon exercise are other great ideas for helping kids visualize., which I’m sure is a necessary element for many kids to be able to wrap their heads around the concepts.

One other part I didn’t quite understand was at the very end. The authors discuss the fact that their students performed better than other classes using different techniques. “The two instructional approaches differed as follows: focus on plot tension versus temporal event sequence, story character versus story problem, characters’ inner mental worlds versus outer physical worlds.” I’m not sure I even know exactly which is which. It would be nice to know how less successful techniques differ from these techniques.

I guess my other big question about all these readings is that the majority of them seem to be geared toward elementary school students. I wonder how these techniques would work in a high school classroom. At this point, and given my recent experience with field work in high school, I have no idea what high school students are meant to be learning. Should they already be proficient writers? What percentage of high school students are actually where they should be in writing skills? Certainly the students I’m seeing in Bridgeport aren’t there, but who is? And how do we handle older students who are significantly behind in writing skills? Seems like in Bridgeport they are closing their eyes and pushing the kids out into community college to hopefully learn the skills they need there. That’s just my first impression so it may be an unfair characterization, but my question remains. How does most of this relate to the high school level?

I also read “Multiple Literacies in the Content Classroom: High School Students’ Connections to U.S. History” by Jane Hansen. I guess my biggest impression about this is why is this so unique in our classrooms? It seems so obvious that kids will not be motivated by dry, boring textbooks that they know are only telling them half the story. Tell them the truth and they’ll be compelled by it. My daughter is three and she already knows when I’m lying to her. You don’t get anywhere with young people by underestimating their ability to handle complexity. In fact, all they do is shut down because they know you’re patronizing them. I remember that vividly when I was young. There was nothing more frustrating than knowing your parents were keeping you in the dark about something.

Erika Pierce’s (or Price?) methods clearly work since all but one of her students passed the state test. Since what we care about today is passing tests, why don’t we just get over our own discomfort and let kids read the truth. It seems to work.