I don't have a problem with teaching skills in context. I too, believe that teaching isolated skills is ineffective. Furthermore, it's my opinion that the best way to teach anything is "whole to part to whole" (pp. 142). The part I struggle with is trying to teach skills etc., to each student individually. Routman states: If I focus first on excellent teaching of writing through writing for a valued reader, I will also be teaching all the skills in the context of that writing. (pp. 152) Problem solved? Focus on excellent teaching of writing.
Routman also proposes the idea of keeping standards in perspective. Theoretically, I absolutely agree with her statement. But, the reality of our "world" is that we're expected to have each student meet or exceed standards. Thus, many teachers, including myself, feel the pressure of state assessments and resort to methods that would likely disappoint Routman. And, yes - - I think the pressure of state assessment has resulted in the development of "formula writers"; students who can follow a prescribed writing plan and produce a piece of writing, but who fail to write from their hearts and thereby quash any evidence of strong voice. Formula writing provides a fail-safe method to "cover" all the points in the scoring rubric. But simply by its nature, formula writing impedes the purity of writing from one's heart. And how can we truly develop "voice" if students are not writing from their hearts?
The question at hand is simple. Have we been charged with developing students who will score well on state assessments, or should our energy go toward the organic view where students write with purpose, clarity of message, and strong voice regardless of where the writing falls within the scoring rubric?
Of course, Routman provided many great ideas in this chapter, which are noted via my trusty highlighter! And after re-reading my entry above, maybe I just need to focus more on her strategies rather than being so esoteric! But sometimes I think we're too tied to assessments. Can't we just teach our students to love learning? Probably not.
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4 comments:
I too see that the heart and voice so many times fail because we are not finding value in it, but instead working to produce a product that meets so many established criteria.
Oh, how I echo your thoughts on this chapter. My highlighter had a hey dey, but my mind kept saying "but assessments!" It is issues we all deal with today.
WOW! I can certainly empathize with your thoughts about state assessments since we are administering them this week. I appreciate the whole-part-whole concept also. There are those few that love writing and/or reading in your class every year, and wouldn't it be encouraging for us as educators to see a rise in interest instead of a rise in testing?
I agree completely. It is becoming so sad with the lack of desire we are seeing from the students. They are getting bored and run-down. What can we do to create a passion for writing that the stress of testing takes away?
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