Chapters 4 and 5 from Teaching Adolescent Writers
My hat is off to this teacher who has done such an amazing job of reflecting on his own practices of teaching writing and is so willing to share his conclusions. I especially appreciate his desire to move students away from a reluctance/incalcitrance/ horror/ fear
of writing to at least an acceptance of the knowledge that they do have something to write about. The author is all about modeling – sounds reasonable to me!
I really like his case to make writing more specific by narrowing the focus. Even as I made an assignment recently, I realized that students would have difficulty trying to sort out all the information we’d gathered in order to respond to it. I should have made the assignment more specific.
I was amazed at the difference in student writing after they’d been given a chance to look at a professional model. And I love the quote he uses from Stephen King: “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of . . .”
OK, teacher – take this advice to heart!
Ciao!
Nancy R
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