The Right to See Others Write

Chapter 6

It is amazing how this chapter has confirmed what many educators have learned through their teaching experiences. Effective teachers of writing must model writing on an ongoing basis to promote productive writers. Students need to observe our thoughts, methods, and even struggles as we attempt to write. How do teachers choose or personalize a topic? Their inquiring minds have to know. Our style of writings is apart of who we are. It’s okay to allow our students to see our struggles. Then, they may not be as hesitant to leap into the writing process with us. Let’s try this short version of a fable: There was this commander who gave his soldiers a series of checklists, rubrics, and even samples on how to win a battle. Then tells his troops “Okay soldiers, go out there and fight-defeat the enemy!” What are the chances of that commander’s regime winning? Slim to none… exactly. Why? Without knowledge, experience or some form of modeling, the soldiers are bound to perish. Students are no different. They are more prone to write, take risks, and revise their writing if they see their teacher exhibiting these same skills.
What does an environment that is conducive to writing look like? Will it possess the soft lighting from a lamp, calm music, or a large clean area to write? Chapter six described various writing atmospheres to aid students and teachers during writing time. Other techniques writers use during the writing/revision stage is using post-it notes, marginal writings, symbols, or bubble responses to remind them when and where to revise their work. Several authors stress the importance of students seeing this in action. Often times it is extremely rare for us to have published authors in our classroom daily demonstrating their unique system. Yet, we (the teachers of writing) can transform our students into prospective published authors by showing them how writing truly works. Spandel suggests a fifteen minute demonstration before each writing lesson to enhance students’ performance. Furthermore, Donald Graves recommends writing being taught four to five days a week. Any less than that is ineffective. Writing requires time to gather, reflect, and access a higher level of thinking.
From my experience, students dislike revision mainly because they think of it as destroying their original work. What we must teach our children is that modification is the best part! Seeing how a teacher had to revise his/her personal writing several times before arriving at the final copy is more valuable than providing a student with a sample of a before and after piece. We want our future authors to be comfortable in their own writing and believe that revision is not a stage of criticism, but a stage of sharing, advising, and best of all, polishing what is already there.