Writing

I consider myself an above average writer. Not that I’m a great writer – probably shouldn’t quit my day job - yet among those who have college degrees, my rating would be solidly above average. My GRE scores above the 90th percentile would tend to bear that out. So would your interest in this blog.

Millions of dollars is spent yearly on researching ways to teach children to become better writers. Textbook companies are inventing new programs and producing aids to help children learn. Yet no research produced backs what I consider to be my primary qualifications to teach writing. The kids have a great opportunity to improve in their year with me because I:
1) Am a solidly above average writer
2) Relate ideas to them easily (i.e. can teach)

Why does research fail to prove the obvious? Because industry wide “the obvious” will not work. The education industry has no hope of staffing it’s writing classes with solidly above average writers who can teach – the teacher job market will not produce enough of it. And administrators are interested in “interchangeability” – they don’t want to be dependant on a particular teacher. When one cog is absent, another should be able to substitute. Research and text book companies exist to solve real world education industry problems.

Writing prompt (I invented) for a recent sixth grade assignment: “Take three elements of the plot and develop them in separate paragraphs using cause and effect relationships.” One day is for drafts and editing, on the next day it becomes an open notebook test question.

One of my students, (who has had trouble in Language Arts, particularly writing, his entire academic career, in spite of the fact that he is an avid reader) was drawing a blank (again). We had elements from the plot on the board that they could pick from. They had ten to fifteen cause and effect relationships that they had identified from the text in their notebooks (well, they were supposed to - this guy had only one – but he had been attentive while the others were writing theirs.) Here he is with a blank paper, zoned out into his own private lala land. So I had him pick and write a main idea – he copies one down. Then I ask him to stand up, spin three times in circles and then say to him, “Talk to me, talk to me”.

If he talks to me about his main idea, I listen. When his thoughts stray, I give him the raspberry sound. He does not use cause and effect, but he gets the game and laughs. “Now, student one”, I say (names are changed to protect the guilty), “You are not getting a grade for what’s in your brain or what you say. I’m grading only your paper. Make your paper talk to me. I’ll spin it three times when you turn it in”. Thank God for the International School of Kabul, you can probably get sued for good teaching in the States. No research to back it up, you know.

On test day student one asks me for a favor – can I give him an A in Language Arts? He usually gets D’s in that. So I start to tell him how to earn one. And he turns in one very original paragraph (not three) which has a main idea from the plot backed with several relevant cause and effect relationships. Grade: 78 C+

“Good writing, student one. A little good writing to start the year. If you do a lot of good writing, you now know how to get your A.”

I would like to do a research project that shows the effect of having 1) good writers who can 2) enjoy children teach children writing skills. (I’ve never been hired for the job by anyone who asked me to write an essay first.) Learning= fn (teacher’s writing skills, teacher's comunicative ability) – let’s see if the equation holds. Alas, there is no motive for anyone to fund my research.