In chapter six, there are the charts on pages 110-113 about effective writing. I find it so interesting that the old idea of Know, Need to know, and learn or Questions charts are still being taught and revised. I remember in the first grade, second grade maybe learning about KN charts. Know and Need to know charts. Its great to see how this old idea has evolved into such an extensive new idea in hicks writing. He gives so many helpful tips for writers to use as the prepare to write and what I think is interesting and NEW to the chart is the AFTER You Write topic heading. This is something that I wish I had read and been taught a long time ago. It makes you think about what big ideas we were taught in first and second grade that we could turn into new big ideas and elaborate on?
I also think it is interesting how Hicks suggest that as teachers we ask a student or our students to take us on a tour of their social network site and ask them to show us how they create a personal profile using text, pictures and videos. I find this interesting because first off this is something that you most likely would not be able to do in school because the school would probably block face book. But I do wonder how open some students would be with this project. How comfortable would you feel doing this project?
You know what is on your and your friends face book page...Would you want to see what is on your students?
Something that I find interesting about Hicks is that he can relate to a wide range of people. He reaches a lot of different levels in his text. As silly as it sounds, when I read sometimes I feel I am in certain moods were I am in still in the mind set of looking at things a student in a chair looking at the chalk board. Other times when I go back and read Hicks I fell I am reading with the mind set of a teacher and I am sitting at a desk with my balk to the chalk board, yet I can still relate to the text on a different level and gain full knowledge from his text.( that may just be my dyslexia kicking in lol)
A quote that I LOVE. is on page 7, "Teach the writer, then the writing." This quote seems to match my feelings about teaching writing. The way I take it is that you first have to teach the student how to write properly, until the student understands how to write correctly. Then you can correct their writing and form and morph it into what you would like it to be.
Ellie,
ReplyDeleteThere's a whole lot here, and lots of it is exciting to think about. Let me start with the last idea, which might be one of the biggest ever. Hicks is not the first to come up with the idea of "teach the writer, then the writing," but it's a crucial one in workshop pedagogy. The idea is that if you work with a writer, you learn to understand her ideas, where they come from, the influences on style, etc., and then you'll be able to understand how and why certain stylistic and editing issues might come into play. But, if we only focus on the writing, we make editing comments and changes but may not help the writer develop new ways of thinking or new strategies for writing, and then those same issues may keep showing up, again and again.
As for Hicks keeping you engaged in a number of levels--teacher, student, future teacher, you can see how he goes about speaking to multiple audiences. That's one thing that publishers tend to ask for, so the book will be as relevant as possible to the largest numbers of people. You see him doing it, in action.
And, yes, KWL charts are still huge in some circles. Notice that you probably don't use them much in your CCC classes, or perhaps not even in your literature-focused classes. Why do you suppose that might be? But yes, Hicks is definitely advocating holding on to your ideas, your writing, etc. and continuing to grow through the writing long after the first assignment is done. Can you imagine, a lifelong portfolio!
As for sharing FB pages, I think Hicks is talking about really asking students and teachers to think about what goes into social networking. It's a place where there are big age differences in what people talk about and how they talk. If everyone casts a more critical eye about how those are constructed, maybe we'd have less stuff people can be embarrassed by when they apply for jobs!