Monday, June 23, 2008
The discussion about Elbow's essay was very enlightening. Everyone, regardless of our teaching assignments and our experience with personal writing, seem to have serious concerns with helping kids write willingly and well. It's not surprising that we worry that kids have so many problems writing in standard English. We are trying to produce capable, literate students--it's what we do. What I liked about Elbow's essay was his understanding of this problem and his desire to give students exactly what they need--from recording the earliest, least readable thoughts to creataing the finished product. The class discussion was helpful in that we were all struggling to get our heads around some pretty important ideas, and ones that seem on surface to be contradictory.
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4 comments:
This essay is so rich, so full of incredible thinking about writing and the teaching of writing. I find it really hard to disagree with Elbow because he lays out the idea of more than one truth AND makes total sense about the problem with traditional academic dismissal of other positions. Much to think about for the haves and haves not .. ..
I was glad to see that Elbow gives students permission to get editing help wherever they can find it and not have it be considered cheating. Students need to know that professional writers use editors so they should have no shame in receiving their own editing assistance. This should also help move the focus to content and process.
Elbow's ideas of editing is very intriguing. I have always felt as though we should set our goals of education to teach students how to become independent learners.If they know where and how to access information they will be able to function in this world.
I was most captured by Elbow's observation that in fact, we might be "missing" some of our best students because we don't really "see" them. Also that he observes the many whom we often view as unsuccessful are the most adventuresome, . risky and mentally creative (I think I know what that is but not entirely sure)
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