Professional Ponderings

All right I tried to read Williams. I thought hey my head is swollen up like a balloon, Williams has to seem better in this condition. Nope couldn’t do it. (look up mumps and that is what my head looked like, no I don’t have mumps I was immunized)

Anyway Assessment, woah what a heavy heavy loaded word. I typed it in to Google and it came back with about 210,000,000 results! Does it mean testing in the traditional sense? How about oral assessment-spoken tests? Obviously here we are talking about writing assessment. I know lets use Rubrics! These are supposed to be an objective form for assessing students writing. Now I love rubrics. As a student they let me know what my professor is expecting. As a teacher it lets my students know what I expect and shows them that they did not get a bad grade because “I don’t like them” but because they did not meet the criteria. The Wyngaard article has a slightly interesting rubric

Excellent Writing:

On reading the opening paragraph(or paragraphs), the reader gets hooked because the imaginative writing engages the reader’s curiosity and/or resonates within the reader. The reader is excited about this text and stops thinking about other things. The writing speaks to the reader in an original, and/or moving voice. It is transporting; the reader can’t put it down.

Good Writing:

The writing is interesting and solid. The writer uses a compelling voice and/or some originality but doesn’t engage the reader wholeheartedly. The reader might suddenly feel hungry right in the middle of the second paragraph and need to go to the kitchen for a cookie. The reader then comes back and enjoys the rest of the story.

OK as someone reading these narratives the difference between the first and the second could be the difference between reading my third narrative and my sixtieth. The two narratives could be the same but after reading dozens of them I might just need a cookie!

This rubric is flawed. Although I get what they are aiming at. They want students to go for that writing that hooks you from the start and you won’t want to put it down. However it is subjective not objective like a rubric should be. Now I may be weird but I can be completely fascinated by a microbiology textbook (FYI if you ever want to take a cruse never read about microbiology, but that is a different topic). Most others scream at this thought. Many others are intrigued by Jane Eyre and Other such novels (I on the other hand run screaming!) This rubric would give these different voices different grades just because of the subject matter.

A rubric needs to keep in mind that it needs to be somewhat OBJECTIVE!!!

OK done ranting.

Rubistar is a site that lets you look at, analyze and edit rubrics. A fun little tool to get your brain going on assessment!

http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

This is a link to a writing page with various articles and tips on writing with voice,and other areas of writing

http://www.efuse.com/Design/wa-voice.html

If only I knew that it was O.K. to fail on a first draft. If only I knew that it was OK to make errors and that it was more important to get the words out on the page. If I knew these things I may not have this apprehension before a paper is due, that the first draft is the same as the final draft and that it must be perfect. But, alas, it is a long painful process to suffocate my inner perfectionist.

Now on to voice. I think that one great way to get students to develop a voice is to have them write a blog. Just like we each are writing a blog and developing our own voice, students can do the same. Blogging is a low-pressure environment. It does not have the feel of a paper. It instead has the freedom of a conversation. Students could draft their writing on their blogs, free write, sketch ideas. From there they could write another draft with their first one done under very little pressure therefore hopefully having true voice and great ideas.

There are many sources out on the web for the 5P essay.  Of course many of them are sites that you can copy essays from (just be aware).  However there is a site that offers help with writing the 5P and other Eng. Lang. Arts tools.  Factmoster.com is focused more towards elementary and middle school than HS but is a good site to direct your middle schoolers to.

factmonster.com

So the 5 paragraph is bad, the 5 paragraph is good. Wait it has its merits but we need to go beyond it, maybe add a poem in the middle of it! Everyone has their opinions of this fun little essay.

I think of the 5P as the basics. In music you need to learn your scales before you can do Jazz improv. Knowing your scales helps you to site read music better too because you have an idea of the underpinnings of what the piece is written on.

I remember practicing my scales over and over and over, hating every moment of it, but knowing that when it came time to audition or play a 32nd note run in a piece I would be able to do it, because I knew my basics.

In English the 5P is one of those basics. I hate writing it, I hate reading it, but it gives that same necessary foundation that my scale practice did.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t go beyond the 5P. Writing in only the 5P format would be like an orchestra opting to play scales in a concert instead of Dvorak’s New World Symphony (a beautiful piece if you are not familiar with it). However the 5P has its place just like scales.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of helping students edit their compare/contrast essays before they printed the final draft and turned them in. After two I was sick and tired of reading “There are a lot of similarities and differences in “The Iditarod Trail” and Balto.” The formulaic approaches left me thirsting for something of substance. Many students wrote very little, thinking that as long as they followed the formula they described the differences. The repetition of “In “The Iditarod Trail” X happened. This also happened in Balto.” made me scream. Just because the students followed the formula did not mean that they could write. It just meant that they could repeat what someone said, since most of the essays were duplicates of each-other.

I understand the need for students to learn how to write a comparison/contrast paper, but there has to be a better way to teach it.