Saturday, January 24, 2009
Writer's Notebook ch.11,12&13 group d 6:50pm
View the first sample chapters (available on line) Using the Writer's Notebook in Grades 3-8: A Teacher's Guide at (http://www1.ncte.org/library/files/Store/Books/Sample/35006chap1-2_x.pdf) and begin your writers notebook then post entries on Class Blog. Engage in an online discussion group on our class blog. Please read designated chapters and 1)propose “meaty” fat questions to discuss, 2) make connections to your teaching and work with students, and 3) make connections to your work as a writer (ie Keep your own notebook and share your response to it), 4)Please respond to two of your classmates’s entries in your study group, 4) Consider how what you have learned from this book might support the work of your integrated language arts unit.
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MEATY QUESTIONS:
In chapter 11, the author suggests that boys be allowed to explore violent subjects in their writing. While I agree that this is a legitimate expression of many boys' minds, I am left to wonder is it really something that a school should be encouraging? Also, when does harmless exploration of violence in one's notebook become a sign of alienation/ real violent tendencies? There is a line somewhere, but I'm not sure where.
CONNECTIONS TO MY TEACHING:
Chapter 11 spoke to me the most, because since I have been teaching I've found a niche being successful with hard to reach boy readers. 7th grade boys like bathroom humor, irreverent comedy, sports and girls. Allowing them to read books and magazines about those things turns them almost instantly into interested, engaged readers. While many are reluctant to write, and any writing is good writing, I worry about the author's position on violence in the writer's notebook.
First, there is a trust issue. If a student is to trust that what they write is between them and the teacher, what happens when they write something that is of so great a concern that it must be reported? (This happens in abuse situations as well.) A few years ago I had a boy who wrote a "hitlist" in his journal and drew a picture of himself blowing up his school bus. I had to report this and the boy was expelled, even though there was little other psychological evidence that he had any violent tendencies or even anger issues. On the other hand, I had a student write a hilarious zombie story in which I was turned into a zombie and ate the principal's brain, making me much smarter and thus seeing that I should give him an A. It was as gory and violent and included many real life characters, but in my school's judgement was on the right side of that blurry line between acceptable and expellable.
CONNECTIONS TO MY WRITING:
As a boy, I can remember writing about sports almost constantly when I was supposed to be doing other things like "real" homework. I'd construct baseball lineups, scout teams, write about how much I hated the Yankees and how the Red Sox would never win the World Series, etc. In my notebook this week, I tried to write a little about sports without much success.
Violence was never a big part of my writing, and continues not to be. With our boys seeing and experiencing so much of it everywhere, I'm still not sure that as a teacher I should legitimize it, especially when done just for the sake of glorifying violence without any message behind it.
CONNECTIONS TO MY UNIT:
I suppose since my unit is about war it may connect with my boys who are into guns and violence. Hopefully that will serve as a springboard to deeper conversations about the violence of war and not degenerate into glorified violence.
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