Informal Response
I found Beth Neman’s proposal on the effective strategies of teaching writing particularly interesting. According to her ideas, the necessary teaching method is through a balance approach. In this approach, a teacher must serve as both “craft-centered” as well as “affect-centered” to teaching writing (11). Furthermore, she claims that this method is actually “four times more effective” (11). I think this is probably the hardest aspect of teaching writing to students. The difficulty of finding a true balance that is both effective and productive for all students seems like quite the task. In my experience I have had both types of these teachers. In the earlier years of my high school career I had a teacher that basically taught me the rules of correct writing. While I understood this, it did not build on my ability to be creative or intellectual with writing. On the other hand, in the later high school years I had a teacher that certainly put more emphasis on the generation of ideas through creative writing assignments. In my opinion, I think there should be more emphasis on the “affect-centered” idea of teaching. I believe rules and such will come through practice and experience whereas the approach needs more assistance initially. As a teacher, I must be somewhat subjective when it comes to influencing my ideas upon expressive writing, but there are various activities I can use to facilitate the creation of these ideas.
I also found Neman’s ideas on the most effective strategies of creating a desire of participation on the classroom interesting. Perhaps the most important task is to recognize student achievement and their skill to write with individuality. Students who are able to write personally have a better chance of expressing their personal identity. Neman suggests we “encourage students to write about the ideas that make them themselves, their values, their religion, their background” (21). This is such great way to facilitate ideas and opinions among our students. In general, the power of relating information from the classroom to the personal lives of the students is the greatest way to keep attention and interest. So easily in the younger grades, students lose interest in what’s going on at school, perhaps even more so with writing.
Finally, I really like Neman’s idea of how to make participation meaningful in the classroom. We see this not only in the early and middle grades, but also even still at the college level. All students must feel as if the classroom is an atmosphere for trust and participation in which no one’s ideas are ridiculed or less important. It reminds me of the phrase, “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.” This is the main reason that students in all classrooms don’t participate. That is, that they fear how the teacher and their peers will respond and possibly criticize what they have to say. Once again, we have all had teachers of both sides of this task. For the most part, my English teachers have encouraged comments and openly accepted responses. However, this is no perfect world. I have had teachers that snap at students’ poor ideas or override the students’ opinions with their own. Today, this idea of teaching is so strongly criticized by educators that it can serve as a means for termination at many universities. Furthermore, the idea of class-discussions and open participation is still emphasized at the college level and can help develop cognitive writing skills at all ages and writing levels.