Balance and Progress

[All quotes in the following writing come from A Community of Writers, by Steven Zemelman and Harvey Daniels, copyright 1988.]

Zemelman & Daniels present 15 basic requirements for a beneficial, fulfilling course in writing. I think they’re nearly perfect…but 10 through 15 seem self-explanatory to me…so I’ll just go through the first 9, point out how this class compares, and then list the last 6 as an ‘appendix’ of sorts.

1. “Teachers who understand and appreciate the basic linguistic competence that students bring with them to school, and who therefore have positive expectations for students’ achievements in writing” (20).

A definite match. One of the main reasons this class is enjoyable is that Mr. Ruggieri has positive expectations for his students, and is not the ‘defeatist’ type who will deem someone a permanent failure due to some initial mistakes. He starts by gauging each student’s talents and shortcomings (part of our first blog assignment was even to point these out specifically), and then helping to enhance these talents and surmount the limitations. He neither sets the bar so high that students are overwhelmed, nor so low that students are hard-pressed to find opportunities to improve.

2. “Regular and substantial practice at writing” (21).

What with the weekly blogs, the larger, corresponding projects such as the descriptive essay, and practice during class, words like “regular” and “substantial” definitely come to mind when one examines the frequency of writing practice done for this class. The point is to become more familiar with words in general, and with various sentence structures and methods and approaches to writing. Many of this country’s high school students fail to practice writing often enough to ever familiarize themselves with such things. Many writing teachers, in addition, focus too much on the methods themselves and not on the actual act of using those methods. Thankfully, this course provides enough real writing experience, and though I personally would prefer to have more (specifically, more ungraded assignments that would just allow students to test the waters, so to speak, before moving on to more formal essays), it is sufficient.

“According to NAEP, the average high school student in the United States completes a substantial piece of writing (which NAEP defines as one paragraph or more) about once a month. Now, how could anyone build competence at an activity so complex and demanding as writing by practicing only nine or ten times a year? Clearly, one of the main challenges to all teachers is to devote more student time, more learning time, to actually doing writing” (21).

3. “Instruction in the process of writing--learning how to work at a given writing task in appropriate phases, including prewriting, drafting, and revising” (21).

This is clear in the process we go through each time we write one of the larger essays. We are given ample time in class to plan out each essay, create a rough draft, and revise that draft, developing and eventually solidifying it into a satisfactory piece of writing, which should reflect some kind of improvement in whatever specific area, or “given writing task,” we are working on. There is a definitive process here, a step-by-step, double-sided process of comprehension and action. First, we grasp the basic objective (via discussion, notes, reading, or any combination thereof). Second, we practice (with blog assignments and class work). Third, we work on a final, more substantial project, using those sub-processes of planning, drafting, and revising, ultimately polishing off one more major writing skill. And then we move on to the next skill, now with the ability to integrate the previous one smoothly and fluently, so that each successive essay is better and includes more skills than the preceding one, creating a snowball effect of more and more improved and refined writing.

“The fact is that the better activities, we’ve found, tend to be complex, involving a variety of materials and steps. In contrast, the school world is full of textbook writing assignments, story-starters and activity cards that are nothing if not brief: ‘You are a blob of whipped cream! Write about how you feel!’ On a good day, a few kids may do brilliantly with such assignments, just by luck. But for most it’s an unengaged exercise, filling up a page to someone else’s specifications” (33).

This isn’t just a ‘hit-and-run’ approach to writing, wherein students never learn to improve previous work, only to create more of it. The focus is on quality, not quantity.

Placing emphasis on that variety of materials and steps, I would say this class is working very well for me. Even the fact that we are prompted to state whether, and explain how, this class is working for us says something good about the teacher’s willingness to create a complex, process- and improvement-oriented experience for us as student writers.

My only criticism here is that we spend a little too much class time working on the larger essays, when we could move on to new writing skills, or explore new aspects of the same skill. The last two days or so always seem superfluous to me.

4. “The opportunity to write for real, personally significant purposes” (22).

How many of us know how it feels to write an essay, or even a research paper, about something that one doesn’t care about in the slightest? It’s an awful feeling, one of boredom, desiccation, grudging responsibility, and the distinct and almost overbearing desire to spend your time doing something else. It’s especially horrible when you didn’t bring this on yourself, but were forced to write on this particular subject. This feeling is undoubtedly avoidable and unnecessary in this class, however, due to the wide-ranging subject matter for the blog topics (e.g., picking from that random topic generator that blurted out ideas like “top 10 things I fear” and “top 10 things that make me smile” – you can go virtually anywhere with that) and for the more bulky essays (e.g., for the illustration/exemplification essay, we were offered possible topics, but were also given the option to form any other generalization we pleased). What you are writing about applies directly to your life, not just to some dry academic world existing somewhere beyond the dimensions of your personal interests and day-to-day activities.

If this is not writing for real, personally significant purposes, I don’t know what is. And that’s great, because when students (or anyone else, for that matter) learn to associate writing with these types of purposes, writing becomes an engaging, enjoyable, and useful activity rather than something one does only for school or out of obligation.

This brings me to the related subject of task and maintenance activity.

“In the field of group dynamics . . . off-task behavior is called ‘maintenance,’ in the sense of its being socioemotional or interpersonal activity that maintains people’s ability to work together” (52). “Balancing task and maintenance activities supports the teaching of writing” (53).

Speaking of positive associations with writing, this connection between writing and related--but largely “off-task”--activity can be as important as that between writing and its applicability to an individual’s real-life circumstances. It deviates from the ‘traditional’ classroom atmosphere, and therefore reduces any friction that may arise due to students’ expectations of the routine, tedious, and unfulfilling class work that they have done for almost their entire public education careers.

The balance is clear. Obviously, we spend enough time getting real work done, whether that work comes in the form of writing, reading, discussing, note-taking, or what-have-you. However, we all know that all work and no play would make College Writing a dull course, so, fortunately, we also spend some time on “maintenance” activities such as learning how to juggle and sharing methods of making grilled cheese.

5. “Experience in writing for a wide range of audiences, both inside and outside of school” (23).

Another match. It is not only Mr. Ruggieri who reads our work; we also read each other’s work, and post weekly to a blog that is visible to anyone with Internet access. It may give a writer extra motivation to do well, knowing that his work will be exposed to more than one person’s judgment, and more specifically to those of his peers, who are probably at a similar phase of development in writing and will improve alongside him at a similar pace. This is not to suggest that a teacher’s opinion should be dismissed as less important or trustworthy than a peer’s, but it helps to have a broad array of opinions; after all, no one is perfect, and even a seasoned and talented writer will overlook some things. It also helps to have others whom you don’t know, or don’t know very well, read your writing, because then you don’t know what to expect. You post your work with the knowledge that you might get *any* kind of compliment or criticism in return. Now, the writing is more a form of communication than just an assignment for school.

“[A] teacher can find ways to serve as a coach on the sidelines, rather than judge, jury, and executioner” (221).

6. “Rich and continuous reading experience, including both published writing and the work of peers and teachers” (23).

I think we do see enough of our peers’ work. We also see Mr. Ruggieri’s writing occasionally, which, as this book mentions, many other writing teachers hypocritically refuse to do (they demand that their students reveal personal work and opinions to others, yet won’t risk letting the students see their own, perhaps feeling overly vulnerable to others’ criticism).

As for published writing, that is another thing I’d like to see more of in the next quarter. This quarter, there has been a decent, but not really satisfying, amount. Even if we don’t read these things in class or discuss them in depth, it’s interesting to see many different people’s perspectives on, or uses of, whatever quality of writing we’re currently studying…and especially when those perspectives are coming from both literary figures that are already familiar to us and some who aren’t.

7. “Exposure to models of writing in process and writers at work, including both classmates and skilled adult writers” (24).

Students do need to become aware of different methods and models of the actual process of writing, which may be used in developing their own style. I don’t believe there should ever be one set method or model that students must use, though (that stifles creativity and individuality), so I’m glad that’s not the case in this class.

Seeing writers at work? It would be interesting to see the actual process, what goes through an experienced writer’s mind *while* he or she is writing… I’m not as much interested in watching classmates at work (no offense intended toward anyone), but I’d love to know what, say, Ayn Rand was thinking while she wrote The Fountainhead, or what went through Emerson’s head whilst he created Nature. In the end, though, it doesn’t disappoint me that we don’t see much of this in class, because it’s an unrealistic wish. We obviously can’t see those past writers’ thoughts, because we can’t raise the dead. :-) And it might be difficult to convince a modern-day writer to visit Plum High for a day and give us a tour into his/her writing process. In addition, it might be too time-consuming, considering that the most valuable lessons to be learned in writing are often complex and take quite a lot of time to explain…more than a 41-minute class period, anyway.

8. “Collaborative activities that provide ideas for writing and guidance in revising drafts in progress” (24).

We get plenty of guidance in the process of revision. It might help to do more ‘brainstorming’ types of activities, but in the end, what we already do is good enough, and it has to do with this next rule . . .

9. “One-to-one writing conferences with the teacher” (25).

This is useful due simply to the fact that, although teachers can provide all the general information you need for your next writing project, they can’t provide individualized assistance, suggestions that help *you* directly, unless they get a chance to look over your specific piece of writing and discuss with you how you could improve it. Mr. Ruggieri not only provides this, but also, as implied above, helps us formulate topics and ideas for what we are actually going to write about, based on our personal interests, writing habits, etc. (although sometimes, of course, this isn’t even necessary. But it can be useful).

I haven’t noticed any major improvements in my writing, but this class has definitely helped me with some of the minor issues, and set me on the right track for future improvements. For example, I now practice descriptive writing more often in my free time, whereas it wouldn’t even have occurred to me before that it would be good for me to practice this. It even affects my conversations; I am often searching for more precise ways of showing (with words) what happened when I relate an experience, and for more specific and meaningful words to convey my thoughts and emotions.

What I hope to see more of next quarter is more of the same. A few things seem lacking to me, but, in general, it’s a great class, and definitely my favorite this year…and ever.

* * * * * * * * * * *

10. “Inquiry-oriented classroom activities that involve students with rich sets of data and social interaction, and that focus on specific modes or elements of writing” (25).

11. “Increased use of sentence-combining exercises, which replaces instruction in grammatical terminology” (26).

12. “Mechanics of writing taught in the context of students’ own compositions, rather than in separate exercises and drills” (27).

13. “Moderate marking of the surface structure errors in student papers, focusing on sets or patterns of related errors” (28).

14. “Flexible and cumulative evaluation of writing that stresses revision. The teacher’s written comments include a mixture of praise and criticism, with praise predominating” (28).

15. “Writing as a tool of learning in all subjects across the curriculum” (29).