The Stages of Writing and Love That Dog

As we've discussed in class, there are 5 key phases or stages that encompass the writing process.  Although it may sound tedious, this process is necessary in the development and retention of well-groomed writing strategies.

This is a flowchart of the writing process that I made:

The First stage is pre-writing.  This stage involves brainstorming, and identifying an audience and purpose.  It can be done independently and in groups.  In Love That Dog, Miss Stretchberry has given her students a brainstorming activity to begin their unit on poetry.  Reluctantly, Jack tries and replies with "Brain's empty." Later though, Jack is able to brainstorm different kinds of animals he can possibly write a poem about.

The next stage is drafting.  Drafting involves creating a rough draft (without the worry of grammatical errors), possible essay or poem outlines.  The emphasis in a draft is not so much on the mechanics, but more about the content.  Miss Stretchberry demonstrates this process well by following the brainstorming activity and having Jack write an actual poem.  Miss Stretchberry asks questions like "why does so much depend upon a blue car?" where Jack replies "you didn't say before that I had to tell why."  Miss Stretchberry is getting Jack to think about why he wrote the lines he did, what they mean, which feeds back into that pre-writing stage as well.

The next stage is revising.  Here students can share their writing in groups, have discussions, and make substantial changes that reflect the reactions of the those discussions and sharing sessions.  After introducing a second poem to Jack, Miss Stretchberry encourages him to post his poem on the wall in the class.  Also his reflections on the poems they have read in class is part of that revision as Jack starts to culminate his thoughts and use the same styles as the examples his teacher brings in.

Next comes editing.  This is where students can proofread their own work and classmate's work.  Here they would identify any mechanical and grammatical errors they can find and return back to the revising stage.  This process requires constant revising and editing and may produce more than one or two "drafts."  Miss Stretchberry helps Jack think of ways of presenting his poetry by putting it on different coloured paper and Jack is also able to add his opinion by saying that "it would look better if there was more space between the lines.  Like how I wrote it the first time."   This process continuously goes back and forth between the revising and editing stage while Miss Stretchberry brings in new material for her students to read and get inspiration from.  

Finally, there is the publishing stage.  This can be published in any form, from the work or piece being handed in for a grade (but what fun is that?), as a class portfolio, a blog, the limits are endless.  As long as the work being published is shared with the appropriate audience it provides a purpose for all of that editing and revising.  Miss Stretchberry is constantly posting revised editions of Jack's poems and reflections on the board, anonymously or not, and in the end Jack aspires to have his work posted on the board and agrees to have his name assigned to his work - he is proud.  So proud, even, that when his poetry-mentor comes to visit upon his request, he is thrilled to show him the work he created that was inspired by the poet.

The first thing I will say about creating a well organized and engaging writing class is that you need inspiration.  Like Dr. Nahachewsky is continuously telling us - "you want the kids to write good poetry? Bring in examples of good poetry!"  Which is exactly what Miss Stretchberry has done for her class.  Not only is Robert Frost one of my favorite poets, but it easily demonstrates both the structural elements of poetry and illustrates the depth that poetry can take as well.  Have students model the styles of the poetry you bring in and even mix and match the styles to make it more their own.  Secondly, the constant support of the writing process, starting small and repeatedly building upon itself is important, but it doesn't have to be that repetitive.  Miss Stretchberry brings in different material every class and presents it to the students in a way that isn't repetitive in style.  She scaffolds the material and asks the students to revisit work they've already completed, feeding into that writing process.  She is also supportive of the requests of her students; for example she does not mind putting jack's work up anonymously until he gains more confidence in his writing through the writing process.  Thirdly, I believe that keeping the material current and relevant, even local, is important for class dynamic and encourages the writing process.  This feeds into the idea of giving inspiration but bringing someone in who is a poet or a writer changes the scenery and leaves students with something fresh.  Jack becomes inspired by a poet he really likes and as it happens, the poet is able to make a visit to his school by his request.  Miss Stretchberry maintains the freshness of bringing in new styles of poetry as well as strengthens interest by bringing in a guest speaker; it keeps things engaging and organized.

I really believe in keeping the classroom relevant with new literacies and publishing strategies like blogs or class websites.  I also am very interested in the use of graphic novels in classrooms and forming writing workshops around creating graphic novels and comics.  This is relevant for a middle school class - or a class of any level and has the possibility of maintaining interest in writing to explore different forms.  Another factor that I also think is important for an effective and balanced writing classroom is to constantly support the writing process.  Scaffold the material and constantly link things together and emphasize the interconnectedness of the material I'm presenting.  This can be something like Miss Stretchberry does in bringing a guest speaker to the class to speak about their own writing and the potential for the students' writing.

This blog was brought to you by Sharon Creech's book Love That Dog, Dr. James Nahachewsky, and me, Jessica :)

A Grade 12 ELA moment, brought to you by Jess

The prompt for this blog entry was to dive into the back of my mind somewhere and remember and effective/ineffective context or strategy used in an English Language Arts class.  My first problem was remembering any experiences at all - never mind whether they were effective or ineffective!  I had to reflect as to why it was so difficult for me to recall something that had only happened six years ago. Don't get me wrong, I retained A LOT of information and was very interested in English, hence the degree in English literature I have hanging on my wall beside me as I write this.  I dug and dug into the depths of my brain for a memory of a lesson - any lesson - and I found this.

Grade 12: the mandatory learning-about-Shakespeare's Hamlet-because-it-is-on-the-provincial-exam unit.  I think high school was the reason I hated Shakespeare until I got to university where my Shakespeare professor compared Titus Andronicus to Batman: The Dark Knight.  Regardless, my grade 12 teacher photocopied the play for us so we could actually keep the play and write notes in the margins and highlight important parts and doodle on it when the class was less exciting.  I'm sure we had guided discussions about the "To Be or Not To Be" speech and a friend of mine says that we even compared Hamlet to the Lion King as an example of how the play has influenced stories in popular culture (I don't remember this AT ALL).  From what I can recall, my instructor taught mainly from an inquiry-based approach, where we would have class discussions prompted by questions she would ask us.

What I remember most from that unit though, was our lesson about character development and perspectives in the play; specifically, what the play would look like from a different character's perspective.  For the readers who may be unaware of the context of the play there are two characters, Rosencrantz and Gildestern, who are always in the background of the play's plot running around like tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum but always happen to be there for the important parts.  After having been exposed to a predominantly inquiry-based approach to discovering the intricacies of the play I was relieved to hear that my instructor was going to show us a film! Finally, an outside resource and a break from frantically writing in the margins.  The movie was called "Rosencrantz and Gildestern" and was the full story of Hamlet from the perspective of those two characters.  We saw what the plot would have looked like from another character's perspective and not only that but the movie was comical!  After the movie the class was followed by group discussions comparing the two perspectives and we wrote a short response to the movie.

Looking back, the approach my teacher took to building on our knowledge about the play was essential for our understanding of the movie.  She did not go through the play linearly from act to act, but instead picked themes and encouraged us to think of the play as a whole, as well as sectionally.  According to my English language arts textbook, constructivist and sociolinguistic learning theories state that "readers create meaning through negotiation with the texts they are reading, and, similarly, writers create meaning through negotiation with the texts they are writing."  Not only were we negotiating different perspectives to the play, but we were writing about different ways the play could be interpreted and written according to our negotiation.  We were engaging with the text and negotiating different angles and choosing which one felt best.

Maybe we did this I don't know, but a fun follow-up activity would have been to choose a different character from the play and wrote a potential scene from the play in their perspective.

The Middle Years Learner vs. BC IRP

Middle School


The title itself represents perfectly where students are in both their life and their learning.  They are in the middle; they are in-between having generalized topical units like science and having the option to take more specialized classes like physics, chemistry, and biology; they are also transitioning into a new space - a new school a new learning environment, new teachers. They have moved from elementary school to something that's not quite high school and is no longer in the comfort of the lower-to-the-ground water fountains and little desks that were held within the elementary school walls.

Some Characteristics of Middle School Learners


There are many characteristics to the middle years learner.  Middle years English language arts learners are (but not limited to):

1. beginning to develop symbolic ideas and abstract concepts 
2. developing the ability to think critically about those ideas and concepts.  
3. starting to depend on themselves rather than others to design their learning (but not entirely let's not forget that these learners are in transition)

In our Language Arts textbook Piaget states that children construct their knowledge from their experiences; at the middle years stage, the students have had considerable experiences in an elementary school and are now diving into being able to gather the tools to start thinking critically about their own learning.  The process of assimilating and accommodating information goes hand in hand with the way middle years learners can be characterized in an English Language Arts setting.  They are expanding their repertoire of information and modifying and re-adapting information with what they are learning in a middle years class.  In other words middle years learners are being introduced to and developing their metacognitive abilities.

Teacher Support From the IRP's

Teachers must support, coach, and assist in this liminal developmental stage that middle years students are experiencing by the support and processes of the BC ELA IRP.  There are both positive and negative impacts of this document in the support of teaching students in this transitional stage of their public education.  For grades 4-7 the role of the teacher is to "model, coach, and support students" through oral language, reading and viewing, and writing and representing.

Good Cop/Bad Cop

The IRP document itself is an extremely large and extensive document that, as I've seen already in my ELA class, almost requires its own course on how to use it.  Thus bringing forward one of the negative impacts this document has on the role it plays in supporting the teacher in the classroom.  The document is daunting and can (and I don't doubt that it probably does) cause a lot of stress to inexperienced/experienced/pre-service teachers when trying to become familiar with a thousand page (hyperbole) government document.  On the upside of this realization, by having the IRP's available online in PDF format, it makes the documents easily accessible and the "search within document" function allows a teacher to get straight to what it is they are looking for.  For an even better overview of the IRP's there also happens to be a condensed version of, for instance, the K-7 IRP that highlights the important aspects of each individual IRP and condenses them into one document (almost like looking at the bigger pictures, with the obvious option of being able to narrow it down).

The IRP's rationale and information about accommodations and exceptions, in my opinion, is a great starting point when considering teaching English.  The IRP's leave a lot of room for interpretation, further examination, ways to assess etc., and does not limit the teacher to how or what they are expected to teach.  Although I find this extremely helpful, I can also see how the structure of the IRP's promote a linear way of learning, where one thing is taught and then you can continue onto the next prescribed learning outcome, then onto the next and so on and so forth.  But again, the IRP is a broad limitless guideline (although is it THE guideline) to the ways you can build and, thank you Vygotsky for coining this term, scaffold the information in your class.  The IRP is the foundation or support that guides a teacher's way to the top in order for them, the teacher, to support the in-between learning that middle years students are facing.