Summary Of The Making Of Meaning By Anne E. Berthoff

Chris Anson shares his experiences as a graduate student TA many years ago reflecting how his teaching strategies evolved from the “current-traditional paradigm” to an expressive pedagogical theory and practice. The paradigm shift focuses on the process of writing instead of the final product. Donald Murray is an experienced journalist who joined the movement to embrace the process of writing to open up the writer’s creativity and pull from their own knowledge allowing for more freedom and expression. During this process movement there were numerous researchers who studied the various instructional methods and were able to collect data and provide a meta-analysis which is named “Hillocks’ Research

The article “The Writing Revolution” by Peg Tyre is a piece which aims to address the problems in school systems often associated with the way in which writing is taught to students. Tyre’s article conveys the different arguments presented in the course of teaching writing to students, which have been shown to be on opposite sides of the creative and analytical spectrum. These different perspectives of how to build the foundation of writing for the children of America as well as other countries are backed similarly on both sides, though the debate still continues. “The Writing Revolution” instead of focusing on all aspects of writing, highlights the effectiveness of analytical fundamentals over that of creative writing in helping to

The article The Writing Revolution by Peg Tyre is a piece which aims to address the problems in school systems often associated with the way in which writing is taught to students. Tyre’s article conveys the different arguments presented in the course of teaching writing to students, which have shown to be on opposite sides of the creative and analytical spectrum. These different perspectives of how to build the foundation of writing for the children of America as well as other countries are backed similarly by many sides, though the debate still continues. The Writing Revolution instead of focusing on all aspects of writing, highlights the effectiveness of analytical fundamentals over that of creative writing in helping to revolutionize schools and school systems.

The author Calkins explained about Donald Murray’s process which consists on rehearsal, drafting, revision and editing. According to Calkins, most of the writers follow this cycle. Calkins interviewed many writers and each of them explained that none of them sit and immediately start writing. The stage of rehearsal is a state of readiness out which one writes Calkins explains. As teachers, it is important we write often to pass this habit to our students. Writing can be done in a personal notebook, often called journals. Calkins explains that teaching students to write often in a journal is important because it is a place of rehearsal and these ideas are seeds of great writing. Sadly, many students are not encouraged to write, therefore, they do not have the eye of a writer. An important goal for teachers is to “fill their students with a sense of so much to say and life of full possible stories.” For example, Calkins wrote about a teacher who had a ritual in her class. This ritual consisted of writing in their own personalized notebooks. By doing this, students were encouraged to write whatever they thought was important for

“Writing for Teachers,” an article written by Peter Elbow, opens a world of thought not seen by many students and teachers alike. They, including myself, have fallen into a trap of formats and teacher pleasing. Elbow excellently describes the circumstances of the symbiotic relationship between the teachers and students. He describes the scenario where teachers grade papers upon what they find is most similar to what they have written, and the students aspire to please their teachers. A student’s writing, though it could be good for the intended audience, is graded poorly for being too dissimilar from how the teacher likes writing. These students learn to start “writing for teachers” so they get a better grade. These students develop a very bad habit of writing to please the teachers so much so that they never can write for an audience. Students that

In brief, the rhetorical analysis has applied for the purpose to analyze this article, to understand the deeply meaning which the authors want to deliver to readers. The authors know how to use both rhetorical strategies and appeals in a clever way, for they have interacted and supported each other very well in this article.

When she says that comp instructors are often criticized for neglecting their role in teaching students how to produce “clear and correct prose” (242), I immediately want to scream. This is my biggest struggle. I feel that the majority of my students' writing falls into what she says “do not read as signs of newly developing critical literacy but simply as riddled with error and confusing sentences” (243). It is what I often describe as “just not that good”. Their thoughts are coherent and they make valid, sometimes even impressive, points, but their writing is a jumbled mess. This, for me, is far more difficult to respond to than someone who cannot organize their ideas or needs to maintain focus. It is frustrating for me and for them when I try to verbalize that their ideas are good but their writing is

In order to develop an understanding of rhetoric, I am going to analyze an article

Through our life, ignorance is replaces by knowledge, and it is from that knowledge that we gain wisdom. Writing is an art from, one that has been developed and revised for over hundreds of years. History may teach us that we repeat are same mistakes, but that does not change the fact that life’s greatest teacher is experience, and it is experience that shapes a writing style and literacy understanding.

Writing anchors a literate life, and we know that students who write well will reap the rewards long after high school is over. With this in mind, we have one year to get our students to discover the value of writing; we have one year to help them understand that we don’t assign writing just to make the teacher look better. If we are to be successful in getting our students to turn the corner as writers, we must put them in a position to see that writing is much more than a school-induced hoop to jump through

The murder of this generation’s creativity has come as slowly and painfully as cancer will kill the human body. Perhaps at first, it will not be much noticed. Small side effects here and there. Creeping, crawling, until now, as it comes to climax. Students have lost their ability to properly express themselves: from dress codes, to art classes, to creative writing. Students can not express any creativity in themselves with stunted music and art programs and literary classes that focus not on the quality or expression of writing, but on structural writing every single day. When students use writing as a way to speak out of what pains they may face in the world and what tragedies they may have gone through, their thoughts are often ignored to look instead at comma splices, capitalization, and stanza types. They have been stripped of the ability to write their pain, and alternatives such as music or drawing have been taken as well despite heavy advice of education professionals. Education expert Thoqan Obeidat, when asked about his opinion of the schooling systems, “...noted that subjects like music and arts are not put into

Writing instruction has become one of the most important issues in educational practices. A large increase in the migration of immigrants into the United States has increased the demand for English language instruction significantly (Mei Lin, 2015). With this in mind the educational practices taking place in today's schools become a center of focus.

In Christensen’s “ Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” she discloses about a student she once had named Fred, who had a lingering reluctance in regards to writing. When Christensen finally inquired Fred’s reasoning behind not wanting to writing and he revealed that he didn’t write because he felt that “he couldn’t” (115). Fred’s reluctancey was a manifestation of feeling of discouragement and insecurities he had occupied over his writing. Christensen told Fred that “his writing couldn't be wrong” (115) because the purpose of her course was for them to practice their writing. She advised Fred to write until he found a story he wanted to tell and from there, he would revise until he had something he could feel proud of.

In over twenty years of teaching elementary school I have heard a lot of discussions about teaching writing. When I was living in Texas the writing test was given to the students in the fourth grade and those teachers were expected to teach a curriculum which taught a formula style of writing. This made all the students’ writings very similar with little voice and creativity in their final product. Now the push is the Six Traits of Writing which is a very structured way of writing. There are six steps in the writing process that all the students are to follow and for some students it seems to be more of a challenge to follow each step without getting bored. As I look into the importance of education on society I cannot help but think that many theorist have influenced the development of our educational system. I reflect back to Maxine Greene’s contributions to education and her belief and theory that aesthetic education can have a profound effect on a child’s education. Maxine Greene’s philosophy was based in existentialism, which is the philosophical theory that individuals are able to determine their own development through acts of will, but she was influence greatly by John Dewey whose philosophy is based on pragmatism, which is the idea of change and your beliefs are affected by your environment. Their philosophical beliefs were different but she shared many of Dewey’s beliefs in education and she quotes him many times in her writings. Her book Releasing the

Writing can be an intimidating process for students. Once students complete a draft of writing, they often what to be done with it, and not have to revisit aspects of it. As teachers, we need to find ways to encourage writing, and revising. Responding to Student Writing: What does research tell us claims that teachers must respond to students’ purpose, context, and organization before editing other aspects of writing. This strategy focuses on the content and clarity of the writing, rather than nit-picking details. Content and clarity are typically the main focuses on writing effectively, so we want to help students establish these skills before focusing on anything else. Praising, Questioning, Wishing focuses on having a conversation about