I'm jumping on the Spandel bandwagon as well. While he certainly lays out the necessity for a writing process (your drafting, prewriting, revision, etc) he presents many ideas that stray a bit from the standard. I was always a writer that felt comfort in a rubric and he does well to point to the comfort that having a start and a finish can provide for students. While it's probably true that a piece of writing is never really finished, students (myself included) often feel the need to be "done" (44, 9R).
My favorite notion that Spandel presents is that teachers write along with their students. This idea is one i've never personally encountered but it got me thinking of the positives that could be achieved through it. For struggling writers, seeing somebody else, especially a teacher, struggle though the processes that go along with writing can, as Spandel points out, "provide infinitely more than..a number of lectures." The fact that one can go away from the standard process is great, and I think it's very important for writers to find their own way through the process.
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I agree with you. In my blog I said almost the same thing. Teachers need to "bring it" with their students. I always secretly dreamed about seeing my teachers' work, especially the one's who constantly corrected me, segregating themselves from the class, as though they possessed expereience beyond our realm of understanding. Although my next statement could have negative consequences, I must state that I wanted to see their writing to find their fallibility. I feel I would have trusted and accepted their authority/critiquing more if I would have been able to witness just a bit of their human-ness. Yes, some teachers may fear their writing could put them on the line and sometimes subject them to unwanted embarrassment or hard criticism, but as writers and students, we must endure it,so why can't the teachers? I think sometimes they feel that because they're done with their "education", they've already had to put themselves through it and no longer wish to sit in the hot seat. They'd rather be the one lighting the flame. I'm afraid of humiliation the same as the next person, but I also feel that I could generate some valid forms of feedback/learning from my students, as well as letting them in to my mind, furthering their ability to trust, learn and earn mine in return.
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