Blog 5

In Nancy Sommers’s The Language of Coats, I really appreciated the author’s analogy relating the teaching of writing to her father’s work in her uncle’s department store. In the business of selling coats, there is a straightforward determination as to whether you as an employee “make your day” based on the number of products sold. In writing, however, how does one really know whether he is making his day? While we as English teachers may have our own guidelines for determining success in the classroom, I find it personally frustrating that the most important tool currently used to determine whether teachers are “making the day” is the standardized test. Even if I know that I am achieving my predetermined classroom goals, if my students do not score well on these regimented tests, I am considered not to be “making my day.”

As Somers points out, the other way in which we are evaluated as teachers comes with student evaluations, in which students are more likely to rate you on how much they like you as a person rather than on what have they learned in your classroom. One way that I can think of demonstrating the impact you have had on students’ writing is by encouraging them to send their works to the Scholastic Writing Awards (or some similar competition). This would allow students to be recognized at the regional or national level and would help demonstrate how you as a teacher have influenced your students as writers. One of my favorite quotes from this article is on page 178: “Students, all writers, need to learn how to design for themselves garments that fit.”

I completely agree with Vicki Spandel’s encouragement for teachers to push writers to go beyond formulas. A few questions that occurred to me are as follows: How important is it for us to teach students the five paragraph essay formula at some point in their school careers? Is this the type of writing that will be expected on standardized tests? Does this formula have any positive values, such as teaching students how to determine and develop a thesis or main idea?

Spandel states that “on a map, there are many paths to take you from A to B.” (122). Once again, she is making a direct comparison to traveling, which she discussed in Chapter 4. I think this is a great analogy to use with students to make them understand that there is no wrong way to write. Using formulas might be a way to guide writers initially, but students must be encouraged and willing to break free of these barriers to truly be able to express themselves on a deeper level.

Although I have not been a huge fan of some of Frank Smith’s other chapters, I did appreciate his definition of the types of writing blocks and the ways in which we can overcome them. I am the type of writer who finds it difficult to sit down and write on the spot without some period of brainstorming before I pick up my pen or sit down at the keyboard. It is much easier for me to write and avoid writing blocks when I have a chance to think about what I am going to write for a day or two. I always find that the greatest difficulty comes at the beginning and ending of a piece of writing. These tend to be the times in which I face the most writing blocks. I often need to just get up from the computer and occupy myself with some other task. Usually, the ideas come to me during a time when I least expect them.