Blog 9

I'm torn on the idea of students helping build rubrics. From a theoretical standpoint, it's a great idea to have students engaged in forming what they feel is important to learn but from a realistic standpoint, at least if I were still a student, I'd be trying to make it as easy as possible for myself and put a lot of weight on format and grammar because I know that I could knock it out the box. I think that a teacher should use indirect student involvement rather than direct. By coming up with several options for a student to choose from as far as what type of writing they want to produce and allowing them to choose, a teacher can then take what works the best for a variety of students and adjust the available options for the next year. Granted, this might mean that the ratio of satisfactory to unsatisfactory work will be lower for the first two or three years, but I feel that ultimately, the effects will be overwhelmingly positive once an effective system is established.

I have been thinking back to my high school days more and more since I've been doing my observation and i think that the reason i am a confident writer is that i was taught how to read deeper right off the bat. Our first assignment was a glorified book report known as an Explication de Texte in which you are to focus on subject, theme, diction, imagery, symbolism, genre, structure, and other literary techniques and devices systematically and contextualize the use of these devices in the effect of the novel as a whole. My first couple Ex de Texte's were not very strong because i wasn't familiar with the techniques, but as I learned what to look for, I got much more insightful as to what I look for as i read and I learned to apply these techniques in my own writing. We continually read ad analyzed text in this manner all through high school and good reading skills are necessary do develop good writing skills. Plus, in understanding these techniques more fully, students will start to use them more even if it is subconscious.

One of my questions then is would if be effective to establish grading criteria on the use of different literary techniques? and how can that be quantified? If something is present in a students writing should they get the same credit that another student gets for having a much more developed representation of the same technique? I don't know how fair it is to score writing objectively.