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Both of the readings this week approached ideas that I can see myself incorporating into education, even if I did not realize it before reading these essays. Andrews’ article seemed to emphasize primarily on giving minority students a real outlet to the rest of the world in which their identity is validated. Although I can definitely see the importance of this concept for minority students I think that it is a concept that applies to all students. Everyone, especially during the pre-teen years feels like an “other” at some time or another (in my humble opinion). Finding a way to give students a voice through publishing could alleviate the feeling of alienation that is a part of growing up. Many times as an adolescent one feels frustrated because they are stuck in a strange area between adult and child. Andrews claims that writing assignments should “leave the form and content as open as possible to encourage students to write from their world view (260)” and I agree wholeheartedly. Let’s face it, the world looks a lot different at fifteen compared to the way we see it at twenty-five. Rather than trying to force students to look at the world in a different way than they are likely or capable to do, it is important to show the ways an adolescent viewpoint is credible. Publishing is a fantastic way to do this. Okay, so every kid might not be published but all of them can triumph through the victory of a peer.

Art and music are such important aspects or writing and literature for me. Really, I can not see how they could ever be separated. Alejandro wrote that “when we read and write we use the same critical thinking and decision-making brainpower that we use when we respond to paintings (135).” I feel that English teachers are obligated to introduce students to other art forms when they teach writing and literature. Otherwise, teachers are committing a great injustice to students by isolating language from art. Recently, I became aware of an upcoming teaching style know as literacy based learning where teachers use a piece of literature to adapt lesson plans for all subjects. An example for an elementary level class room is to take a chapter book such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and find ways to link it to other subjects like math, science, etc. I would use a similar method to link art, music, writing and reading into a cohesive lesson plan to any reading material. The only limitation to this teaching method is the creativity of the instructor because combinations of such materials are endless for any writing/reading lesson.

Series Finale

I won't lie, the Andrews article confuses me, however, and that may be more the fault of a tired brain than anything else. On one hand she seems to be pushing the idea that knowledge and application of performance can help writers. To this I agree. No one in the class could honestly say that they have never written a paper that was not a performance to their audience. I typically call these kind of papers the "dance monkey, dance" type. Now, there is nothing wrong with this type of paper, it is a needed aspect of the writing world and part of the idea of audience awareness that we have been so keen about this semester. The second thing Andrews seems to be talking about does not really seem to be connected to me and that is the idea of minorities finding voice in small non-professional publication. For some reason this latter concept does not seem to be connected with her previous concept.

Back in the first grade I had what is perhaps the best music class in the twelve years I was in “normal” school. In kindergarten and second grade on up music class was boring, repetitive and made no sense. Teachers would ask us to with play on some little plastic flute till our throats hurt or list the style, artist/composer, and date of a piece they play. However, in first grade I had a teacher who was in love with classical music but never told us that. Instead of putting on an old recording of Mozart or Bach and asking us what was it, who was it and when was it, he told us to close our eyes and just listen. When the piece was over we were told to write or draw (which ever we preferred more) what we saw when we were listening to the piece he played. I learned more about listening to classical music and the feelings and meanings behind those compositions in first grade than when I took a class on classical music in eighth. The reason I am telling this story is because I believe that what my first grade music teacher did is the same thing that Alejandro is talking about, and if it is all I can do is agree with it.

Blog 10

When you compare writing to another form of aesthetics such as dance or painting the immediate response in my head is "how?" the only immediate similarity that i saw was creativity but you can be creative in the way you arrange your bedroom as well as how you write a story. Then i thought about it a little more and i started piecing it together slowly but surely. I don't see the similarities so much in the process as i do in the finished product. A favorite quote of mine come from Nietzsche when he says "only as an aesthetic phenomenon is the world justified." Writing is an aesthetic, not only in the print on the page but in the physical structure of a book itself. When something is really well written, you don't realize that you have stopped paying attention to each individual word to piece together a sentence and started paying attention to each individual sentence that constructs a paragraph. Or even bigger each paragraph that constructs a chapter, or each chapter that constructs a section of, or the whole, book. The aesthetic quality of a work can be found when you stop yourself and re-read a paragraph or two of prose that put a definite image or feeling inside you. This is where i see the similarity between writing and painting because you see the whole picture first in a painting and then have to go back to study the details and critique what you say. I've been getting caught up in the nitty gritty of sentence structure and word choice, and this is important, but i think that somehow as teachers we should try to come up with a way to teach efficient paragraph writing, or efficient chapter writing because the intricacy and detail eventually leads to this greater entity altogether. Maybe if could teach writing by having our students write 10 pages worth of work with a beginning middle and end and then take that work and go through it section by section we could make them understand how to use the process as they write as well as as they revise. Good painters start by appreciating completed art, and good writers start by appreciating good books. The problem is that a lot of students don't have a wide background in literature and it's hard to teach them how to get somewhere they have never even witnessed.

Tenth and Final

It seems that both articles stressed the need to get the students to be passionate about what they do, and from that you can teach the the fundamentals of the subject matter. This can be done using all sorts of creative mediums. Alejandro not only proves the case by presenting the improved test percentages of the children she has taught, but she fully elaborates upon her methods. I remember doing similar activities, sitting in class and talking about both the artist and some important paintings. Other than reading time and art class, it was by far one of my favorite school activities. I like that she says "immersion in art can parallel and enhance immersion in text." (133) She makes the claim, fully supports it, and got results. Now why don't more educators embrace this? Andrews places great values on addressing writing through performance, much like Alejandro appreciates art as a writing tool. I like that Andrews states "by affirming knowledge of subsistence, student writers make a statement about its importance not just in the past but for the future." (261) It shows the importance of teaching to empower, that an amateur is capable of making great statements. The piece ended well too, offering a lot of pointers on the importance of editing and how publication is an end result worth pursuing.

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One thing that I remember from my high school days of publication is my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Rossman. Every single one of her students in all of her classes had to write some type of love poem for Valentine's Day with the knowledge that they were going to be "published" once we completed them. Personally, I know I worked a little bit harder on my particular poem because I was worried what all my other classmates would think. Once the assignment was completed, Mrs. Rossman had a group of students arrange them and put them together in a pamphlet or magazine. At the end of the school year they were dispersed. Sadly enough, I still have that pamphlet 10 years later because I thought it was pretty cool. We never published anything locally besides the school newspaper, The Cats Meow. But I think it would be an awesome opportunity for the students to engage in.

Blogten

Ms. Andrews' experiences in Alaska sounds amazing!
I do think there is a relationship between all the arts that can be used effectively for teaching writing. Susan Andrews sees dance performance as a metaphor for the process writing we learn about. Get the creative expression out first and then go back and hone the details. Work on the mechanics of the piece.
Ms. Alejandro is also in a unique teaching environment that takes a little thinking outside the box to reach kids. Drawing, dance, drama, writing are all a form of creative expression so it is little wonder that they don't work well together in the teaching of writing. An artist has to illustrate emotion, natural form on canvass and a writer needs to do the same on paper. I taught for a time, art at a local Boys & Girls Club. These were mostly kids from disadvantaged backgrounds that often struggled academically. I loved the way the younger ones would write all over their art work. They would label things they were proud of, write captions, or messages to the intended recipient. The older they got the more they were taught that that was incorrect and stopped the practice--a shame. Here is a great example of the interaction between writing process ans artistic process-- one and the same.

Last One

The most valuable course I took in in high school was a creative writing class. Our teacher had us pick several pieces that we created over the semester and had us prepare them for "publication." These pieces were not ever published as we commonly think of the term, but we were challenged to consider all the elements of our writings and edit it to the point that we felt it was ready to be shared with a wider audience. I look back at those writings ocassionally and am always impressed with the quality of them. Andrews' piece "Writing as Performance" rang true for me because I have experienced the concept in action. I especially liked the sentiment that as a dance, a writing instructor should seek to bring out in students "whatever flash of beauty or grace or majesty." (pg 260) through their writing instruction.

Alejandro brought out the importance of publishing as well, when she spoke of the in class publications that she and her students worked on. I had a fourth-grade teacher who utilized a similar tool. Every few weeks we would publish a new edition of the "Dress Press" (the teacher's name was Mrs. Dress) whcih was our version of a literary magazine. Some of the prompts would be based on readings we had done, some were based on holidays near publication date or favorite memories, etc.

I am still amazed that with the evident success of non-traditional modes or tools of instruction, so many things in education are baserd on teaching to the test.

Every student's work has merit

Yeah, touchy feely title! So I was reading in Christina's blog that it was only the "popular" students in her class that had the opportunity to publish their work and I was a little upset by that. One of the teacher's who had the greatest impact on my learning was my 3rd grade teacher. Even to this day I can be in class and think of an anecdote that in some way connects to a lesson from Mrs. Chartrandt's class. Every student had the opportunity to publish their works and they didn't just sit in the library where they would never be read again. Copies of our published books would be donated to younger classes and local businesses. You could find a copy of Mrs. Chartrandt's Scary Stories in the waiting room of the doctor's office. I can remember reading other people's stories when I was younger and then reading my own story to my mother when I was waiting for Dr. Williams to call me in for my physical. Even better, each student got their own book with all of their stories in it. I still have mine.

Finding my stories when I was out and about with my family brought me such a sense of pride, and I am sure my mom found listening to my fairy tale every time we went to the doctor obnoxious. I would hope that other teachers would give their students the same opportunity.

my

My, my, my. One besotted week later I read Jim's "head's up" email about today's deadline. Thanks, man.

Alejandro inspired, or I should say re-inspired me. I often get depressed and wonder about the futility of any effort I often feel. I totally lost it one night recently when I attempted to explain what "Interdisciplinary Humanities" is to a diner waitress. She just kept giving me a look that said "Yeah, so what? How's that gonna pay your rent?" But when I read Alejandro about "the quest for beauty and making beauty at the heart of our curriculum," when I imagine little kids whispering " thank you, Jesus, for letting us come here," when I remember staring, rapt, for hours at a single painting in the Las Vegas Guggenheim, oblivious to the crowds around me and the blazing neon inferno just one wall away, I remember why it matters. We are not machines of production, computers to calculate and perform tests. We are human beings and art, beauty and communication is what makes it have any value. Pulling together with each other is impossible if we can't find beauty in our world and make it our own. Once we do that we want to share it, and writing can not only communicate beauty we've seen and felt, it creates more.

Hang on a second, I actually cried a little there.

In Susan Andrew's piece, I kept going back to the start of this course, thinking about inner speech and audience. It's because of the audience that we desire to make inner speech into voice. And an unheard voice is not much of a voice. Expecting our audience makes us want to polish and tune that voice to reach out and grab them, hold them, pull them towards our own experience. In my "Power and the Story" class with Dr Kareithi, we keep discussing and wrestling with the problem of what happens when one story drowns out another "stealing the voice" from someone else. The writers in CNIS are just that sort of voices, unheard and ignored. To get them into circulation is awesome.

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Andrews' article reminded me of a dance instructor I interviewed during my Daily Collegian days up at Main Campus. I think her classes had some sort of end-of-the-semester showcase coming up or something. Anyway, I remember her saying that the performance would be the final piece of the puzzle for her students, the piece she couldn't teach them in the classroom. Actually, I think I'll try to track that article down in the online archives. Hold on. Wow, that was a lot easier than I expected it to be. Anyway, here's an excerpt.

Ford, who focuses on musical theater styles but also teaches both ballet and advanced jazz, said the interaction between the audience and a performer is necessary to test the performer's ability to implement a new technique.
Lon Hurst, assistant professor of dance, agreed that a performance essentially fulfills the function of dance as a performance-based art form.
"It's surprising what people will invest when they know they're doing something for an audience instead of just a grade," said Hurst, who teaches both tap classes and a beginning jazz class.

I didn't think about it relating to writing at the time, but it definitely does, especially considering the important role that audience plays, or should play, in the writing process. If audience is a part of the process, why not make it a part of the product, as well?

Statewide standardized testing. Sigh. I think I've already had about as much as I can handle for one semester, so Alejandro's article was more of the same, for me. As we've discussed in class, I think that by "teaching to the test," we're not really teaching our students anything but the test. If we're doing our jobs as teachers, our students should be able to succeed. Period. However, that type of teaching takes time, probably more time than many teachers who are under pressure feel that they have. Isn't it easier to teach students how to apply knowledge in one specific scenario than to teach them how to apply it anywhere? At the school where I am observing this semester, the seventh-grade students take language arts and a literacy class, which is supposed to improve reading and, as a result, PSSA scores. It's not a perfect solution, but at least PSSA preparation isn't taking up all of the time in language arts.

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In my high school, the only people who were asked to refine their writing for publication were the popular kids. I think that's why Andrews' essay this week just didn't click for me. I think those of us who weren't popular would have benefited more from the ability to share our work, to become better writers, if the teachers had come to the less popular kids and had us try to publish our stories- or to have the entire class do it as a whole. I like the idea of having the class attempt to publish, I just wonder about the effect one student getting published will have on those that aren't. Will they push themselves to get to the level of the published writer? Or will they just give up and decide that if they aren't good enough to be published now, they won't ever be? The teacher will have to make sure students don't get discouraged from writing if the publishing doesnt work out. I don't mean to play devil's advocate here, I think this could be an interesting idea if done well.

Alejandro really seemed to hit the nail on the head, though. Why are we just having our students fill in bubbles for tests? Why does it take half a year to teach students a test? If they're not learning it in your classes as is and need a special course to learn how to take a PSSA, mayne we need to redefine how we teach our subjects. We take away art classes, band classes, music and choral classes. If we take away writing too, where are kids going to focus on their creativity? I'm not a talented artist, but if I hadn't taken mechanical design and 3D art classes, I would be missing something. I spent years learning to play an instrument, discipline from marching across a football field throwing flags. seeing how lighting turned a regular stage into a scene. These were all intergral parts of my high school years, and parts that helped form me. Kids are really missing out on a huge part of their development as we continue taking all of these creative outlets away. I love the idea of bringing art into the classroom. Not just to expose students to it, but to use the pieces as a starting point for creative writing and learning.

Blog Ten

The Andrews chapter in WTL had some helpful suggestions for future writing instructors to encourage students to write beyond the classroom. The belief is that once a young writer sets a goal of contributing for a publication, their expectations broaden along with their considerations for audience. I suppose it would not be farfetched to conclude that it would also allow for more stress and pressure on the writer to be perfect if it was to be scrutinized beyond the classroom. However, if the young writer produces work that successfully makes it through editing and it is printed for the masses it certainly would be an encouraging experience for their confidence and abilities. One could make the argument that the internet is one such forum for a writer to reach out and be heard by many, but let’s face it; being “published” on the internet on a blog or some obscure website would not be as gratifying as a printed publication amongst your peers or community. And while it is unlikely that many publications exist that will accept untrained or amateur writing, it would be worthwhile for young students and writing instructors alike to investigate if such avenues of opportunity and experience are accessible.

A secondary part of the Andrews chapter called for socially responsible writing if the opportunity or forum allowed for it. The author is also an English teacher in Alaska and has noticed that the Native population is somewhat overlooked and treated as second class. Many of the publications that would permit amateur submissions would be an ideal place for an effective sounding board for the under-represented. Of course, a larger media outlet would be the preference but not realistically attainable for the student writer.

The Alejandro chapter begins by displaying a Texas third grade she taught at where less than half of the children were reading at a first grade level, while the other half had little to no English speaking skills. The teachers at that school would have to be miracle workers to get those children up to the state proficiency standard. The obstacles such as language, poverty, crime, and graduation rates suggest that it is not a combination where any success could be achieved quickly. The next section was about miracle worker like results with the use of art, to build on an array of skills but obviously had a tremendous impact on the children’s cognitive skills of learning and perception. Alejandro’s utilization and significance of art as a tool went unnoticed and was mandated to change her teaching techniques to better instruct for the state tests; she resigned instead of adapting. The same children one year later made baffling improvements, and the school was rewarded as a result. When I first read the chapter I didn’t notice the years of Alejandro’s service at schools, but for effect she goes out of sequence to build up the drama of “can she do it again with those kids, at that school?” As it turns out she could. Using art to development other skills including confidence proved to once again allow the improbable to occur. In my I-search paper I discussed how teacher’s skills were being stripped away when you command them to teach to a test. Alejandro, in amazing fashion was able to implement her skills to accomplish improvement in the students and improvement on the test.

The two chapters clearly suggest that teachers must sometimes consider and adapt alternative methods to tap into student potential.

Blog 10

I was very inspired by both of the readings for this week. With my background in performance, I was easily able to identify with Susan B. Andrews’ Writing As Performance, and I appreciated the many connections she made between the two processes. I loved her notion that “everyone should be afforded an opportunity to be published and to ‘perform.’” I think when teaching writing, it is important to give students a higher objective than simply getting a good grade on a paper. Preparing a piece of writing to be published, even if in a local paper or magazine, will give students the extra motivation to really develop their own voice as writers.

I was also really affected by Andrews’ description of how her Alaskan Native students used this process to pass down cultural heritage and life experiences to younger generations. I remember that during 9th grade English class, we prepared several pieces for entry into the Scholastic Writing Awards. In the same way as Andrews discusses, students were forced to constantly revise and reword their writing for the “final performance.” I am happy to report that through this effort, one of my essays was chosen for publication in a magazine. Interestingly, I still consider that work to be some of my best writing to this very day.

Reading Alejandra’s article on the use of art in her elementary language arts classroom was incredibly appropriate after having just this past week attended two lectures at Dickinson College by playwright Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf; 3 time Pulitzer Prize winner). Albee raised some amazing points regarding both the state of theater in the United States and the problem with America’s public education system. I was so glad to discover that his thoughts and opinions helped to confirm the reason I decided to go back to school and get my teaching certification. He talked about the fact that the lack of arts education in public schools is part of the reason that we are seeing a decline in the amount and quality of creative art in our country. Like Alejandra, Mr. Albee made the point that “all students need to learn how to see, to interpret data from the world, the canvas, and the page”.

In Albee’s opinion, elementary school room walls should be filled with abstract art, so that from an early age, students can begin making sense of the beauty in the world around them. He discussed the important role that the arts play in allowing people to reflect on themselves as humans and to make changes if they don't like what they see. From my experiences in the classroom so far, I think it is evident that there is too much focus on testing and not enough on preparing students to be responsible and observant human beings. As Edward Albee so brilliantly pointed out, the arts is the one thing that truly separates us from other animals. It gives us the ability to make sense of our reality and the world in which we live. The more schools begin to cut art and music programs, the more our society as a whole stands to ultimately lose.