thesisthoughts

Just as I was giving up on getting my hands on “Teachers as Writers” by Karin Dahl, I found the whole book of essays as a  PDF file on Eric:

http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/24/06/c8.pdf

http://www.nwp.org/

 http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/doc/about.csp

From the NWP website:

NWP Core Principles

The core principles at the foundation of NWP’s national program model are:

• Teachers at every level—from kindergarten through college—are the agents of reform; universities and schools are ideal partners for investing in that reform through professional development.
• Writing can and should be taught, not just assigned, at every grade level. Professional development programs should provide opportunities for teachers to work together to understand the full spectrum of writing development across grades and across subject areas.
• Knowledge about the teaching of writing comes from many sources: theory and research, the analysis of practice, and the experience of writing. Effective professional development programs provide frequent and ongoing opportunities for teachers to write and to examine theory, research, and practice together systematically.
• There is no single right approach to teaching writing; however, some practices prove to be more effective than others. A reflective and informed community of practice is in the best position to design and develop comprehensive writing programs.
• Teachers who are well informed and effective in their practice can be successful teachers of other teachers as well as partners in educational research, development, and implementation. Collectively, teacher-leaders are our greatest resource for educational reform.

Am I a writer? Are all bloggers writers? Are teachers who write narratives about their experiences writers? Are students writers? Are all academics writers? These questions have been keeping me busy over the past few days as well as those concerning the contribution of teacher-writing in the teaching of writing.

Now that the first draft of my methodology chapter is on paper, I am moving on. I have written a few narrative pieces and have also found some wonderful blog posts containing teacher narratives on writing and the teaching of writing. More about that later…

Frank writes about herself as a teacher before and after she discovered that she could and should write and also about the writing courses she runs for teachers. She proposes that teachers who do not see themselves as writers often have difficulties teaching writing to children. In her experience, teachers who do not write are less inclined to spend time on writing instruction and respond more to “lower-level corrections” (p. 185) in their students’ texts.   

The article mentions “writing apprehension” a term coined by Daly and Miller (1975, as cited in Frank, 2003).

Frank runs courses in which she uses a technique of neighborhood mapping to evoke personal childhood memories in preparation of writing narratives. In her experience, as a result of the writing experience and the group collaboration involved in the process, teachers begin to see themselves as writers and in turn improve their teaching of writing.

Frank describes her own story and I saw that in several ways it is similar to my own. I could have written the following few sentences about myself:

“I defined writing in narrow terms, believing that authors were gifted human beings. Because I did not see myself as ever being able to write like the authors I was reading, I did not identify myself as a ‘writer’” (p. 185-186).

Frank quotes Blau (1988) who explained that the difference between “basic writers” and “experienced, capable writers” is that the accomplished writers believe that what they want to say is significant enough to warrant writing about it.

Studies on how personal narrative and autobiographical writing can enhance elementary teachers’ lit instruction:

• Blake, 1995
• Brinkley, 1993
• Florio-Ruane, 1994
• Meyer, 1993
• Wimett & Blachowicz, 1997

Frank quotes Blau (1988, p. 31):

“A central principle for the NWP is “that writing teachers must write: that their authority as teachers of writing must be grounded on their own personal experience as writers – as persons who know firsthand the struggles and satisfactions of the writer’s task”" (Frank, 2003, p. 187).

Frank observed that as the teachers in her courses gradually began to see themselves as writers, they began to take risks and concentrate more on the content of their writing than on mechanics. They became less apprehensive as they saw writing as a process, that revision could always improve a piece later.

As I read I was reminded of Parr’s distinction between private and public writing. Many of the pieces created in Franks courses began as private pieces and went on to further empower their writers as they transformed into public texts.

Again quoting Blau (1996), Frank writes:

“In his theory of revision, Blau (1996) acknowledges that writing is a difficult frustrating, and time consuming process that inexperienced writers see as evidence of their own incompetence. On the other hand, experienced writers know that frustration and feelings of incompetence are among the most difficult challenges of writing” (p. 192).

I think the most important point is made by Frank on page 193 . She proposes that it is not enough for a teacher to become a writer in order for him/her to improve their writing instruction, teachers must write and reflect on their writing process in order to bring about change in their classrooms.

“Learning about writing pedagogy andidentifying themselves as writers who could reflect on the difficulties of the writing process enabled them to change instructional strategies within their own classrooms…” (p. 193).

Frank, C. R. (2003). Mapping our stories: Teachers’ reflections on themselves as writers. Language Arts, 80(3), 185-195. Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/pubs/journals/la