I never thought so in depth about writing in schools and how to get students to get the most out of it until I read this article by Grant Wiggins. He discusses that writing is more important and makes more of an impact on students if the subject that they writing about is something that is relevant to their lives. I think that as a teacher it is important to make sure that students can pick topics that are relevant to them and something that they would enjoy talking about. Audience is something else in writing that is important and something students should think about when writing. Writing Commons has a lot of great ways to analyze if you are addressing and writing appropriately to the audience that you are trying to reach. Wiggins also demonstrates the idea that writing for a real audience is important for students to think about when writing anything. Students should have an audience other than the teacher, someone outside the classroom to make the assignment meaningful. I remember having a teacher in high school that had us write a research essay, because it was something that the school required, but this teacher let us write a letter to an organization to show them our research and ask us questions for our paper. It was very memorable to me because I got to pick something that I was passionate about and send it to someone else besides the teacher so I made sure to work hard to make an impact on that person. I think implementing something like this in a writing class would help students improve their skills and get them to put in their best effort. Writing to different audiences will help students see that writing to different audiences means pitching the same information in a different way as Wiggins describes.
Sunday, September 13, 2015
Writing Standards and How to Connect to Real World With Writing
I never thought so in depth about writing in schools and how to get students to get the most out of it until I read this article by Grant Wiggins. He discusses that writing is more important and makes more of an impact on students if the subject that they writing about is something that is relevant to their lives. I think that as a teacher it is important to make sure that students can pick topics that are relevant to them and something that they would enjoy talking about. Audience is something else in writing that is important and something students should think about when writing. Writing Commons has a lot of great ways to analyze if you are addressing and writing appropriately to the audience that you are trying to reach. Wiggins also demonstrates the idea that writing for a real audience is important for students to think about when writing anything. Students should have an audience other than the teacher, someone outside the classroom to make the assignment meaningful. I remember having a teacher in high school that had us write a research essay, because it was something that the school required, but this teacher let us write a letter to an organization to show them our research and ask us questions for our paper. It was very memorable to me because I got to pick something that I was passionate about and send it to someone else besides the teacher so I made sure to work hard to make an impact on that person. I think implementing something like this in a writing class would help students improve their skills and get them to put in their best effort. Writing to different audiences will help students see that writing to different audiences means pitching the same information in a different way as Wiggins describes.
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Marissa, I checked out the link to Writing Commons and the "Who's My Audience" video...looks like a good resource :) I think it's great, too, that you're thinking about assignments you completed in high school, specifically assignments that made a positive impact on you. That will be important to remember when you have your own classroom.
ReplyDeleteI also had a teacher who allowed us to do that sort of assignment in High School, and it definitely made me more engaged in writing! I like these sorts of things because we can look back on them and say, "That got ME engaged, now I want to do that for MY students!"
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