Posted by RD on 6/29/08

I've read Chapter 1 and half of Chapter 2 so far and I'm
making lots of connections to Atwell's 'Writing Lessons
that Change Writers'. Both texts stress the importance of
using real world writing, and to me, this is 'golden'
advice (halleluyah). Both texts also use the inquiry
model, however I'm thinking that Wood Ray is more open in
her approach to letting students figure it all out on their
own, whereas Atwell definitely begins a 'study' with
specifics that she wants her students to notice (not that
Wood Ray doesn't) and she may be more likely to steer her
students in that direction if they don't 'notice' these
things on their own. I'm not sure about that point yet,
but I'm just getting that feel from Ray.

I'm loving the notion of developing the ability to 'read
like writers' through the inquiry model. After all, this
is what I really want my students to do. Nevertheless, at
first I thought it might be too much of a 'leap of faith'
to expect students to identify the 'important stuff'. But,
Ray emphasizes the importance of selecting texts that will
lead students to make good 'discoveries', so the guidance
is embedded, really.

I love the idea of doing a 'study' on punctuation. I feel
that sometimes I'm very 'genre' oriented, and this would be
a good way to break the mold. When the grade one student
talked about the ellipsis being like 'hanging off a cliff',
I was struck by the need for students to visualize their
understandings. The idea that stuff 'sticks' better when
we add more sensory information to our conceptual
understanding can't be underestimated, in my view. A cute
little anecdote that illustrates this point: I had a couple
of students that had a hard time understanding the function
of parentheses this year. I can't say that I blame them
because they had formerly been told that the words in
parentheses are 'added information that is not really
needed in the sentence'. Why put it in parentheses if it's
not needed, they asked? Well, it is needed! After reading
several sections of different texts that used parentheses,
one of my students said, "The stuff in parentheses is like
the stuff you'd whisper to someone sitting beside you. You
know, like with your hand cupped to the side of your
mouth!" So we built this connection between the shape of
the parentheses and the cupped hand, adding information
that IS necessary to the content but not necessary to make
a complete sentence. The funny part is that when asked on
one of the reading tests that I have to administer three
times a year what the function of parentheses was in a
given sentence, a few students wrote something about the
cupped hand and the whispering to someone sitting beside
them. Well, they got the basic idea!

Using real world texts just makes sense to me. My students
are much more inclined to 'buy into' writing that begins
with a real world study. And frankly, although I was a bit
shocked at her vehemence towards the 'graphic organizer', I
completely 'get it'! It's like those g-d awful sentence
starters that teachers use with students who are below
grade level, just to get them started, or to get them to
write. Blech! This anti-graphic organizer stance again
reminded me, again, of Atwell who abhors the 5 paragraph
essay (which Ray also points out does not exist in the real
world). Atwell is also not afraid to tell students that
starting an essay with a cliche question is just boring and
insulting to the reader. "Have you ever wondered why there
are so many Walmarts in your city?" "Did you know that in
some countries children, as young as 10 years old, have to
work for a living?"

I find that my students come to me with many a formula for
writing specific kinds of text. For example, have you ever
read the follow kind of lead for a research paper?

****It is big. It is a mammal, and yet it lives in water.
It communcates by 'singing'. Yes! If you guessed a whale,
you're right!****

Yes, I'm all for moving towards real writing and away from
the formula. This year I used many of Atwell's ideas and
my students' writing exploded! I'm excited to build on
this with Wood Ray's approach.

One more thing - I love what she says on p.30. She is
talking about how, because of the 'study' approach, the
teacher knows what her students are trying to do with their
writing and is therefore in a better position to
really 'appreciate' the attempts that the student makes in
using a particular aspect of craft.

"I am moved by the profound implications of this for the
writing lives of children, what it could mean to them if
their teachers developed the eyes to see and appreciate
what they are trying to do as writers instead of - or at
least in addition to- what they haven't done."

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