RD,
I guess the rest of us aren't quite as driven! I am not
reading the book, but appreciate you taking the time to post
your thoughts here. I enjoyed reading and reflecting on them.
I hope others who have read or are reading the book will post
soon. I am "reading vicariously" through you all.

cavey ( done with grad classes for summer on the 11th- WHEW!)

On 6/29/08, RD wrote:
> 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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