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...teachers assign a ten-year-old to write a summary paragraph on The Lousiana Purchase. The ten-year-old is to pull the right amount of important details about that happy event from a two-page single spaced essay given out in class.
To a ten-year-old, every sentence of that essay seems as compelling and important as every other sentence BECAUSE TEN-YEAR-OLDS HAVE NO LIFE EXPERIENCE LET ALONE KNOWLEDGE OF WORLD HISTORY TO JUDGE what they can leave out of their summary and WHAT MUST NOT BE LEFT OUT.
It's this weird inversion of developmental expectations.
It's like they envision my child comfortably attired in a wool cardigan, sitting at home in a shabby leather wingback chair, thick black reading glasses perched low on his nose and hair thinning slightly on top of his head, and he puffs away thoughtfully on his pipe while he writes down the right amount of important details from the essay on a yellow legal pad with his leaking fountain pen.
Teachers think that if you CALL a child a writer, if adults SEE him as a writer, if we CELEBRATE and PUBLISH his writing, that good writing will follow like cargo planes landing on a South Pacific island.
But, NO IT DOESN'T.
17 comments:
Wow. I was upset.
I'm finding all the greatest hits of Becky C
this one's pretty supreme
It's this weird inversion of developmental expectations.
That's exactly what it is. It has driven me nuts for years.
And it works because, well, they say so.
True! They claim that we give developmentaly appropriate curriculum, but it's absolutely not. And it's not starting with K-grade and up. Along with confused curriculum (like GENERAL SCIENCE, in example, or CHOICE in taking chemistry OR physics OR Earth Science in HS), it does a grade job of producing kids without knowledge in anything.
P.S. I perhaps will do my PhD in curriculum, though the chance to change something is minimal...
I perhaps will do my PhD in curriculum, though the chance to change something is minimal...
Are there any good programs in this??
I'm fascinated by that field!
I will definetely look for them, if not - I will invent something. After all, It will be a second time around for me of writing a dissertation)))
I just have to finish with my masters first, and with a family and full -time work it takes longer.
I remember that Greta (Frohbieter? is that her last name) is studying curriculum in Colorado - I may be able to find it at the other site.
Where can I get information about teaching writing? I have no idea what's developmentally appropriate and what's not.
Myrtle,
Some of the classical homeschooling sites have good ideas about that. The book,The Well-Trained Mind, has schedules for parents for every grade, plus one of the authors (Susan Wise Bauer) has tapes on teaching writing. I've used her ideas for years no matter what the schools are teaching (or not.)
I have Well-Trained Mind but it hasn't been helpful in this regard. I was hoping there was something else out there.
I'm back on the "writing trail"....
Still looking.
Ed Next, fyi, will have a terrific Lucy Calkins take-down in the summer issue.
At the moment I think "composition theory" probably offers the best premise for writing instruction.
I'm also convinced that writing summaries -- probably writing summaries and them editing them to shorter forms -- is a terrific exercise.
Have you seen the UK writing post I've put up a few times??
What we need to know is how the Brits teach (or used to teach) writing.
They're the best.
The big hurdle I have with writing programs is, "Is the author of this program a professional writer?"
Wait a second. By definition they are. Hmmm. Therefore, every writing program is written by an expert. I think there's a gaffe in my logic.
Okay, I want a writing program that develops nonfiction writing. No more "creative" writing activities for 8,9, 10 year old boys. I'd really like to avoid that scenario.
Myrtle,
When you find a writing program that develops nonfiction writing for 8,9,10 year old boys, let me know! I have a nine year old boy.
Thanks!
--PaulaV
Reasoning & Writing by SRA. Sort of mixes grammar and writing a story based on pictures and missing segments of a picture in the 3rd grade scripted curriculum (C) but I hear the 4th grade (D) is a whopper. I can't wait to start it.
As an add on to my last post, my son passed his writing assessment test as a typical forth grader. Good think it wasn't timed because just writing letters is SLOW for him (autism).
Funny, I have been doing the Reasoning & Writing SRA curriculum with him for the past 2 years. He started actually writing about a year ago. If you're interested in a little more on his story see here:
http://kathyandcalvin.com/node/710
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