Chapter 3 Best Practices

Although I have never taught writing on the elementary level, I am constantly surprised at the similarities in a high school writing class and a class of younger writers. When I taught sixth grade, I was always looking for techniques to help the various writing needs of the students within my room. How do you accommodate the student who cannot transmit his ideas on paper? (pg. 52). In contrast, there's the student who enjoys writing (pg. 51). This type of student has a wealth of life experiences, usually enjoys reading, and can create a story with a full plot structure. Generally, most of the students demonstrate proficiency, yet need consistent feedback. This is a difficult task in a room of 25+ and no one to help. Therefore, I felt the ideas in Best Practices were extremely appropriate.

One of the first prompts I always assigned in middle school was a narrative to assess writing. Many still struggled with the beginning, middle, and end. There would be a "bare bone" plot structure and oftentimes there was no elaboration. Again, this is a similarity to high school writing. Students will state facts, yet not fully develop their ideas. Students assume the reader can identify with their experience. As a result, this leads to incoherence. This is why I personally liked the concept of the "comic strip." This approach is less intimidating for the struggling writer. This storytelling approach is fun and sparks more creativity. To me, this is a type of pre-writing... Students can then "read" their story to another student, teacher, or assistant. If the sequence does not "flow," additional frames can be added.

The icons over the frames reminds the students to fully develop the character or the internal/external conflicts of the character. The "superglue" words is an interesting approach to help students create compound sentences. For example, on the seventh and tenth grade writing test, the evaluators are looking for sentence variety- simple, compound, complex, compound-complex. I would find this very difficult to explain to younger children. This will allow them to slowly develop a more sophisticated style/writer's craft.

Although I liked the idea of story cards, I think there are more effective ways to prompt writing. Wordless Picture Books might initiate an interest which may lead the student to fully compose an original piece. Personally, I was always frustrated with the student who stated he/she had nothing to write about. Hopefully, this could serve as an alternative. We have also talked in class about the importance of student journals. One episode can help with the plot structure since it's a true experience. Lastly, the children's storybooks is always an alternative. I have utilized these with my tenth graders in the past. Once they get over the initial shock that's a storybook, most enjoy this alternative.

One thing that did surprise me about the chapter was the researchers chose to utilize "trickster tales" to determine student assessment in story composition. I thought this was a very difficult unit to present to struggling writers. I assume a teacher would not begin with such intricate pieces. Not all students will grasp the concept of a "trickster" as evidenced on page 66. The story was not on topic and totally illogical. The teacher would have to do an intense study with considerable scaffolding and plenty of modeling. The story plot sheet was very similar to a sheet that I composed years ago. I primarily used it with my struggling writers; however, this is a tool which is beneficial to all children. A teacher could conduct a writing conference with the student just to check the plot sheet. This would give the instructor an idea if a student needs intervention or not.

Finally, I liked how the authors of Best Practices regard writing rubrics. I feel it's more of a "check list" for the student to determine if all essential information has been included. However, it's frequently used as a grade (hence, the North Carolina Writing Test). All of these ideas are practical and can easily be implemented with considerable dedication on the behalf of the teacher.