Class #2 January 12th Blog Post: Let the students write creatively

Nancie Atwell’s story really struck a chord with me as she taught an important lesson that all new teachers go through. When you start teaching you have this idea, that you will revolutionize the teaching world by having the most engaging lessons which also follow the curriculum documents word by word. During teacher’s college, we are always told about the importance of following the curriculum documents and by large part our chances of getting hired will be based on how we can incorporate our knowledge of the curriculum into our interviews answers. New teachers rely on structure and the curriculum to keep their class organized and on task. While the curriculum is definitely important and needed to ground our lesson plans, Nancie teaches us in her story the importance of learning with the students and adapting our lessons with our class to be the best possible teacher. At the start of her story, Nancie considered herself the teacher behind her big desk following her curriculum plan line by line without reflecting or looking at the performance of her students. While this method was effective for some of the most advanced students, often a large group of students felt disengaged and would achieve poorly in her class.  A student named Jeff (I found it funny that I share a name with the student) started to show her that different people write in different ways and that each student and each class needs to be taught in different ways. I feel like this is one of the most important qualities of a great teacher. Great teachers are always learning, developing and reflecting upon themselves and their lessons. Great teachers are always aware of the needs, learning styles and personalities in their classrooms to tailor lesson that will be effective at progressing the learning of these students. Nancie’s story really got me back to why I chose to become a teacher. It wasn’t because I love curriculum, or lesson planning or marking. It’s because I love working with people, helping people grow, learn and reflect on their past experiences.  Being a teacher is about working closely with your students and understand how to best teach writing, or math or science to them.

When how to teach writing, Nancie’s story also taught me an important lesson on writing activities in a language course (my teachable). The idea learned from this story which is also reiterated in the Peterson chapters is that students need to be given creative choice to write on subjects that interest them. Students will produce their best writing when they are interested in their writing subject and wanting to write because they want to share a story, experience or information. Students will produce more work and higher quality work when they are writing on a subject they know and they enjoy. Deep down, all students love the process of learning and even more they enjoy reiterating what they have learned to someone else to show off their new knowledge.  Writing is a great outlet to have students share their research and what they have learned with the world. They will be more keen on sharing their knowledge of a subject which they understand and enjoy which is why having students being in control of their writing topics is very important. As chapter 1 discusses, many students may still need prompts to begin their writing as having too much choice can overwhelm the students preventing them from ever beginning to write. As a writing teacher, it’s important to have well thought through prompts that are open ended and adaptable to the interest of all students in the class. The prompts are there to help give students that initial idea, not restrict them on what to write about leaving them frustrated because they don’t know what to write for a specific situation. Prompts should allow students to have an easier time to pick what they want to write about. An example could be what is your favourite story/novel? It relates to English and gives students an idea but can be taken in many different ways. Students can write on a novel they enjoyed, a story they have heard or a movie they loved. All students can find something they like in this subject and it gives them a good start to get going.