The fact that I’ll be spending a month of my student teaching experience teaching the old-school research paper loomed large in my mind as I read chapter five in the Dornan text. I must admit that I am conflicted—I appreciate the idea of the whole “write to learn” and “discovering meaning in experiences” idea, but I struggle because I have such little wiggle room in terms of how I must teach the paper. Notecards and all, I am forced to teach the research paper exactly the same way as I learned it in middle school, over a decade ago, ignoring the extent to which technology has changed the way students write.
On that note, I really appreciated that Dornan addressed the whole notecard issue. The text explains, “Given the Internet and the ease of downloading material, teachers may have to rethink the role of taking notes on index cards…Many students are finding it easier to highlight and label printouts and photocopied material. They become impatient copying material by hand…We would find alternatives to the note cards because they appear to be busy work for students” (Dornan 128). I understand that notecards help student organize large amounts of material and helps them be selective about what material they choose to quote, but they are certainly outdated. If someone asked me to write a research paper using notecards, I would have a negative attitude about it too, so I guess I’ll understand where my students are coming from when I face this issue in April. When I get my own classroom, though, the notecards are going out the window if I have a say in the matter.
With these issues in mind, however, I did find a few parts of the chapter particularly useful. Pages 129-132 walked readers through helpful tips for writing openings, bodies, and conclusions of papers. Though some of it was rather intuitive, such as “The goal of the paper’s introduction should be to capture reader interest,” I found some suggestions that I will definitely pass along to my students in a couple of months (Dornan 129). Since getting off to a strong start with a strong introduction is so important to the motivation levels of students throughout the research paper process (my experience is that many of them lose interest if they think they are not “good at it” right away), the seven bulleted ideas for how to “hook” the reader immediately, found on page 129, will be a great addition to my lesson plan. The tips for helping students find topics are equally relevant. I remember being shocked when my cooperating teacher said, “You’ll be amazed at how long it takes them to write this paper. Sometimes it takes them a week just to cement a topic idea in their minds.” Now I don’t know the exact schedule or calendar for how my student teaching is going to proceed yet, but I know for sure that I won’t be having these kids spend a week choosing a topic. I hope that the ideas in the Dornan text help speed up the process a bit…
Along the lines of the research paper I’ll be teaching, I must admit that I’m pretty disappointed that I cannot incorporate the whole multigenre approach. I love the Romano text (and multigenre papers were the subject of parts of the Dornan text for this week and some of our WebCT reading), and I almost wish that I hadn’t found out about multigenre papers until after I had my whole research paper unit planned out, because now I’ll be thinking, “Man, these would be so much more engaging for students and enjoyable for me to grade if they were multigenre.” Alas, however, that is not the case, so I’ll just have to wait until I have my own classroom. After all, I do still think that the students need to write the classic research paper at least once in their K-12 lives, so I understand that I have an important role in facilitating that process.
Finally, I was really glad to see that Dornan included a section on plagiarism. I had never really thought much about this topic in relation to teaching high schoolers, because I had to get out of the mindset that it is common sense not to plagiarize and to know what is considered plagiarism and what isn’t. I must remember that 10th graders might not know these boundaries, and even if they think they do, it is worth refreshing. I love that the authors give ideas for how to sidestep the plagiarism issue altogether (multigenre papers, anyone?), and they also stress the importance of being proactive as a teacher. The best way to deal with plagiarism is to prevent it in the first place. Until now I had not even given this topic a second thought in regard to my research paper unit I’ll be teaching, but now I see that I will have to give plagiarism some explicit attention early on in the process.
Well, my original plan was to discuss Romano’s top-notch multigenre paper book (after finishing Romano’s book I am so excited to teach the multigenre paper eventually), but I had some strong reactions to the whole research paper thing. The reason? I’ve been stressing about it hard core ever since I found out I’d be teaching it. If you guys have any tips or ideas about how to make the research paper interesting for students, talk to me or listserve them, because I think some other people are teaching the dreaded research paper as well.
Resource Link Time:
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/dcs/cyberenglish/researchlp.htm
Figuring out how to create a daily schedule for a huge project such as the research paper is a daunting task, and this website gives an example calendar and brief daily lesson plans for how to teach the classic research paper (notecards and all) over about a four week period. I am finding it pretty helpful.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Post One!
Let me begin by saying that I was a bit skeptical when Jessie said that we would not be able to put down the book about multigenre papers. I am excited to say, however, that my skepticism was proven to be unfounded, because I love the book! I am looking forward to finishing up the last few pages, and I'll probably write my post about it for next week.
But in regard to the Dornan text, I think that the reading for this week is summed up by this quotation: “Writing must be motivated from within, tapping personal feelings, needs, and experiences, whether the piece is a research paper driven by a problem of special interest to the writer or a poem to a loved one” (37). It may be challenging for beginning teachers to incorporate this personalized approach to writing into a curriculum that may already be overstuffed with an emphasis on standards. In the end, however, the book (and common sense) suggests that creating more personalized lessons that are relevant to the lives of students is an effort that pays off in the end.
I also appreciated that the text mentioned the importance of creating a classroom environment that is conducive to writing. Classrooms can either support or extinguish creative, daring writing, and I think that we all have been in both types of classrooms—and have felt the difference in classroom atmosphere. I imagine that the type of classroom environment created would have a serious impact on the quality of writing produced by students. The ideas that the textbook suggests on page 47 were very helpful for me, as I begin to plan my student teaching. Ideas such as allowing students to choose their own writing topics, modeling intense concentration when listening to students read aloud, writing with your students and sharing your pieces with them, and refusing to allow verbal or non-verbal put-downs will all be enacted in my classroom.
One thing that was just briefly mentioned in the text that I absolutely loved was the idea of having an “Author’s Chair” in my classroom (Dornan 73). This chair would be used during regularly scheduled “read-alouds” of student writing, and would make these read-alouds a special event. First, it would be fun to have a cool old chair in my classroom. But more personally, standing up in front of a class of my peers is not something that I always look forward to, and I know that lots of students are extremely uncomfortable with it. It makes a huge difference mentally if you are sitting in front of the class presenting something rather than standing, and suddenly it doesn’t seem like such a huge deal. I think it would help ease the nerves of students while still allowing them to share their work with peers and be in the spotlight.
Finally, the text reminded me of something that I will have to keep reminding myself of as I student teach. In teacher/student writing conferences, “the teacher’s role is coach and facilitator here, not an evaluative judge or ‘fixer-upper’ of the paper” (Dornan 60). I am totally a “fixer-upper” of papers unless I keep myself in check, and I will have to constantly remind myself that the job of the teacher is to prompt the student to recognize his/her own mistakes and learn from them. Also, I need to resist the temptation to be nitpicky about grammar and mechanics at points in the writing process when ideas and “flow” should be more important.
My resource link for this week is http://www.thisibelieve.org/. It provides an awesome unit complete with daily lesson plans for a personal essay assignment which asks students to build their personal philosophies on life, allowing them to write about their own personal connections in a meaningful way. These essays are then submitted to NPR, and they may be featured on the NPR/This I Believe website or on public radio. Separate units are available for middle and high school students. I am going to do the This I Believe personal essay when I student teach, and you all should too if you have to teach the essay or personal essays or something. Bonus--all the work is done for you already! Thank you NPR!
But in regard to the Dornan text, I think that the reading for this week is summed up by this quotation: “Writing must be motivated from within, tapping personal feelings, needs, and experiences, whether the piece is a research paper driven by a problem of special interest to the writer or a poem to a loved one” (37). It may be challenging for beginning teachers to incorporate this personalized approach to writing into a curriculum that may already be overstuffed with an emphasis on standards. In the end, however, the book (and common sense) suggests that creating more personalized lessons that are relevant to the lives of students is an effort that pays off in the end.
I also appreciated that the text mentioned the importance of creating a classroom environment that is conducive to writing. Classrooms can either support or extinguish creative, daring writing, and I think that we all have been in both types of classrooms—and have felt the difference in classroom atmosphere. I imagine that the type of classroom environment created would have a serious impact on the quality of writing produced by students. The ideas that the textbook suggests on page 47 were very helpful for me, as I begin to plan my student teaching. Ideas such as allowing students to choose their own writing topics, modeling intense concentration when listening to students read aloud, writing with your students and sharing your pieces with them, and refusing to allow verbal or non-verbal put-downs will all be enacted in my classroom.
One thing that was just briefly mentioned in the text that I absolutely loved was the idea of having an “Author’s Chair” in my classroom (Dornan 73). This chair would be used during regularly scheduled “read-alouds” of student writing, and would make these read-alouds a special event. First, it would be fun to have a cool old chair in my classroom. But more personally, standing up in front of a class of my peers is not something that I always look forward to, and I know that lots of students are extremely uncomfortable with it. It makes a huge difference mentally if you are sitting in front of the class presenting something rather than standing, and suddenly it doesn’t seem like such a huge deal. I think it would help ease the nerves of students while still allowing them to share their work with peers and be in the spotlight.
Finally, the text reminded me of something that I will have to keep reminding myself of as I student teach. In teacher/student writing conferences, “the teacher’s role is coach and facilitator here, not an evaluative judge or ‘fixer-upper’ of the paper” (Dornan 60). I am totally a “fixer-upper” of papers unless I keep myself in check, and I will have to constantly remind myself that the job of the teacher is to prompt the student to recognize his/her own mistakes and learn from them. Also, I need to resist the temptation to be nitpicky about grammar and mechanics at points in the writing process when ideas and “flow” should be more important.
My resource link for this week is http://www.thisibelieve.org/. It provides an awesome unit complete with daily lesson plans for a personal essay assignment which asks students to build their personal philosophies on life, allowing them to write about their own personal connections in a meaningful way. These essays are then submitted to NPR, and they may be featured on the NPR/This I Believe website or on public radio. Separate units are available for middle and high school students. I am going to do the This I Believe personal essay when I student teach, and you all should too if you have to teach the essay or personal essays or something. Bonus--all the work is done for you already! Thank you NPR!
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