It’s a bit rebellious, and it fits in perfectly with the rebellious Star Wars décor of my classroom. Which is what writing actually is.Īs we finish this unit, I introduce my motto for writing in my class: Tools Over Rules. In fact, they begin to see writing as an act of making choices.
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Most students actually want to revise and rewrite now they realize they are free to make choices rather than follow a set of rigid instructions. I then ask them to revise and rewrite their original essays. We do writing exercises that get students practicing the types of skills those authors use: moment-by-moment narration, description of people and places, sensory detail, and dialogue.
We analyze how these authors focused their topics in terms of time and space, and which aspects of education they wrote about (a teacher, a favorite subject, a best or worst class, etc.).
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Because my students come from several feeder middle schools, it soon becomes obvious that the rules are actually arbitrary and depend on which previous teachers you had.Īfter our discussion about what it takes to be a good writer, we then read a series of mentor texts in which authors write about their own educations in a variety of non-formulaic ways. The discussion about being a good writer usually turns into a discussion of the rules they have been told to follow by some of their previous teachers. The topic: To be a good writer you need to… Students write their drafts – usually as very formulaic five-paragraph essays – and then we have a discussion. They are used to writing being an act of instruction-following compliance. Many students are a bit frustrated by my lack of guidance. I deliberately don’t give them any guidelines – I want to see what they do left to their own devices. The assignment? Writing an essay titled “My Education So Far.” I also want them to begin thinking about writing differently. I want to get to know my students: how they write, how they think about writing, and how they think about school and their educations in general. The comic strips below relate in humorous form a real assignment I use at the start of the year in my 9th grade English class. A few years back I wanted to break this pattern of passive compliance in my student writers. In fact, students often think of writing as an act of compliance – follow the teacher’s instruction, receive a passing grade.
Although I hear people complain that students can’t follow instructions, my experience has been that most of the follow instructions for writing a little too well.
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