Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

Content

Background

What is writing and how did it all begin? Writing began many of thousands of years ago. Writing was expressed through primitive pictograph or pictures on rocks, clay or wood. This was a form of communication to others who interpret it as a message. In the Native American society, language itself was not written, but by messages that are considered archives through music and chants of the ancestors. The music and chants carried messages, just as a bible would. These chants are achieves of communication of the holy people that tell of way life in a beauty way. Holy people are considered like gods or spirits. According to a traditionalist medicine man or sometimes known as shaman if you will, Lorenzo Max elaborates on how the Dine Culture is sustaining on written messages in the songs or chants. “No one writes it down, but it is there, the language, the message to our people, that is how it is carried on.  You don’t see in on YouTube or printed in text about how people communicated with each other or to each other in order to learn about life.”[1] He further speaks about how students don’t have the right language now when they speak or communicate. He clarifies that when one speaks, they need to think before they speak. In the educational setting writing today has a different meaning for teachers.  The writing style has greatly changed and has its own purpose. Through this purpose, writing varies in style. It also depends on who the audience is as well.  I view writing from a different perspective then I used to. I am guilty that I was one of those teachers that taught the surface of writing without going in depth and the rationale behind developing a true writer. There are so much content to learn about writing if we want to be effective and develop writers.

Types of Genre

There are different types of genre for writing.  The main four types of writing are: expository, persuasive, narrative and descriptive. Each type serves its own purpose and style. Writing is a form of communication from a person to person, just as we speak orally. Each of the writing genres has different style or format. For example, in narrative writing, a student can write a personal story of him or herself. A person can write an about an adventure, a mystery, and so on. As for Expository writing, a student can write about their environment in relations to animals, plants, space, and human body that will be informative to the audience.  Each type of writing is useful and every student should learn to write and practice with a different purpose.

Misconception of Writing

As we learn to read, we are also learning to write. They should go hand in hand to support each other. Students that enter as early as preschool go through different stages or phases of writing. According to the Six Traits Writing program, which most schools such as our district implement and rely on when it comes to writing, at an early age writing begins with pictures to scribbling, then on to use of letters after the phonics and phonological awareness has developed. At third grade, students are beginning to communicate through writing.  Students should be writing as a means of communication. At this stage, most teachers at our school district used the student’s writing to measure how much students gained from what they’ve read. Then they’d write a paragraph or summary to answer a question stated by the teacher or prompt after a reading a literary text or non-fiction for comprehension.  Basically, writing is used as a tool to assess for comprehension. Writing is used to get into the students’ thoughts and understanding. That is great, but is that enough?  As I have stated back in my introduction, writing is form of speech that one would just need to write on paper what he or she said orally as if telling a story. Although this may be true, I myself had an awaking of how “writing” should be taught. Some of us teachers are trained to teach writing in an ineffective way. Writing should be taught where students express themselves even if it means that it will take awhile. So long as students express themselves through writing. Their writing maybe good, but it should get better to finally its best. Or some teachers, maybe are trained to teach writing to get students to write words down, but don’t understand the meaning behind writing. This is partially the reason teachers are finding it difficult for students to write.  If students are not able to comprehend what they read, when they are struggling with reading to begin with, they will surely struggle with writing. In addition, students are not motivated to write what they don’t understand. It makes sense that they would struggle. So how do we teach reading and writing? That is because reading has a lot to do with writing. As the old saying, the more you read, the more you can write.  

Writing is not getting your thoughts on paper to preserve it, as it was at the beginning of time when writing first began. Today writing is no longer a mnemonic device to retain information. Writing is an epistemological function to help understand a person’s thought. David Olsen defines writing more than just writing your thoughts. He mentions that, “Writing not only helps us remember what was thought and said but also to invite us to see what was thought and said in a new way.  It is cliché to say that there is more to writing than the ABC’s and more to literacy than the ability to decode words and sentences.”[2] Writing in a new perspective for me has changed at this point. Of course, writing simply is transcribing what one wants to share or thoughts. The new writing approach for this unit is to “do” the work.  Writing takes work! Through revising, rethinking, one finds the right words to exactly what one’s is trying to convey. It takes more than one time to write, but several times after each visit. Editing, revising your writing until you convey what you want to say. Similar to music, you practice and practice until it sounds like what you want it to sound like or what you want your audience to hear. So in essence, it takes work, it takes creativity, style and having the audience in mind.  Writing then becomes a work to get the deeper thought or expression of the writer, the author. So each time a student writes a story, they now have to think about what is it exactly they are trying to say about themselves in their events or experiences. What message is implied? What other words can be used to express better so the audience can feel and experience the emotions they felt? The focus is to get the audience to understand you as a writer and draw into your emotions.

Most schools utilize and are familiar with the most common writing process. There are five steps or stages of the writing process. They are important processes that are implemented during writing time even during the state assessment. We, as English teachers teaching writing, are interested in the “process” rather than the “product.” But writing should not be just about process. It is vital that we understand the rationale behind the writing process. Most teachers that teach writing have been trained to teach the process straightforward. It would go something like this, teachers selects a writing prompt for the students to write upon.  Then teachers direct students to come up with ideas and make connection with the topic and plot on a web or outline. After students list or outline their thoughts pertaining to a topic or prompt, they then write a rough draft.  The idea here is to get the thoughts down using the web or outline. Next, students are instructed to revise their writing, using a dictionary or thesaurus to aid editing. Once editing and revising is completed, which usually takes thirty minutes, students are then asked to rewrite their work as a final draft. The final draft is then turned in as a completed writing assignment. They went through the writing process, like clothes in a wash cycle. Great, that is writing right? Unfortunately, no it is not what writing is. Students then are graded based on how well they are able to understand the writing process with a product that may not be as great as it should be. They move on to the next grade level and teachers are bashing kids on why they aren’t writing essays like they should. Teachers to begin with are setting up students to write with no meaning.  So what does this mean?

The purpose of writing has been misinterpreted and misunderstood by some teachers. The purpose is not to have students follow the steps or process and write out what they composed focusing on the steps or process. That is a misunderstanding of writing and is misguided by the teachers.  Students are learning the process and steps without analyzing their thoughts. Teachers, in fact, should use the process to focus on the language. What does this mean? It means that teachers need to allow students to focus on the process of discovering the language, discovering what the writers are feeling. They need to focus on using language by deciding what words to use to clarify what they know in life. The writing should dignify what they know or discover in their writing. For example, students should focus on the unfinished work. The teacher should focus on writing that was never developed well by the students. As teachers of third graders, we would often find writing papers that are unfinished marked as “incomplete” top of the page. Donald Murray asserts that students should not write to just simply go through the writing process.  He states that there needs to be more. He states, “This is not a question of correct or incorrect, of etiquette or custom. This is a matter of far higher importance. The writer, as he writes, is making ethical decisions. He doesn’t test he words by a rule book, but by life. He uses the language to reveal the truth to himself so that he can tell it to others. It is an exciting, eventful, evolving process.” [3]

The Writing Process

In this unit, our focus is taking the writing process to a more meaningful level for the students. The main purpose with this writing approach is to have the students understand that writing is important. As before, I focused on the product of a written paper without a thought into what the writer actual wants me to know. Students need to understand that writing will take work. They have to develop that habit and mindset to become writers. The third grade students will use the three level of writing process or stages for this unit as according to Donald Murray.  I believe his ideas are important to start off the writing unit. Basically, we want to focus on the importance of the process to get students to write their thoughts and allowing them to find their own way to write.  This will also motivate students to find writing as tool to express as they write. The more they practice, the better writers they will become.  It is important to remember that this is the process that will need practice.  It will require teachers to practice and not rob students of learning to develop the process of writing the truth in their own language students are rob of their thoughts, they begin to depend on the teachers to do the thinking and the writing. Through this process, they are given the opportunity to develop themselves as writers, think like writers, and become great writers. The stages of the writing process are as follows; prewriting, writing, and rewriting. This writing process is a process that will get students to focus on their writing. I generally like the idea of Daniel Murphy’s process to get students to write.

Prewriting stage: The writer focuses on a subject that he or she will write about. The writer will also choose an audience and write in any form he or she chooses to. This is simply where the students can take notes, outline, use a graphic organizer such as webbing, research, or basically just write.  This part of the stage allows students to independently think.

Writing stage: The writer begins to write as if he is producing a final draft. This stage allows the reader to see how much or how little he knows about the subject.  The writing is basically rough, unfinished and the writer is still searching.

Rewriting stage: The writer will consider the subject, form an audience to be a little clearer. The writing will begin to shape clarity, purpose, and meaning. The writer will be researching, rethinking, redesigning, and of course rewriting his or her work. The writer will consider editing, look at each sentences, line by line, making clarity for him or herself. Did he or she choose the right words to say or convey what he is getting across to its audience? This is probably the most satisfying process to becoming a great writer.

The rationale behind the process is to get students’ thoughts and what is truly expressed in their writing. The writing is all the students’ creativity and clarification based on what they wrote. Most importantly, students are learning and discovering writing skills through the process, especially the stage of revision. Murray adds if teachers are rushing students or tell them what to say or write in their story, then teachers are cheating the students of discovery what is considered writing.  He advises teachers to do the following as students are exploring and developing their writing. [4]

Teachers should:

• Be quiet and listen to students as they respond in their writing.
• Teachers become the reader.
• Be patient, and wait, wait and wait.
• Not help students in the prewriting stage, let the students begin to write their ideas. If teachers begin for the students, then they will not learn the largest part of the writing process which is to express their ideas, thoughts, and voice.
• Respect students for the search for truth in which students will surely be engaged.
• Listen carefully to the words students have chosen because those words are what reveals the truth, which may reveal a voice. We must respect the students for their truth and their voice as they choose to in their writing.
• Understand their roles as coaches, encouragers, developers, creators of the students’ environment to write.

Implications of Writing

During the writing process there are some implications about writing that Murray mentioned. He stressed that these are what teachers need to consider as well during the writing process. Teachers need to teach the process at the beginning before anything else. At third grade, students are beginning to develop their writing.  They use writing to express and tell what they know.  So in order to ensure that teachers develop creative writers, these implications need to be considered by the teachers or coach. Below are implications for teaching the writing process, not the product.

The implications are that students will:

• Examine their own revolving writing or of their classmates. Students decide on their own choice. It forces them to look at word by word while developing their writing.
• Select own subjects or title. It is the responsibility of the students to own and explore their own writing with their own language and uncover the meaning they are trying to convey.
• To develop their writing with their own language. As students come to your classroom, they have their own language developed to use prior to coming to your classroom. Once students are given the opportunity and space, they will embark on serious search for their own text. Even if it means that it will take a while. Some may take a couple of days to begin writing their thoughts in a complete sentences.
• Be encouraged to attempt any form of writing so long as they discover the power of communication as to what he or she trying to say
• To write with creativity and function on a subject in a way that an audience understands what the writer is conveying.
• Do not worry so much about mechanics so his or her language to convey the meaning is not obscured. That should come last. If students worry about the mechanics, it obscures the meaning of what they truly wants to say.
• Be provided a place, perhaps a quiet area in the classroom to think and provide a time to write.
• Be graded on what he or she has produced. More rewarding than grade, publication in the classroom.
• Be supported by teachers. Teachers need to understand that some students will write slower, others may write fast. Either way they have to find their own way to tell the truth, writing to what they really want to convey in their own language.
• Write as an experiment. This sometimes means under no rules, no absolutes, just alternatives to express themselves, to be able to write from their own voice and be heard.

Personal Writing/Personal Narrative 

What is a personal narrative essay? A personal narrative essay is a story you choose to share with readers, for it communicates your understanding of yourself, others, and or society issues political. As people, we remember stories, so our personal narrative essay is a way we can transform an ordinary experience into meaningful commentary that is applicable to a broad audience. What questions can I consider to help me convey my story effectively? A personal narrative essay uses the components of a story: introduction, plot, characters, setting, and conflict if any. It also uses the components of argument, thesis, and conclusion. In a personal narrative essay, we tell our readers a story to make a larger argument. Focusing the readers’ attention on significant, detailed scenes, we develop our argument persuasively through effective storytelling.

An example of a personal experience or personal narrative writing that a teacher or even students can refer to is an essay from The Norton Reader, 14^th edition.[5] There are many wonderful personal experiences with different forms of genre written in the book. It varies in style, topics, and social or political issues.  It is an anthology of essays written well from well-known authors such as Mya Angelou, E.B White, Langston Hughes and many more. It is must have collection of essays to read and encourages one to write a personal narrative. I enjoyed the many essays that we have read together from this textbook. In our seminar, we read an assigned essay, then as a group, we had discussion on the author’s perspective, issues and thoughts focusing on the sentences, words, and expressions. One essay that I truly enjoyed that also could be reference as a sample for teachers is On Dumpster Diving, by Lars Eighner. This essay is written based on the personal experience of Lars Eighner with dumpster diving for trash. The author wrote of his experience with being homeless and finds food in trash bins, or explains how to find food and to eat it safely. He elaborates how it feels to be poor and surviving by doing whatever it takes, while some people may live in wealth. Although those that can afford food still end up trashing what they’d now consider trash, it becomes a value or goods for him. He compares type of foods, or cans to wealth. Lars’s personal experience can be seen as a social issues. His message can be interpreted as finding happiness even if you are poor. The struggle is real but the perception of goods is perceived differently by individuals. Lars Eighner’s essay support the old saying, “Another man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” As we discussed the essay, we focused on perception, analyzed each word or sentences, word choices and discuss what helped the author expressed well to make it a powerful essay.

Students should understand that writing is just more that putting your thoughts on paper; they should actually write by putting their feelings and experiences with well thought out words. Each day, students can practice to get their writing to be the best. Students can better their writing by revisiting, editing to looking for a meaningful writing or essay to capture the audience. One way to make it better is to use words that express with more details than other words used. Using various words to explain or illustrate the writers’ feelings will bring out the expression in a writing. I have also learned of different connotation of writing experiences. I never really paid attention to exactly writing directly about oneself as memoir, or personal experience, autobiography. At third grade, I’d tell the students write your experience or about yourself. I believe to know the connotations of personal writing gives a direction of what one’s writing must consist of.  When writing a personal narrative, there are some differences. Here is a list of the types of writing experiences or expression to convey to an audience that teachers should be familiar as shared in our writing seminar.[6] Writing could be categorized into different connotations of writing even when it relates to oneself in a personal story.

Different Connotations of Writing Experiences

1. Memoir- a French word meaning “memory”. A writing or essay based on someone’s memory of an event that occurred in his or her life.  The memory is factual and holds dear to the heart. 
2. Autobiography- an essay or text that is written of someone’s life.
3. Personal Experiences- a writing or essay on someone’s personal experience that could be inspirational or enlightening.
4. Personal Narrative-a personal writing usually also written as 1^st person writing that expresses one’s life.
5. Personal Essay- an essay that carries the reader through the writer’s experiences or important events.

6 Traits Writing

Tsaile Public School has been utilizing a writing program that has been implemented by teachers’ prior to today. The writing program is called 6 plus 1 traits to Writing by Ruth Culham.[7] These six traits are also important components of writing. The six traits of writing have 6 key characteristics that define quality writing plus one. Plus one is the presentation that has been added not too long ago. It is not necessarily the ‘meat’ of the writing, but the considered as a part of convention as well. These traits are important and should be taught in addition as students develop their writing skills. The traits are:

• Ideas- The focus on the main message of the writer
• Organization—how the writing piece is structured or the components of the writing.
• Voice—what is personal tone or mood of the writer?
• Word Choice—the vocabulary use or selected by a writer to help the writer convey the message in a more meaningful way.
• Sentence Fluency—the rhythm of how the sentences flow. 
• Conventions—the mechanical usage of grammar and rules.
• Presentation—the presentation of the final product.

Ideas

The ideas are the main content of the piece with all the supporting details that enrich the theme or message. The ideas are strong when the message provides clarity. The writer chooses details that are interesting, important, and informative and could be something that he or she already knows or possibly a new learning.

Organization

Organization is the internal structure of a piece of writing, the pattern and sequence. Connections are strong. It closes with a sense of resolution, bringing things to a satisfying closure, answering important questions while still leaving the reader something to think about. When organization is strong, the writing begins meaningfully and creates in the writer a sense of anticipation and engagement.

Voice

Voice is felt by the reader through the author’s words, such as a real person speaking with his or her heart and soul. The writer is seen as real, caring, and very expressive.

Word Choice

Word choice provides rich, colorful, precise language that engages and enlightens the reader with powerful selection of words. It is very descriptive where it enhances the story for clarity. Usage of words choice provides deep vivid images for who is reading the author’s story or essay.

Sentence Fluency

Sentence fluency is the flow of the sentence or language. The sentences could be written using rhythm or patterns. Sentences will vary in length, beginnings, structure, and style. The sentences are well crafted that the reader reads the story with ease.

Conventions

The conventions are where the writer looks at the mechanical correctness of the piece and includes focuses on the five elements: spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar usage, and paragraphing.

Presentation (Plus 1)

Presentation is both visual and textual elements. The writer presents his or her message on paper. Is the writing polished? It must follow the guidelines of presentation. According to 6 traits, they include: Balance of white space with visuals and text, graphics, neatness, handwriting, font selection, borders, and overall appearance.[8]

Reading and Writing

The unit will focus on mainly on composing ideas, word choice and voice for this unit. As students begin to write, another method that will get students to learn to write is to teach it with reading.  The text can be literary or informational text. Zinsser argues that basically students need to write using both type of text.  He continues to argue that writing is simply a non-fiction because everyone’s experiences are real, which makes sense to say that non-fiction texts can be used to write in expressing experiences. I have decided for practice to use several Native American books.  So I am addressing personal narrative stories that provides relevancy to student’s culture. It is both written with the culture of the Dine perspective and the modern society in mind. One book is called Navajos wear Nikes, A Reservation Life by Jim Kristofic. I choose this book because the students can relate to the character who is a boy who moved with his mother to the reservation.  It is written from a first person perspective and uses some rich higher level words for students to replicate they begin to write about themselves. The other book that I chose to use as an anchor to write personal narrative or experiences is Racing the Sun by Paul Pitts.  Both texts provides positive modeling and relevant. I know the students will be very interested in the stories.  The motivation and comprehension of the text will be more positive and enrich because of how they can relate to the characters. Students will participate by analyzing each sentence or phrase. The unit will involve students to collaborate as they discuss their personal story orally in pairs or with a partners. After each paragraph or chapter reading, a transition to writing will be strongly encouraged.  The motive behind the writing activity or workshop is to analyze why a writer uses such terminology and uses words, punctuation marks, and the sentence structure to convey his or her story. Through their writing, the outcome for each writer is to become better in expressing their feelings through use of strong, rich vocabulary words that expresses whom they truly are as if one  has a candid camera and take a vivid picture of the author.