In the reading for this week I want
to bring up the tone that I detected in the Write
Like This article by Gallagher. I found that I was conflicted about what
ideas exactly the author was trying to convey—undoubtedly, I embraced his
stance on showing students how to
become better writers through modeling (Gallagher, 15) and the normalization of
struggle (Gallagher, 16), but he repeats the idea of “the real-world purposes for writing (instead of simply writing to
meet the next school requirement) [where students] begin to internalize the
relevance of writing, and more important, they develop an understanding that writing
is an important skill to carry into adulthood” (Gallagher, 8-9). Upon reading
this passage, I immediately thought to myself just what precisely was implied
by this author by emphasizing real-world purposes
for writing—as a high school teacher (Gallagher, viii), does Gallagher not
believe that the development of strong writing skills would be needed for
success in college in order to obtain a career? Where in most careers, good
writing skills are required in many aspects of daily life, from writing
professional emails and memos, to writing reports and plans. Gallagher
continues a couple of paragraphs after this passage and sarcastically dismisses
the validity of tone and scoffs at it in real-world
writing when he describes a hypothetical casual encounter with a student, years
in the future where the student shares that they still keep a tone journal and
continue to write essays about authors’ tone for all the books they read after
high school (Gallagher, 9). Instead, Gallagher embraces real-world writing as students responding to editorials and writing
blogs. While this sort of writing is absolutely valid and should be encouraged,
I don’t think that it should be the sort of real-world
writing that a language arts teacher should stress as the kind of writing
that students will encounter and should anticipate for the rest of their
out-of-school lives.
I interpreted
Gallagher’s own tone as demeaning and critical of the many elements involved in
and taught in literature and writing. To
continue with Gallagher’s example of tone, I don’t think that the tone an
author employs should ever be dismissed, and I do believe that analysis of tone
should be applied to everything one reads and writes. Author’s write for an
audience and are motivated to write with a goal or purpose in mind—this may not
be quite as relevant in the natural sciences and mathematics, where writing is
rather fact-driven and there is less room for interpretation, but it is absolutely
pertinent to literature we encounter every day in history, economics, newspapers,
novels, magazines, television programming, blogs and movies because the
creators of these items want their audiences to believe their argument or “buy
into” what they are presenting.
Gallagher
emphasizes that he wants his students to work toward becoming real-world
writers, but that students make no distinction between the various purposes
that drive real-world writing (Gallagher, 9). He goes about this dilemma by
presenting his students with lists of purposes which drive writing, which
include informing/explaining, inquiry/exploration and analysis/interpretation,
among others, which are excellent, but fall short when he presents very un-academic,
rather buzzfeed-esque topics (sports, book reviews, movie trends) found in newspapers
he brings to class as demonstrations of real-world
writing (Figure 1.2, page 11). These are relevant personal-interest ideas to
inspire personal motivations for
writing, but these purposes for writing do not prepare students for college or
career writing and rather omit the idea of college all together, which actually
seems very dangerous at a high-school level. I believe that Gallagher shares
some excellent insight as to the need for mentors and models for students as
well as the break-down of the processes and components for good writing.
However, we must not be afraid to challenge students while giving them the
skills for writing professionally, academically and within the disciplines
because once they gain the tools for comprehension of these advanced
literatures, then they will be able to put forth their own thoughts on what
they read and connect ideas which they can then share.
Hello Margaret,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post focused on Write Like This by Gallagher. Gallagher brought forth some wonderful points especially when discussing writing in today's world. He discussed how crucial writing has become in today's society by stating, " Writing has become foundational to finding meaningful employment across much of the workforce" (Gallagher, 3). He also discusses that writing has never been more important in our competitive, technology-driven, global economy (Gallagher, 4). It is no question that writing is a necessity for our students. It is important for us to realize that our students will have to write in their everyday life, and we as teachers need to provide them with proper modeling, strategies, etc. to help them develop their writing skills.
I do agree that real-world purposes for writing helps show the relevance of writing and develop an understanding that writing is an important skill that you carry with you for the rest of your life (Gallagher 9). However, I do see where you are coming from and do agree that the tone of the author should not be dismissed. Analyzing and discussing the tone of an author helps students become critical thinkers, readers, and writers. Isn't that what we are trying to accomplish? We want our students to be consumers of the text, not just believe everything they read or see.
Overall, great post!
I agree with you about Gallagher's tone in his piece. To me, it seems as though he is demeaning writers who take the time to analyze an author's tone because it does add to their writing. It seems like he sees the one scenario of a student using the skills she learned from him as being wasted because of how she utilizes them. Rather than using the skills for connecting to big time writing sources, such as the Los Angeles Times, she uses the skills for analyzing books she reads. To me, I would be proud either way because it shows my teaching actually made a difference in a student's life. As he states, "If I want my students to work toward becoming real-world writers, I need to shift the focus of my writing instruction toward real-world writing purposes" (Gallagher, 2011). Based on his reactions to his hypothetical scenarios, he does seem to view responding to blogs and news sources as real-world writing. The question is why? I think a former student using skills I taught to actually analyze a text is real-world writing because I'm sure she uses that skill with other areas of her life, including her job, as she uses the skill to analyze and listen to her coworkers and offer responses based on her listening and analyzation. I definitely agree with you on the fact that as teachers we have to challenge our students in order to give them the necessary skills for future writing whether it is future classes, online blog responses, or a career. This skill will reach further than writing in school because it is a lifelong skill that gives student the ability to as you said "...be able to put forth their own thoughts on what they read and connect ideas which they can then share" with anyone.
ReplyDeleteHello Margret,
ReplyDeleteI really did enjoy your blog and it made me think more about the idea of real-world writing. Originally i agreed with the idea of more focus on real-world writing because yes, it is more likley we would read articles in newspapers then we would classic stories in our furture careers. But that does not mean that the classic novels that we read in most english classes aren't necesary, they help students think critically and analyze what the story is trying to say. I feel like real-world writing should be included more like a connecton for the students who always ask "why do we need to know this?". It would be a way for us, as teachers, to show that the things we do with the novles we read can be implimented in so much more than the classroom setting and the importance of how we can use it ouside of the classroom. Over all great blog post!
I really appreciate your post for this week’s reading. Since we have known that “writing well is not just an option for young people—it is a necessity” (Graham & Perin, 2007), as educators we need to help students enhance their writing skills along with reading skills. I agree with your opinion that being a real-world writer is important for students. Living in such a modern society, we have to write a lot of things to record the life and invaluable memories on blogs, diaries, tweets, and other social media, to finish the homework assignment, to publish books to share knowledge, etc. However, even we know writing’s importance, the research also shows that low percentage of proficiency writers among students. To improve students’ writing skills, we teachers should offer the writing instructions for adolescents, such as the 11 key elements of effective adolescent writing instruction listed in "Writing Next" by Graham and Perrin. Even though in math there is little writing, the format to solve problems and the basic proof writing skills should be taught to students.
ReplyDelete