In the past four years of teaching English, the only language skill class that I have (repeatedly) taught is writing. I've taught different types of writing courses, freshman college writing (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, comparison/contrast, definition, etc.), freshman college research (the basics of research writing), advanced composition (creative writing), news writing, and senior project (fourth-year research writing).
I'm not sure if the years of experience teaching writing, or the diverse types of writing courses I have taught would quality me to be an expert in writing. I actually will say that I am not. Though I think I am improving in terms of managing writing courses (e.g. planning lessons, deciding on type of assignment, etc.). Still, knowing how to manage a writing course does not necessarily give me insights to my students' writing processes. Writing teachers typically receive the assignments, or the end-products, which is the written work. This does not provide us with any clue as to how our students went about writing a paragraph, deciding which vocabulary to use, etc.
Typically, at my work place, us writing teachers would lecture our students on the characteristics of a type of writing, with the hopes that they would be able to implement what we have taught them on their own. Unfortunately, my students' low quality of writing prompted me to doubt that they are writing 'properly' in the comfort of their own time/space - I don't know what properly means. Persistent non-performance by my students prompted me to plant a seed of doubt that is till today, growing pretty well. Knowing that action needs to be taken in the classroom - under careful supervision - I decided that I would lessen the lecture time, and instead, turn the classroom into a hands-on writing workshop - where the students will themselves show me how they write. What I thought was a promising solution turned out otherwise. Semester-end evaluations indicated that they would have rather have me lecture.
I still have no idea what my students' writing processes are. Furthermore, I am not sure if knowing how they write would improve my teaching approach.
I, though, am slowly gaining an understanding of how I write. Since embarking on this PhD journey, I have come to realize many academic quirks I have. In terms of research writing, I have noticed that I collect, then dump all the information I obtain from reading into a piece of document; then, I slowly sift through them, categorizing them accordingly; finally, I try to piece them together neatly. I don't know whether this is a good or bad process.
I'm not sure if the years of experience teaching writing, or the diverse types of writing courses I have taught would quality me to be an expert in writing. I actually will say that I am not. Though I think I am improving in terms of managing writing courses (e.g. planning lessons, deciding on type of assignment, etc.). Still, knowing how to manage a writing course does not necessarily give me insights to my students' writing processes. Writing teachers typically receive the assignments, or the end-products, which is the written work. This does not provide us with any clue as to how our students went about writing a paragraph, deciding which vocabulary to use, etc.
Typically, at my work place, us writing teachers would lecture our students on the characteristics of a type of writing, with the hopes that they would be able to implement what we have taught them on their own. Unfortunately, my students' low quality of writing prompted me to doubt that they are writing 'properly' in the comfort of their own time/space - I don't know what properly means. Persistent non-performance by my students prompted me to plant a seed of doubt that is till today, growing pretty well. Knowing that action needs to be taken in the classroom - under careful supervision - I decided that I would lessen the lecture time, and instead, turn the classroom into a hands-on writing workshop - where the students will themselves show me how they write. What I thought was a promising solution turned out otherwise. Semester-end evaluations indicated that they would have rather have me lecture.
I still have no idea what my students' writing processes are. Furthermore, I am not sure if knowing how they write would improve my teaching approach.
I, though, am slowly gaining an understanding of how I write. Since embarking on this PhD journey, I have come to realize many academic quirks I have. In terms of research writing, I have noticed that I collect, then dump all the information I obtain from reading into a piece of document; then, I slowly sift through them, categorizing them accordingly; finally, I try to piece them together neatly. I don't know whether this is a good or bad process.
Comments