Quickwrite for 3/14

Answer one of the questions below (from Sarah!) on your blog and then write comments to others:

1. Michelle Kenney’s article “The Politics of the Paragraph” discusses the problems with teaching the five-paragraph essay. She disputes one common thought on formulaic writing, that writing formulas are like training wheels, and you need to “know the rules in order to break them.” In your own experience in high school, did you learn the five paragraph formula or other formulaic writing? Did you find that it helped you become a better writer? If you were taught formulaic writing in school, did you have any issues when you started writing on the college level? Or did you find that formulaic writing helped prepared you for college writing?    

2. Of the many strategies that Gallagher introduces in chapters 2 and 3, they all are centered around the ideas of (a) giving plenty of time for students to practice writing and (b) modeling writing practices as a teacher. When do you think each can be used most effectively in your classroom? Can you think of a time where you found success after plenty of practice time? What about a time when you learned the best by watching someone model the activity?

3. Gallagher talks about the need to foster deep, meaningful writing as well as the ability to have students write on demand. It is clear that students will need experience writing in both ways. Do you think these are completely separate practices, or does learning to write proficiently in one help with the other? Have you ever had to write on-demand outside of testing situations? If so, can you describe what that was like? If not, do you think there’s inherent value in teaching students to write on-demand if they will not have to do it outside of a school testing situation?