Memo 2

Following Dr. Cook’s advice, I took out RIC’s copy of Nancie Atwell’s book, In the Middle: New Understandings about Writing, Reading, and Learning. 

            Nancie Atwell is a precursor to Kelly Gallagher, and together I noticed many similarities between the two. The first bit of info I read in the book is about how Atwell writes actively in front of her class. She does this to be a role model to her middle school students. By doing this, she is saying “Here’s an adult who writes” (Atwell 331). Like Gallagher, Atwell will write in front of her students as well as alongside her students. Atwell calls this writing alongside, “Parallel writing” (352). She does this to show them the art of her writing and how she problem solves and brainstorms. I noticed that Atwell brings in a lot more pre written pieces to her classroom and has her students work through it and analyze what is working and what isn’t. She calls this student collaboration, where she opens up the piece to the class and has them see what she is doing well and why they think so.

            One thing that Atwell comments on explicitly that Gallagher doesn’t is that at the end of the lesson everyone will learn something and most the times something different. Her teaching modeling helps each student in the various stages of writing they are at. This is something very real, considering that not every student in a real life classroom is on the same level of progress and understanding. Atwell explained that some students learned to pace themselves while others mastered how to properly indent paragraphs and transition. This reminds me of Vygotsky and scaffolding. Each time that Atwell does a writing lesson with her students, they are scaffolding and learning/ perfecting different techniques. This is where real learning is happening.

            Another source I read was an article by Toby Fulwiler called “Writing Back and Forth: Class Letters.” In this piece, Fulwiler tells us about how he writes his class letters each week and has them each write one back. He explains that writing letter works on many different levels. On the most basic level, students are writing weekly, and writing low stakes writing (or as Peter Elbow calls it “No-Big-Deal Writing”), where they can explore and play with writing without the fear of being judged or graded.  He explains that when people write letters they all write in such a way where their idea or words make sense and can be properly conveyed. Because students know someone will directly read their writing and respond they just to write better than they normally would. After many weeks of this practice, that kind of writing becomes the norm. . Fulwiler explains that “Letters lower your expectations. (It’s just a letter.) … There can always be another letter- better, more thoughtful, more complete, literate, clever, or profound. Letters leave doors open” (Fulwiler 22).  Letters are a way to give students room to play around with language and style and write with little restriction.

            Much like our class blog, as well as our personal I-Search blogs, letters help create a classroom community. This community becomes a safe space where students start to feel connect and that they matter to the professor by receiving an “Honest-to-goodness reply” (Fulwiler 21).  Students feeling like they matter promotes a better learning environment. They start to feel as though they have a personal stake in the class, which doubles as an enforcer to attend class, read material, and be engaged. 

            Overall I learned from these readings that modeling can come in different forms other than being up in front of the class. It can come from personal letter writing or note writing. Such writing creates classroom community besides simply putting yourself out there and writing in front of a class. Letter writing becomes low stakes writing, and low stakes writing is practice writing. The low stakes writing and in class collaboration on reviewing teacher written pieces can scaffold students understanding of what works in writing and what doesn’t while they themselves craft their own style and skills. For future research I plan on looking up pieces by Peter Elbow, possibly the piece cited by Fulwiler called, Writing With Power as well as some work by Tom Newkirk. I feel as though it would also be good to look up the Expressivist Movement too.