Response to Chapter 7 & 8 of A Writer Teaches Writing, by Donald Murray

Chapter seven in A Writer Teaches Writing is about the response theory of teaching and the challenge of diversity in the classroom. According to Murray in the composition class, “diversity becomes an advantage, where individuality is nurtured, developed, and given expression.” (pg. 131). There are many forms of diversity that create challenges in the classroom. They include cultural diversity, economic diversity, the diversity of experiences, educational diversity, sexual diversity, and racial diversity. While these all effect how someone writes, there are also writing specific diversities such as diversity of goals, diversity of writing tasks, diversity of standards, diversity of cognitive skills, diversity of personality, and diversity of voices.

            Teachers should learn not to fear diversity, but to glory in it and take advantage of it. The first step for a teacher is to accept his or her own diversity. If you are going to glory in your students’ diversity, then you have to glory in your own as well. It is important to recognize your diversity, understand it, and use it in your writing. I think this is something most people do, but in an unconscious way. I think my writing would benefit greatly from doing this in an intentional way. The next step for a teacher is to accept their students’ diversities. This takes time for the teacher to learn about a child’s background, where they are in their writing skills, and where they want to go. Although this is time consuming, it will be greatly beneficial for both the teacher and student.

            The response theory of teaching can be used to use diversity in the classroom as an advantage. The response theory builds on the observation of learning from infancy. It is a trial and error process in which we learn from our own successes and failures. When a classroom is diverse it enhances this process because it gives a larger pool of failures and successes to learn from. In this way, teachers should celebrate diversity because it can help both the teacher and students to learn more from others’ experiences.

            Chapter 8 of A Writer Teaches Writing discusses conference teaching. Murray states that conference teaching is the most practical and effective form of teaching composition. The one-on-one situation allows the teacher to focus on the individual, his or her strengths, weaknesses, individual voice, and what needs to be worked on specifically in his or her writing. This may be very difficult to create this form of teaching when dealing with a large classroom, but it is imperative to work conferences into curriculum.

            Murray outlines a basic conference pattern that should be used each time, as it is beneficial for the student and teacher to have a familiar and predictable pattern for the conferences. While any pattern can be used, it is important to keep the pattern the same. The one Murray lays out is 1) the student comments on their draft. 2) The teacher reviews the draft. 3) The teacher responds to the writer’s comments. 4) The student responds to the teacher’s comments. The purpose of this pattern is to teach students to read their own drafts effectively and objectively in order to see where they can improve. The teacher is not their to rip the paper apart, or to do all the revision work. Instead the teacher is there as a guide and resource for the student as they revise. This is never how I viewed conferences as a student, but I think I would have been much more receptive and gotten more out of the conference if this was the teacher’s obvious objective. 

Teaching Grammar in Context, by Constance Weaver Chapter 6 response

It is agreed that writers need ways to revise sentences, make them more effective, and edit grammar, punctuation, and usage. This chapter looks at teaching and learning these methods through the cognitive learning theory. One way to teach grammar is through mini-lessons that focus on one concept at a time and are based on cognitive and constructive principles of learning.

            Basically, a mini-lesson is a short or brief explanation of something that will be helpful to students. There are several characteristics that define these mini-lessons. Firstly, these usually take no more than five to ten minutes. The teacher explains the theory directly; they are simply offering the students tips. These lessons can be taught to the whole class, or to small groups of students who will especially benefit from the tips, or to students one-on-one. Another key characteristic of mini-lessons are that students are not given follow-up assignments after the lessons, but instead are expected to incorporate what they learned into their own writing. It is up to the teacher to decide when and what mini-lessons are needed, and for whom. I think this concept of mini-lessons is a great way to teach grammar. It eliminates the endless busy work that characterized my experience with learning grammar. It teaches students concepts in short dosages, which is easier to learn and apply. They then are applied directly to the students writing, instead of endless worksheets. I think this will make teaching grammar much more effective and will increase students’ enjoyment of it.

            Weaver also listed some interesting cognitive and constructive principles of learning. The first is that learning is not the mastery of isolated facts, but instead the construction of concepts. Learning is not linear, even though teaching often is. Learners must construct concepts themselves, which involves formulating hypotheses, testing them, and revising them based on feedback. Learning occurs best when students feel that it is personal and natural. A great deal of the learning process occurs not from instruction, but through observation. I think that these concepts should be remembered and applied in schools today, and we would probably see large changes and improvements in school systems.  

Teaching Grammar in Context, by Constance Weaver Chapter 4 response

In chapter four of Teaching Grammar in Context, Constance Weaver discusses moving away from the concept that departures from the adult standards in children’s writings are errors. Instead, in the light of the fact that children learn the structure of language through their own discovery rather than through direct instruction, these “errors” should be seen as children forming and testing their own hypothesis on language, which is a step in the learning process. It is important to allow children to test the theories that they have formed and learn in that way, as well as through direct instruction. I think this shows a large issue with how grammar is taught. My school used a system called Shirley English. This consisted of a workbook with a great amount of already formed sentences that we were required to label. I think it is much more important to first teach and allow students to create their own sentences. I think even after kids have gotten the basic structure down, teachers should still limit labeling, and promote students creating their own work, as the goal of grammar is primarily to teach the students how to use it correctly, more than to simply recognize correct grammar.  

            Weaver continues to describe the importance of errors as a component of growth.  A few things to remember about the learning process are that people do not learn something all at once. A child may be learning what verbs are, but still not yet understand how to use tense. Another important thing to remember is that something a child has already learned may not be applied to their work as they learn something else. A child may have figured out how to use past tense, but as they learn future tense, they may forget to apply past tense to other sentences. Another thing to think about is that children can learn through generalizations, even if it sometimes leads to some errors. You may teach a child that past tense verbs end in –ed. This works well for many verbs, but a child may then change go to goed instead if went. This will result in a couple of errors in exceptions, but it leads to the child grasping the general rule. The exceptions can be taught after the general rule is grasped. If a child is not using some errors, than they are also probably not trying or learning.

            An important thing to remember is that errors are also a natural result of instruction. Errors are not necessarily a sign of poor teaching. They are signs that the learning process is occurring. The issue comes if the instructor does not see a development in the errors.  The first step in the development is that errors become more sophisticated errors, even if still errors. This shows that the child’s thought process on the topic is developing. The goal is obviously to eventually eliminate the errors, because the students has completed the learning process and figured out the correct way of doing something. This shows the importance for teachers to change their view of what an error is. It is about welcoming and taming errors gradually, rather than slaying them. 

Teaching Grammar in Context, by Constance Weaver Chapter 2 response

            Chapter two of Teaching Grammar in Context, by Constance Weaver discusses the reasons for, and arguments against, teaching “traditional” or “formal” grammar. One of the reasons for teaching grammar that Weaver mentioned was that grammar is “intrinsically interesting and worthy of study” (pg. 8). However, as Weaver pointed out, and I completely agree, grammar books and most lesson plans do not make grammar at all interesting. I used to dread grammar lessons in school. I think one of the greatest challenges for a writing teacher, as well as one of the most important, is making grammar interesting for students. If a student dreads grammar, then it will make it difficult for them to truly enjoy writing.

            Weaver then recounts some research in teaching grammar that proved some interesting things. A study done throughout the 1950s and ‘60s proved that teaching formal grammar apparently did not help students “develop mental discipline, master another language,” or significantly enable them to “writer ‘correct’ English, or even recognize it.” (pg. 10). This of course begs the question, then why is it still taught? Another study by Elley done in New Zealand in 1976 looked at the difference between students taught formal grammar and a transformational group, which focused on explaining the rules of grammar that a speaker naturally uses. At the end of three years, both groups were tested. There were no significant differences in their results. The researchers concluded that a transformational grammar study was no more effective than the formal study.

            After describing the research, Weaver describes several reasons why teachers continue to teach grammar. Sometimes the teachers do not know about the research, or believe the research. Others may believe that grammar is interesting and useful in and of itself. They assume that to be a good reader and writer, a student must know grammar rules consciously. However, toddlers pick up most basic grammar rules without ever having to be taught. Some teachers teach grammar solely because it is required by the school system, or because it is just simpler than trying to find another way.

            Weaver points out a very important thing for teachers to realize, and something that has frustrated me for years. “Students can learn and apply many grammatical concepts without learning to analyze and label the parts of speech” (25). This does not solve the problem of teaching grammar, but acknowledging it would definitely cut down and focus a teacher’s task of teaching grammar. Weaver gives a few alternatives to the teaching of formal grammar, which are interesting to consider. A few that I found interesting and possibly helpful are restricting the teaching of grammar to elective classes or units, promote teaching grammar through reading, emphasize producing effective sentences rather than analyzing them, and explaining grammar through normal language and examples rather than a bombardment of grammatical terms. I think all of these would be helpful in teaching grammar today, and should all be considered by those who teach or will teach grammar. 

Response to Chapter 6 of A Writer Teaches Writing, by Donald Murray

In Chapter 6 of A Writer Teaches Writing Murray discusses activities and environments that invite writing. Teachers must continually invite students into writing. Writing should be a surprise, not only for the student, but also for the teacher. It is important that teachers are willing to diverge from the lesson plan when great discussion results from great writing. It is okay if the teacher doesn’t have all the answers; it gives the students and teacher a chance to learn together, a great benefit of writing.

            Murray recommends some of his own activities, as well as guidelines for teachers to create their own. The activities should be fun, and the students should know that it is okay if the activity is not successful. The activity is supposed to offer the students a writing tool, but not all writing tools may be beneficial for all students. For this reason, the activity should not be expected for every project, and it should not be part of the assignment. It will also be helpful for the students if the teacher does the activity on the board as an example and to show its usefulness. A few helpful activities that Murray suggests that I especially like are recall, empathy, and the trail. Recall asks students to look back on one of the most emotional experiences of their life and list in one or two words each as many specific details as they can remember. This exercise can be broken down in many ways: senses, emotional importance, chronologically, and so on. Empathy can also be done in several ways. In this activity, students are asked to think of someone as different from themselves as possible, and describe the world from that person’s point of view. They could also look at some kind of current issue and describe it from the exact opposite view of their own. This allows students to practice viewing the world from multiple views, which is helpful when writing several characters. I found the trail activity especially interesting. Students start by putting a few words at the bottom of the page as a reminder or note of the ending they plan to use. Next, have students do the same with the beginning, and then have the students write two to five points that will get the reader from the beginning to end. Finally, have the students write the questions that the reader will have to have answered to get the reader clearly from start to end. This provides a quick and easy outline for the students’ projects.

            Just as important as helpful activities to inviting writing is creating an inviting environment. Murray also gives helpful tips for this. Class size is very important. Too large of a class can be hard to work with, but a composition class can be too small as well. There needs to be a large enough class to have enough critical mass for good discussion. Murray is writing for college level instruction where professors can have control over their class size. Many middle school and high school teachers don’t have this option. In this case, I think it is beneficial to break students into small groups for certain activities to get that smaller class feel. The set up of the classroom is also important. The ideal set up would be to set up the desks or tables in a circle or square with all members of the class around the outsides. This invites equal and safe conversation. Everyone can see everyone else, and the teacher becomes a learner like the students. Any other ideas to make the classroom as safe and comfortable as possible will be beneficial for the students and the teachers, and invite surprising writing and conversation.