Most of the pages on this website deal with issues that are fairly
strightforward: objectives, rubrics, writing patterns, and so on.
I've scarcely mentioned the one factor in teaching that's anything
but straightforward: students. That wasn't an oversight. Students
are as hard to write about as they are to teach!
Below is a list of observations about students that form the philosophy
of education on which this entire website is founded.
Reading these informal jottings together with reading pages on
this site will give you a picture of what my formal philosophy of
education statement would say if I wrote one.
Set reasonable, inflexible standards
Set reasonable performance standards for student writers. Once
you set the standard, do not change it. That means neither lower
nor raise the writing performance standard in mid-course.
Set writing performance standards for the "average kid"
in each class. By "average kid," I don't mean people under
18 with an IQ of 100. (My statistical knowlege is as idiocyncratic
as my philosophy of education.)
Most classes have a core group who usually display about
the same degree of interest, motivation, and effort and
get roughly the same grades. That's what I mean by "average
kid." Usually 80% of my classes are part of that core group.
Don't teach hatred
Don't make writing so stressful and impractical that students learn
to hate it. The work and discipline of learning to write isn't fun,
but that does not mean you have to make it misery.
Beginners need beginner treatment
Most advice about teaching writing given by professional writers
is aimed at intermediate and experienced writers, not beginners.
The beginning writer can't be treated as if he were a professional
writer having a bad day. Beginning expository writers (whether the
beginner is almost 12 or almost ready to retire) need someone to
-
Direct their focus to their objective: an essay developing
a single thesis.
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Specify what they must do every single time they write.
-
Specify an order
in which they must do those essential tasks.
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Teach them how to do the essential tasks.
-
Supervise their practice while they learn how to put
the essential tasks together to produce an acceptable essay.
These five tasks are the core of what the writing teacher does
for the beginning writer.
Students don't mess up deliberately
Students write as well as they can under the circumstances. If
they mess up, there is usually a good reason.
If you want to know why Josh or Caitlin messed up some particular
aspect of their writing, ask them. The most frequent explanations
are:
-
They don't know any better alternative.
-
They know the "rule" but don't understand
or misunderstand what it means. See funny
example.
-
They didn't have time to do better.
-
They lack confidence to try to do better.
- They see no reason to learn the material.
All of those circumstances are within the teacher's control to
a significant degree.
Writers must be competent
My philosophy of education defines the goal of teaching writing
as competence.
Teaching methods must be flexible
Teachers must be ready, willing, and able to use diverse ways of
teaching a diverse group of students.
The most efficient way to teach is to appeal to the students' preferred
ways of learning. Teachers must engage nonverbal students (who
often are the majority in my classes) while simultaneously strengthening
those students' ability to learn verbally.
Allow students to fix mistakes
Students should always have the option of repairing their work
up to the minute they submit it.
Sure, some clowns will mess up all the preliminary planning and
then turn in papers on totally different topics that they got off
the 'net or from their cousin.
Most won't.
Plan for the majority of students in the majority of cases. Deal
with the exceptions as they arise.
Real writers write for outsiders
Writing for one's self or even for close friends and family isn't
real writing — not even if the topic is astrophysics.
