![]() ![]() The middle column of the organizer has a statement that can be either supported or refuted by textual evidence from the story. The handout is simple (and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, it’s literally inches above this sentence.) With the “Eleven” support/refute organizer, students are set up to cite textual evidence. ![]() They are with this “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros lesson plan.Īnd here’s the handout that will make teaching the lesson easy. You mean, middle school students are capable of citing textual evidence and analyzing literature? The rest is often lost, or left to reappear later, hopefully refined.And of course the learning target stays the same: “ I can cite textual evidence to support analysis.” This is true of my writing: I’ll write a page or two until I finally write the sentence that stays. This is true of my teaching: a question that was on the lesson plan in the morning gets deleted by the afternoon, and a better question or activity that popped into my head in the middle of the lesson shows up, this time more refined, in the afternoon. I don’t know what or why I’m writing until I’ve written part of it.” I don’t know what I’m doing until I’ve done part of it. So: “My theory of writing is that often I don’t know the explicit purpose of what and why I’m writing something until I’ve said something about it. “You should be deleting,” I may have intoned again for emphasis. Considering this, along with the nature of revision, I am reminded of something I’ve said to the students to allay their fears around revision-sometimes, if not all the time, you should be deleting before adding. Your thinking refines your teaching refines. To teach one class before another means that, generally, the classes improve as you go. At one point I drafted stories with a character’s Emotions, Values, and Beliefs in mind for structure, a replication of the “What, How, Why” pattern I’ve used with students-what is the character feeling at the core of the conflict, how is it a function of their value system, and why do they hold those beliefs? Now I dive in after I’ve considered their Desires and how to Stall them to apoplexy. It’s hard to discuss a theory of writing without dipping into a theory of thinking-I have thought so long as a teacher. I think it should be mess in the sense of its ambition, its attempt to cover the subject(s), but it shouldn’t devolve into a morass of half-conclusions to be concluded in the Final Draft. I like this too-I do not subscribe to the idea that the first draft should be a mess. He has a term for his compensation: “high first-draft proficiency,” the degree to which he’ll really have to edit his work come submission-time. My friend, who has worked with students in the past as well, dislikes revision. ![]() (Smoking shouldn’t be part of my process, I know-not a habit of the greats to emulate.) I practice it when time allows-is my own procrastination part of my theory of writing, my process? When I take a smoke break between writing sessions, I like to have an idea or piece of writing to loll on. ![]() The process, too, is like a student’s, though perhaps closer to the iterative ideal. As an aspiring writer my theory of writing comes together much like a student’s theory-as a hodgepodge of writing truisms-albeit from better sources that have had the opportunity of time to cut out the cliché dross (“Show, don’t tell.”). ![]()
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