Authentic Writing across the Disciplines Jennifer Rabold ...massreading.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Susan...writing across disciplines. Conceptual Framework. A Framework for Authentic

Authentic Writing across the Disciplines in Secondary School

Find this presentation at http://mraadolescentliteracy.blogspot.com/

Kate FrankelBoston [email protected]

Jennifer RaboldBoston University

Everett Public [email protected]

Susan FieldsBoston University

[email protected]

Poll Everywhere Instructions

Think of a positive experience you had with writing as a child or adolescent, either in or out of school. List some words or phrases that describe that experience.

Website

Respond at PollEv.com/jenniferrabo324

Text messaging

Text JENNIFERRABO324 to 22333 to join the session, then text a response.

Presentation Overview1) What do we know about writing in secondary classrooms?

How has writing in such contexts been conceptualized?2) “Entering the Conversation”: A Framework 3) 2 Illustrations of Authentic Writing4) Implications for Your Own Teaching5) Additional Tools and Resources for Secondary Teachers

Presentation ObjectivesAfter this presentation, you will be able to:

1) Articulate what recent theory and research says about writing in secondary classrooms,

2) Apply a framework for authentic writing to your own past and future writing assignments,

3) Understand how teachers have used the framework to engage students in authentic writing, and

4) Access additional tools and resources for authentic writing across disciplines

Conceptual Framework

A Framework for Authentic Writing

Audience Genre

Purpose Stance

Entering the Conversation

What is Authentic Writing?On Audience…

“In this realm of increasingly pervasive written communication, to whom do we write? How do we know--and, perhaps most important, how do others know--that we are, indeed, writing to and for a particular audience? And, most significant of all in this world of diverse and personal media, why does that audience matter?”

“Audience provides the why of how writers learn to write.”

- Alecia Magnifico, Writing for Whom? Cognition, Motivation, and a Writer’s Audience

What is Authentic Writing?On Genre…

“Genre is a category that describes the relation of the social purpose of text to language structure. It follows that in learning literacy, students need to analyze critically the different social purposes that inform patterns of regularity in language--the whys and the hows of textual conventionality, in other words.”

- Cope & Kalantzis, The Powers of Literacy: A Genre Approach to Teaching Writing

What is Authentic Writing?On Purpose…

“When educators choose situated writing activities that create space for learners to do work that they see as important, often by giving students the opportunity to interact with an external audience or to serve as an authentic audience for their peers, learning can be deeply authentic, social, and experiential.”

- Alecia Magnifico, Writing for Whom? Cognition, Motivation, and a Writer’s Audience

What is Authentic Writing?On Stance…

“Stance...describes how effectively the writing communicates a perspective through an appropriate level of formality, elements of style, and tone appropriate for the audience and purpose.”

- Anne DiPardo and colleagues, Seeing Voices: Assessing Writerly Stance in the NWP Analytic Writing Continuum

To this, we add that stance also attends to how a writer responds to and anticipates the voices of others, how writing is intertextual.

On “Entering the Conversation”“Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.”

- Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form

A Framework for Authentic Writing

Audience Genre

Purpose Stance

Entering the Conversation

Applying the Framework, Part OneThink about a writing assignment that you have used in the past but would like to rethink or revise. Take two minutes to write down your thoughts about this assignment in relation to the five dimensions of the framework. Some questions to consider:

● To whom are your students writing?● In what genre?● For what purpose?● With what style, tone, and level of formality?● Whom do they cite?● What kind of response do they anticipate?

Illustrations of Authentic Writing

Example 1: Editorial submitted to local npr websiteContext: Tutoring Clinic

Assignment: Summer Reading - Fahrenheit 451

Evolution of Purpose/Stance:

● Understanding Mildred/effects of 24-hour screens → ● Considering the modern equivalent (effects of widespread access to the

Internet) →● An argument for how the internet impacts the human mind to be

submitted to local NPR website

Example 1: Submission guidelines● Focus tightly on one issue or idea.

● Express your opinion, and then back it up with facts, research or first-hand experience.

● Please cite your sources with hyperlinks (no footnotes, please) and double-check your facts before sending your submission to us.

● Submissions should answer the following questions: What is my argument/point? Why is this worth reading now — at this moment? Why should people care?

Genre Features Purpose

Audience

Example 1: Instructional supports● Essential Question: What impact does technology have on

the human mind? ● Text Set

○ Excerpts from Book: Is the Internet Changing the Way you Think? ○ Atlantic article: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” ○ New York Times article: “Want to Brainstorm New Ideas?”

● Discussion Web to document thinking● Genre Study

Example 1: Editorial excerptDoes the Internet Truly Leave a Negative Mark on the Human

Mind?Louis Williams

Many sensational news writers blame the internet for their loss of attention, but is this true? This summer, I chose to

read Fahrenheit 451 a book on the sophomore reading list. I have thought about what Bradbury is trying to convey with his

world overly dependant on technology. In the book, technology is used to saturate the populous with constant stimulus to

prevent them from exercising deep thought. Further, the society burns books to keep people from developing a taste for

knowledge. Bradbury’s description seems to hold a grain of truth, which echoes the critics’ commentary on the ill effects of

the internet. However, I believe they are overlooking the vast benefits the technology can provide. The internet on its own

has little or no effect on our minds; it is our own interactions with it that shape both for better or for worse.

Example 2: Genocide Research ProjectContext: 9th grade English class

Assignment:Elie Wiesel wrote Night so that his readers could learn about the worst that human beings are capable of. He wrote about his horrifying experiences in order to prevent something like the holocaust from ever happening again. Sadly, genocides around the world continue to happen. Innocent people are still being killed in large numbers today.

In order to honor Wiesel’s goal, and to prevent genocides from happening, we have to build awareness. Many people simply aren’t aware that these atrocities are still occurring. In order to bring awareness, you will be conducting a research paper on a specific genocide from the list below.

Purpose

Audience

Sense of the ongoing conversation

Genre

Example 2: Instructional Supports● Background Knowledge Building

○ Read Night by Elie Wiesel (Holocaust)○ Read Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick (Cambodian genocide)○ Guest speaker Marcel Uwineza (survivor of Rwandan Genocide)○ Read policy and theory about genocide ○ Wide reading and research on chosen genocide○ Authoritative Research Sites

● Essential Question: Why or how does genocide occur throughout history?

● Direct Instruction and Guide Practice on Skills to carry out a research project

○ Instruction in Finding Credible Sites○ Note-taking, summarizing, paraphrasing,citing, organizing, synthesizing

● Focused Research Questions

Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation“Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said “Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.” This suffering happened in Rwanda Africa where up to a million people died in the hands of the Hutus. The Rwanda genocide is a tragic event that we all need to be aware of because hundred of thousands of innocent people died as a result of of hatred and violence.”

“The Salvadoran Genocide was one of the bloodiest wars in Central America. Although it’s not really known, it was an atrocity that killed a lot of innocent people.”

Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation“Though it is believed that “people are really good at heart,” as Holocaust victim Anne Frank once wrote, many human beings are still capable of doing the extreme to the extent of killing and torturing their own kind in an inhumane way. An example of this cruel act would be the Cambodian Genocide, a very gruesome event that not only devastated the people living in the territory, but those around it as well. It started as an idea but flourished into action, causing many to become traumatized. The Cambodian Genocide is very important to history because millions of people perished and suffered during and after the genocide due to their beliefs, which is something we should learn from to make sure an event like this would no longer appear.”

Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation“Genocides in history mostly occur when a group of people, or even a single person, believe that their specific views on the world are correct. They wish to create ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’ among the people around them by eliminating anyone that does not fit their standard ideals. Genocides leave large amounts of devastation behind. Families are torn apart, countries are destroyed, and some cultures even face the point of extinction. The Cambodian genocide is only one example of how much one person can negatively affect the world on an extremely large scale. One person cannot stop a genocide from happening on their own but if people all around the world work together, we get closer and closer to stopping the mass execution of our own kind.”

Implications for Your Own Teaching

Applying the Framework, Part Two● Return to your notes from earlier this hour and jot down

any additional thoughts that come to mind after hearing about our two illustrations of authentic writing.

● With your partner, join another partner pair and share your ideas and future plans, including any areas that you anticipate you will need to troubleshoot.

● Time permitting, we will ask each small group to share one implication with the whole group.

Back to the Wordle...

What do you notice?

What’s Missing?

Additional Tools for Authentic Writing in the

Disciplines

Online Resources● Letters about Literature: http://read.gov/letters/ ● They say, I say: http://www.theysayiblog.com/ ● This I believe: http://thisibelieve.org/ ● The National Writing Project: https://www.nwp.org/● The New York Times Student Editorial Contest:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/learning/our-fourth-annual-student-editorial-contest-write-about-an-issue-that-matters-to-you.html?_r=0

● The National Council of Teachers of English has many resources for writing teachers, including:

○ Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing: http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/teaching-writing

○ Writing Assessment-A Position Statement: http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment

References● Burke, K. (1973). The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley, CA:

University of California Press.● Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (1993). The powers of literacy: A

genre approach to teaching writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.

● DiPardo, A., Storms, B. A., & Selland, M. (2011). Seeing voices: Assessing writerly stance in the NWP Analytic Writing Continuum. Assessing Writing, 16(3), 170-188.

● Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C. (2014). They say I say: The moves that matter in academic writing. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

● Magnifico, A. M. (2010). Writing for whom? Cognition, motivation, and a writer’s audience. Educational Psychologist, 45(3), 167-184.

Thank You!!