Say/Do Artifact #8

Say/Do Artifact #8

Reading Like a Writer

Calkins, Lucy, Mary Ehrenworth, and Christopher Lehman. Pathways to the Common Core: Accelerating Achievement. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2012. Print.

Daniels, Harvey, and Nancy Steineke. Mini-lessons for Literature Circles. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004. Print.

Ray, Katie Wood. Excerpts from Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary

 Classroom (1999, NCTE). Print.

“Say”

In Wondrous Words, Ray argues that model texts, aside modeling the process of “reading like a writer”, are integral to teaching students how to write. The first chapter of Wondrous Words demonstrates the importance of exposing students to well-crafted mentor texts. There is a large disparity between Justin’s “Something Dead” and Kyle’s poem to his mother. In the former, the student was inspired by a poem with an unusual structure. He was motivated to emulate the format, using his own ideas. On the other hand, Kyle did not have such a model to work from; he defaulted to a popular, worn framing line. Indeed, when Ray introduced an appropriate model text, Kyle was able to more adequately express himself, through a new structure. In order to “read like a writer”, we must first learn to write from writers.

            However, we cannot show students well-crafted texts, and then simply rely on them intuitively separating craft from content. Teachers should identify specific strategies that writers employ in their works, so that students can understand it. Common Core Standards “ask readers to investigate the effect of authors’ decisions – about language, structure, point of view, voice, style – on the meaning of texts” (CC). There is a good idea for a lesson in Mini-Lessons for Literature Circles that has students work in groups, to determine what writing strategies authors employ in shared passages. The authors also advise teachers to perform read-alouds, as these can intrigue students.

Ray offers many examples of writing strategies, including sentence fragments, close echoes, and intentional vagueness. She also provides some good texts to demonstrate these strategies with. However, she notes that students should also search for writing strategies themselves. The author later points out that this sort of teaching should be done consistently, so that students can become comfortable with “reading like a writer”. Merely having students emulate structures is inadequate. As Beers points out, comprehension is a “process” – not a “product”. In the context of writing, we need to teach students specific writing skills.

“Do”

For my “Do”, I’ve put together 5 short stories/poems that I believe serve as good model texts. With each text, I have a link to the work, as well as a couple of the writing strategies that I would help students to identify.

-          “The Model Millionare” by Oscar Wilde -
http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ModMil.shtml

            In this short story, the speaker takes a very conversational tone with the audience. He makes exclamations, asks rhetorical questions, and uses unconventional structure. Another strategy that the writer uses is to betray audience expectations. Wilde writes in a deliberately contrarian manner, which can really grab attention (for example: “Trevor was a painter. Indeed, few people could escape that nowadays. But he was also an artist, and artists are rather rare.”).

-          “Acquainted with the Night” by Robert Frost –

http://www.internal.org/Robert_Frost/Acquainted_with_the_Night

            In this poem, Frost makes use of repetition and metaphor. He also uses an anecdote to convey larger themes: “I have passed by the watchman on his beat/ And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain”.

-          “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce

http://fiction.eserver.org/short/occurrence_at_owl_creek.html

            Bierce often uses flashbacks in his work. This short story is a great example of how a non-chronological approach to storytelling can be effective. Another strategy that he employs is the use of an unreliable narrator.

-          “A Day in the Life” by The Beatles -

http://www.lyricstime.com/beatles-a-day-in-the-life-lyrics.html (beware pop-ups!)

            In this song, there are two distinct speakers. The manner in which these two at-first seemingly unrelated narratives interweave is interesting. The lyric writers also change meaning in a stanza through the stanza’s final line, which has a powerful impact (example: “I saw a film today/ The English Army had just won the war/ A crowd of people turned away/ But I just had to look/ Having read the book”).

-          “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe –

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/poe/telltale.html

            This short story also takes use of an unreliable narrator. Poe uses a very unconventional writing style to convey tension.