BOOK REVIEW OF
“INSIDE OUT, STRATEGIES FOR TEACHING WRITING”
Chapter 1: Effective Teacher of Writing
* Writing is social, best is collaborative/communal setting.
* Practice, practice, coach, coach, talk, share, talk.
* Focus on FLUENCY FIRST, not the forms.
* Emphasize process so do not score drafts, instead offer
strategies for improving content.
* Have many short writing assignments and few large ones.
* Growth takes time.
* Turn beliefs into action:
* TEACH WRITING AS A CRAFT.
* Student-developed rubrics are good.
Chapter 11: Writing Poetry
As a former poetry resource-teacher, I grade this chapter a
“C-“ because it does not dissect the essential elements of what makes a poem: metaphor, rhythm . . . .! Also, the authors list simplistic poem forms (name acrostic,
cinquains, etc.) – poetry has been dumbed down again. They misspelled Gary Snyder’s name! Sacreligious!
AGREE with their final thoughts:
1) Read poetry aloud a lot,
2) Use your favorite sources for poetry
DO NOT AGREE with:
3) Use the simple List Poem (No! No!)
4) Cluster a Poem (Please NO!)
Recommend they revise this chapter and focus on metaphors, similes, other figures of speech instead of fixed forms, rhythm, feeling, and sound. Agree that “Most teachers are intimidated about writing poetry, although they teach it effectively as literature” (pg. 150). Why? I surmise that a lot of teachers
have not played enough with writing their own poems. Once teachers know the craft and elements needed to compose their own poems, they can effectively teach it.
Poetry “prompts” suggested were: name acrostics with simple one word lines or expanded to “ministory”, prose converted into poem form, paraphrased
poems, found poems, Dada (nonsense) poems, class or collaborative poems, and
“Being the Thing” poems where students write as if they were something, “If I was
wind . . .” (which is the x is y metaphor form).
Chapter 13: Crafting Essays
“Contemporary Essay” is the new label for “Expository Essay” because it is taking on new forms (memoir, monologue), beyond the traditional five paragraph format. According to the authors, essay topics cannot be “canned” – made up by the teacher; they need to be generated by the students about things they really care about. The contemporary essay form should be anything but the five paragraph! “Too often, we settle for idealess and voiceless papers with impeccable structure.”
We teachers have a hard enough time getting them to write in paragraphs; some structure is needed for any form of writing. The authors of this book have a bias against six-traits writing because they think it is institutionalized and stifling. I argue that our students need to start somewhere in their writing,
then experiment with other forms. The standard five-paragraph essay is
a good starting form.
Content over form should be foremost. Brainstorming in a group, creating
scenarios, guided thinking using higher-order-thinking questioning, storyboarding,
and an ocean of discussion should engage students to think before they select a
form to write it in. Once students have discovered a topic that ignites their curiosity, a variety of forms should be introduced. This section was a smorgasbord of delicious suggestions: critiques/reviews, editorials, investigative reports, anthropological case studies, problem/solution pieces, etc. They’ve also introduced comparison-contrast memoir, action research, writing about an author, and composing a multi-genre paper. I definitely will tag this part of the book to offer
to my middle school students.
VOICE: “Students who have found a voice in journals, in stories, or in poetry suddenly lose confidence when they undertake the dreaded essay” (pg. 196) WHAT IS WRONG WITH THAT? The authors recommend, “. . . we should employ the same strategies we use when we teach students to write poems, short stories, or chapters for a book: (pg. 197). Totally agree with this.
Chapter 14: Grading and Evaluating
Love the opening saying, “Assessment should begin conversations about
performance, not end them.” The authors suggest: 1) grading should be deemphasized, 2) drafts should not be graded, 3) developing grading with
students, 4) students grade and evaluate also, 5) GRADE THE PROCESS AS
WELL AS THE PRODUCT, 6) focus grading (commas one week, capitalization
another week), 7) give ideas, inventiveness, and content. Especially love the
part about grading the process, not just the product.
“We honestly believe that the development of fluency through
extensive writing practice brings with it growing control of the language.” In
other words, get our students to practice and write very frequently. Also,
give students the option to rewrite/revise their piece for their final grade.
Other ways to grade: non-grading approach (not used in public schools),
a performance system where students are graded by just turning in a piece,
not necessarily on the quality of their work (nope, will not use this!), a holistic
grading strategy (authors like this approach) where student writing is scored
with an efficient guide that identifies high, middle, and low. Other grading
approaches include: roundtable holistic where students are trained to score
each others’ work (works well with AP students), portfolios (performance,
showcase/final products, process portfolios that include drafts, analytic
scales: Diederich (50% content & organization, 30% style, and 20% mechanics)
and 6-Trait scale.
Six-Traits scale: According to the authors, “The disadvantages of this
particular scale, to us, outweigh its advantages” (pg. 230). The scale itself has
become institutionalized, “as though it were a genre of writing, not an evaluation
scale.” A second disadvantage is the 6-traits scale is used to evaluate all types
of writing. The authors prefer that various forms have different rubrics.
Another disadvantage is the scale is used to evaluate the high-stakes tests,
according to the authors.
“BY FAR THE MOST EFFECTIVE RATING GUIDES FOR STUDENT
PAPERS ARE THE ONES TEACHERS THEMSELVES DEVISE” (pg. 231). I
wholeheartedly agree. The authors have reproducible scoring guides on
pages 232-233 for memoir and an opinion paper. I agree with their criteria
in these papers, especially the section in the opinion paper that focuses
on language, “Weasel words. Use more forceful language.” I will
probably replace “weasel” with “mongoose” just for fun.
Peer evaluation could be controversial, but is very good for students
because the process teaches them how to improve their writing. It also
allows for them to become responsible by being careful critics. Some ways
to evaluate include: cooperative grading where the teacher and two students
picked at random score the work, round robins (three members), and
Peter Elbow’s “center of gravity” with five members. In summary, grading
and evaluating should be done collaboratively, NOT BY THE SINGLE
TEACHER.
Chapter 16: Resources
This section is very well organized by questions:
Should I set up a writing workshop & how do I do it?
How do I encourage kids to begin writing?
How do I help my students thin and write about important topics?
How do I help my students sustain their writing?
How do I confer with individual writers?
How can I help my students write with clarity?
What is memoir?
Research with voice and passion?
I-Search paper?
Voice Lessons in persuasive writing.
How do I teach grammar?
How respond to and evaluate student writing?
Writing theory?
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