Erin's+Valid+Assessment

A Seismic Change in the Field of Composition Studies: An Inquiry Stance

I have been thinking for a while now that I would very much like to participate in a summer writing project. "Beyond Strategies: Teacher Practice, Writing Process, and the Influence of Inquiry" by Anne Whitney, Sheridan Blau, Alison Bright, Rosemary Cable,Tim Dewar, Jason Levin, Roseanne Macias, and Paul Rogers has sealed that wish into a professional goal. The lengthy article began by discussing how the study of rhetoric and composition has changed in the past thirty-odd years. I was immediately interested, as I have purposefully chosen to earn my masters in English rhetoric and composition instead of creative writing, which I feel would be less beneficial to the majority of my high school English students.

The comparison of the two teachers, Ms. Barrera, who had participated in a writers' project, and Ms. Gonzales, who had not, is very telling. Initially, I was worried that I would not gain much insight from the article, as the demographic for the study is the sixth grade. I, however, was pleasantly surprised, and have outlined a new way of looking at essay composition in my eleventh-grade English classroom. The main difference, to severely summarize, is this: Ms. Gonzales aimed "to produce more mature writing by self-correcting, and to use and know rubrics...She focused her instruction around the state standards" (Whitney 212). This reminded me of myself, even though I had hoped to find myself in the more positive portrayal. In contrast, Ms. Barrera wanted her students "'to have a basic understanding of what the traits of good writing are' and to 'build an author with them'...[and] to be successful in academic writing" (Whitney 216). Throughout the article, the intentional discussion that occurs in Barrera's classroom spoke directly to a deficit in my classroom. I have several ideas that have been mentioned, or are figuratively hanging on my classroom walls. Alas, just like Gonzales, I have failed to explicitly discuss and thus help my students to utilize the helpful strategies. The myriad of graphic organizers that Gonzales provides yet fails to discuss also dismayed me, as it is a clear picture of another of my short comings.

Thankfully, the article gives me hope. I now have a positive and a negative (my teaching included) example on how to help my students understand that "Writing affects every area of our life" (Whitney 216). I can now see how participating in a summer writers' project can transform the teaching of writing in my English classroom. I need to overhaul the process by which I teach writing. I need to start with how I begin each assignment. Barrera initiates each new assignment with a valid purpose ("finding information and sharing it with other people" (Whitney 217).) and helps the students work towards satisfying "the specific skills and standards...as features of the writing task rather than as the purpose of the activity" (Whitney 218). Barrera's discussion, real-world emphasis, and process-focused approach were very instructive to me. I lack some of her abilities to help students develop "moves a writer might make rather than rigid sets of procedures, stages of the development of writing" (Whitney 223). I am very pleased to have been assigned such a helpful article.