Voice and Research Writing

There is an expected research paper voice and while the mode is driven by organization, voice still plays a part in this form of writing.

I'd describe the desired voice in this mode as; authoritative. Other descriptors would be strong, confident, and understanding. Lovitts 2007 p 36

It comes down to understanding the audience for the writing. There is a very clear and defined audience for research papers: other professionals or academics. Knowing the audience helps a student writer determine the voice (once they have the concept of voice in place).

You can help your students understand voice as a concept, and your expectations for a 'research voice' by using contrasting examples. (Here's where a search for appropriate mentor texts will help.)

For instance, you could provide strong and week thesis statements.

Also find or create contrasting examples. Demonstrate overly casual, or insecure voice, and contrast it with confident (fact supported) academic voice.

On one hand, you have an example of clear well supported, and authoritative writing.

Contrast this with excessively elaborate, vague and uncertain writing.

Examples of students attempting to hide a lack of understanding and content with elaborate long winded and confusing sentences could go a long way toward helping define the concept of ' research voice '

This reinforces the need to tune the writing to the audience.

You could also contrast the research piece with an expository piece to show differences in voice based on mode of writing.

While the voice of a research report is more constrained, it's there. By helping your students learn to recognize voice you clarify the intent of the writing and help build the concept.

Dennis/San Diego

reference:

Lovitts, B. E. 2007 Making the implicit explicit: creating performance expectations for the dissertation. Virginia, Stylus Publishing

Tired of Being a Red Ink Slave to Corrections?

I'm delighted to announce my latest article is now on The Writing Teacher: Tired of Being a Red Ink Slave to Corrections? This article is based on a lecture from my course, Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits.

As part of this publication, The Writing Teacher is sponsoring a Free Webinar on June 2, 2009 11:00 am PDT. I'll be online live talking about how editing fits in the writing process; thanks to Wimba and Learning Express e-folio.

Here's the teaser:

Are you burning yourself out offering comments that are ignored? Are you a red-ink slave spoon-feeding your students doses of correctness? The Editing Not Correcting Webinar will help you shift the burden of correcting conventions to where it belongs: on the student. Shift your thinking and help them learn to become editors and assessors of their own writing.

I hope to see and hear you online!

~ Dennis

Effective Communications Month

Resources from Annenburg Media & Learning.org

In "Teaching Persuasive Writing," http://www.learner.org/workshops/middlewriting/prog4.html Program 4 of Write in the Middle: A Workshop for Middle School Teachers, teachers Jenny Beasley and Jack Wilde present their lessons on writing editorials and persuasive writing. Find lesson plans and samples of real student work in PDF format.

An understanding of one's audience is absolutely essential to successful communication. In the program "Different Audiences," http://www.learner.org/workshops/hswriting/workshops/workshop3/ high school teachers, educators, authors, and students discuss the importance of the writing process, how to identify the audience, different audiences and how to address them, and related topics. From Developing Writers: A Workshop for High School Teachers.

Fifth-grade teacher Laura Alvarez guides her students through techniques of debate and persuasion, plus research and organizational strategies, in "Social Justice and Action," http://www.learner.org/workshops/tml/workshop7/ Workshop 7 of Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades.

Effective rhetorical strategy depends on a sound understanding of psychology. Learn more about how the human mind works with Discovering Psychology: Updated Edition. http://www.learner.org/discoveringpsychology/ In particular, see Program 6, which looks at language development and social communication, and Program 8, which explains factors affecting motivation and emotions.

See how communication fosters an understanding of mathematical ideas and the language of mathematics in the "Communication" programs of Teaching Math: A Video Library, K-4 http://www.learner.org/resources/series32.html and Teaching Math: A Video Library, 9-12. http://www.learner.org/resources/series34.html

The programs of News Writing http://www.learner.org/resources/series44.html cover public relations writing, feature writing styles, and column and editorial writing among other topics. Read the related News Writing Interviews, http://www.learner.org/catalog/extras/interviews/ in which celebrated columnists give their views on writing, news, humor, and more.

Learn ways to help your students communicate more effectively in a foreign language. Watch "Delivering the Message," http://www.learner.org/workshops/tfl/session_03/ Workshop 3 of Teaching Foreign Languages K-12 Workshop, which looks at elements of an effective oral or written presentation.

Teachers encourage high school students to communicate genuinely and creatively through dance and visual media in "Fostering Genuine Communication," http://www.learner.org/workshops/hsarts/program6/ Workshop 6 of The Art of Teaching the Arts.

Wordle: Play with words!

This image was generated by a unique website called Wordle.

I 'fed' Wordle the contents of this blog and it generated a collage of the most frequently used words in the blog.

Think about it; what would you see it you fed Wordle a page from Shakespeare, or the names of all the kids in your class? What we have here, is a way to play with words that will intrigue our students; and let's admit it... this will be fun for us too!

Five Reasons to Use Wordle in the Classroom by Terry Freedman

For a quick tour of how Wordle can be used by educators read this informative post from Terry Freeman. Here are Freedman's ideas on how to use this tool:

• As a means of summarizing the content of an essay or other piece of work.
• Wordle is handy for self-reflection.
• Wordle can be used by the teacher as a means of assessment.
• Wordle is also good for summonsing survey results where the survey uses free text fields.
• Wordle is just as good a way as any to break up the text a bit!

I couldn't resist creating another Wordle image based on my new article in the Writing Teacher: Tired of Being a Red Ink Slave to Corrections?




Go ahead... make your day... play with words with Wordle!

The Write Guy: Jeff Anderson

Jeff Anderson offers powerful resources for all of us looking for an effective, positive, and thoughtful way to improve student writing conventions with a writing process approach.

I always suggest that teachers leave their red pens behind and shift responsibility to the student by teaching them editing skills. After all, when we do all the correcting, we also get all the practice.

For more on this approach see my latest article on The Writing Teacher: Tired of Being a Red Ink Slave to Corrections? This article is based on a lecture from my course, Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits.

However, the road to great conventions is paved with more than editing lessons... as Jeff Anderson will help us see.

Notable Sentences Blog

Loren Wolter maintains this remarkable resource. "This blog is a resource for teachers who wish to view grammar as something to be explored and not just corrected. Sometimes even teachers who want to set aside tired, old daily language practices have trouble doing so due to the seeming abundance of those deplorable, error-filled sentences and the apparent lack of stimulating, "explore-able" model sentences. As you read adult, young adult, and children's books, please share the noteworthy sentences you find, so that we may build a useful resource together."

Jeff Anderson Resources:

The Write Guy

This is Jeff's personal website and it has resources you need. Well worth exploring. From his site: "Jeff Anderson has taught writing and reading for over 18 years. Over his career, Jeff has worked with writers in grades K-12, focusing in grades 4-8. Jeff’s passion is motivating and developing struggling writers with instructional strategies such as writer’s workshop and process writing, with a particular interest in making editing and grammar in context a meaning-making experience for students and teachers. Sharing strategies to create positive attitudes and confidence in young writers are central goals of his staff development and writing. "

Stenhouse Publishing: Author's Page

Jeff's books are published by Stenhouse. They have a lot of Jeff's work available online. (For Free!)

Everyday Editing: Inviting Students to Develop Skill and Craft in Writer's Workshop

Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop

Zooming In and Out: Putting Grammar In Context Into Context (PDF)
Copyright 2006 by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.

"Jeff Anderson’s lessons involve shifting focus between writing or reading and specific grammar problems inner-city middle school students encounter. Lessons or discussions on a topic are then applied to a larger context so that students see “the story of grammar’s power to communicate meaning and beauty.”

Author's in Action: Jeff Anderson demonstrates an alternative to daily oral language.
A podcast of Jeff working with teachers using an editing activity based on a mentor sentence of writer Maya Angelou


The Craft of Grammar (DVD): Integrated Instruction in Writer's Workshop
(DVD, some online video clips!)

• Grammar Instruction Integrated Into Writer's Workshop: (Quicktime Video)
• The Hair Lesson: (Quicktime Video)

--------------------------

If you've been looking for a new way to improve writing conventions, you've found it! ~ Dennis

National Writing Project Technology Initiative

Here's a link to a fine National Writing Project resource on how blogging and blogging projects can make writing the real, vital, and motivational experience we seek to foster in our classroom. Blogging can also be a personally transformative experience for teachers. We can all use a source of renewal once in awhile!

From the website:

"Blogging in Place: Writing That Explores New Neighborhoods"

Publication: Edutopia
Date: January 7, 2009

Summary: Teachers with the National Writing Project are combining place-based learning, project learning, and blogging to connect classrooms, provide an authentic audience for student writing, and prompt students to explore the world outside the schoolhouse doors.

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/2791

Great ideas and great advice!

Also see on the NWP's Technology Initiatives: http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/programs/ti

I hope this helps!

Den

Effective Feedback: One trait at a time

In terms of effective feedback, offering advice ONE trait at a time is the way to go.

Feedback that is highly focused on a single trait is most effective.

Think of the 'praise sandwich' approach: specific traits based praise for a writing strength is the bread. A focus on ONE area for improvement with a writer's trick is the meat and garnish.

Also don't feel you have to assess for all the traits every time. Scoring many papers is the best way to learn the traits. Scoring one trait at a time is a way to lock in the concept.

Quick feedback on the accuracy is essential as well. That's why the NWREL database of sample papers is such a treasure: http://www.nwrel.org/assessment/scoringpractice.php

In the real world where you have hundreds of papers to consider, assessing all of the traits isn't effective.

When I was teaching I had between 160 -180 7/8th graders. At first I tried to do three full 6-traits assessments a year. Then it was two, at the end, just one.

Why? Because I'd burn out on the assessment and the kids got very little from my efforts. Once something is 'assessed' at that level, it's done and young writers usually won't pay much attention to advice on a finished project.

I decided to put my time into direct coaching and started doing much smaller paragraph level assessments when I absolutely had to have a 'record' for the grade book. I used a modified portfolio system, but it wasn't a commonly accepted method in the very small rural district where I worked for most of my classroom career.

The larger global assessment was usually reserved for the 'publication' pieces. I think back on the huge work of preparing publications and look up on the book shelf at a dozen books created by my classes and just shake my head. It's fine to have something tangible.

Now I wish all of the work was online. The KMSoul project was done about 10 years ago, the last year I was in the classroom. That was back before it was so easy to publish online ( a far more effective way to motivate kids than a bound and printed book because on the net they have a much larger peer audience).

I hope this little personal narrative helps!

Dennis

SAT Word Videos (and a contest too)!

Brainy Fix SAT Video Contest

Contest Rules

* Make a video about any SAT/ACT vocabulary word of your choosing from this list. On that list, we’ll show you how many videos have been submitted for each word. Please choose one without any videos submissions. :)
* 1 video for 1 word, but you can make as many videos as you want.
* Anyone can enter the competition! Just remember that part of the prize money has to go to a U.S. high school or middle school of your choosing.
* All voting will happen at BrainyFlix.com, so make sure your video includes the following text: “Vote for this video at www.BrainyFlix.com/words/xxxxx”. And substitute the “xxxxx” with your vocab word.
* Important contest dates:
o Video submission opens: 1/1/2009
o Video submission ends: 3/16/2009
o Voting opens: 3/23/2009
o Voting ends: 4/5/2009
o Winners announced: 4/13/2009

Sample videos for SAT Words on School Tube

How to Introduce the 6-Traits

"Writing taught once or twice a week is just frequently enough to remind children that they can't write and teachers that they can't teach. They are both like athletes who never get in condition, yet have to play the game before derisive spectators."

-- Donald Graves, Writing: Teachers and Children at Work


I'm happy to report that the The Writing Teacher has just published my article on How to Introduce the 6-Traits. I'll be using this article in my online 6-traits writing class.

Click on over and give it a read!

You'll also discover rich resources for all who love teaching writing.

From The Writing Teacher:

• How to Introduce the 6 Traits
• Teaching Writing by Creating a Website
• Teaching Beowulf to Vikings Fans by Liz O'Neill
• The Art of Teaching Writing by Alan Gibbons
• A Few Principles of Writing Instruction by Michael Hebert
• The Tips and Techniques Contest @ The Writing Teacher
• Teacher Shannon Snowball Discusses the Impact of Automated Essay Grading on her Students' Writing
• Writing Lessons that Made the Biggest Impact on Teachers
• Teaching Writing in the Diverse Classroom: An Interview with Barbara Friedlander
• Research-Based Best Practices for Teaching Writing: A Discussion with Steve Graham on How to Effectively Teach Writing
• Virtually all US Students Proficient in Writing

I hope this helps!

~ Dennis

Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits: Still time to join!

Final Call for the Spring Semester at the University of Wisconsin Stout!

Courses are completely online.

EDUC 744 920 Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits - (Elem. (PK-4)
3 graduate credits begins February 16, 2009
http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/traits.shtml

EDUC 744 909 Teaching and Assessing Writing with the 6-Traits - (Middle School/Adult)
3 graduate credits begins February 16, 2009
http://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/traits.shtml

Online Writing Resources: Very Cool Tools

• 10 Digital Writing Opportunities You Probably Know and 10 You Probably Don’t | ICT in my Classroom

  I've seen the connection between information fluency and writing since my early work researching in the field. Here's a strong blog post chock full of interesting tool recommendations. Just a few are detailed in this post. Click through to ICT in my Classroom for a real treasure trove of online writing resources.
  

  Tags: web2.0, writing, tools, digital_storytelling

  • On Thursday I finally had some time to sit with our Key Stage 2 (junior) literacy coordinator and talk about how technology can support writing outcomes for the Primary Framework for Literacy.
  • 10 - Myths and Legends Story Creator 2 - a free online version of Kar2ouche that focuses on a specific story type. Classes can have unique logins and they can record audio and build scenes from a set of graphics, their own images can be imported. A great alternative to Kar2ouche and perfect for the Myths and Legends unit.
  • Wordle - I thought this little tool would be great to analyse written stories in the same way Steve Kirkpatrick has done with his class. A Wordle could be a great way to introduce a text - exploring what is emphasised to help understand the type of writing it is taken from. Is it instruction, explanation - how can you tell? Another idea is that the children create a poem as a Wordle, it would certainly be challenging the form of conventional poetry.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of Information Fluency group favorite links are here.

Poetry Pathfinder with Diigo & Thinkfinity

• Teaching Poetry with Thinkfinity

  Some activities to support poetry teaching with Thinkfinity, a remarkable archive of lessons and other resources. 
  

  Miquel Guhlin shares poetry resources using the slide share capability of diigo a social bookmarking service. He creates an effective stand alone learning object, a slide show of poetry pages from Thinkfinity. Many librarians would call a 'path finder'.  Each page screened by the slide show can be searched, clicked, or simply read. I'm sure the readers of this blog will find Miquel's work useful!

  Guhlin is one to watch on the educational uses of diigo... he's digging deep into diigo. 8-)

  tags: poetry, thinkfinity, 6-traits

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Modeling Writing with 6-Traits + Podcast Sharing

I love to get email from graduates of my online 6-traits class. I get a glimpse of their classrooms and the fun and excitement of teaching writing with the six traits. Here's news from Karen's 5th grade class!

I've done 3 traits so far this term and have never received such overall great writing from a class. The three or four that really shine have become 17 and 18. I am truly impressed with the improvement and excitement about their writing (and honestly - I'd put a lot of energy into my writing program BEFORE 6 Traits!).

I really think the key changes for me in my teaching were including a lot of modeling of my own work with the students. When they see the time and effort I've put into my samples for sharing (of both good and bad writing!) they know I'm looking at specific features of their own writing very thoroughly. The very methodical coverage of key points for each trait helps students see, in a tangible way, what they need to address when they are writing.

Inspiration diagrams of each trait (simplified) help the children check their work for each of the significant points of the trait. I'm having them color in their own diagram, and I color one as I'm marking. We have a mini conference to compare and discuss our evaluations.

I came up with a rather neat plan. Using GarageBand ( a Mac program that allows one to create a podcast very easily), I had the children each rehearse and make an aural podcast of themselves reading their stories. They put them into our classroom public folder where anyone in the class can listen to them. Not only are they working on their reading fluency and expression, they have a whole class audience. I get to listen to everyone's aural reading at my leisure, and can choose samples of exceptional work to use as examples for the rest of the class.

My next challenge is to figure out how I can get the students to email their file home. How wonderful for a parent to be able to listen to their child reading their own story!

Gotta love this technology!

Karen (Grade 5 teacher, 31 years experience)

30 New Ideas That Work (From the National Writing Project)

New 30 Ideas That Work

Publish at Scribd or explore others:

National Writing Project: Letters to the next president

Letters are a great way to teach voice. The audience is focused on a single person. The writer is having a conversation with words with an audience of one. The Letters to the Next President Project began with a specific audience of two possible presidents. Now the audience is a little more defined! This great idea is sponsored by the National Wrtiing Project

Check out a short video on the topic: Letters to the Next President: Writing Our Future

Let's keep writing!

Conventions in the ESL Classroom

At the end of each 6-traits online class I ask participants to revisit their weekly reflective journal and assemble a refection that covers the full span of the class. In this excerpt, Tim D. synthesizes his insights about Grammar and English. ~ Dennis

When I was teaching at a middle school in Asia the administration decided it would be a great idea to break up "English" into two categories: Grammar and English. While I was teaching short stories and poetry in my room the teacher next door had these thick text books full of sentence diagrams and editing worksheets. What really struck me about this is that the grammar portion was never utilized when the students wrote for my class. They knew how to do the diagrams and edit sentences but when it came to their own writing it was still full of errors.

I didn't handle this very well and took to marking up papers with red ink. The truth is most of these students had only been speaking English for a couple years. Their parents had pulled them out of the local school and plopped them into a sub standard "American" school. Not only were we dealing with middle school students, but we were dealing with second language learners as well. Honestly I think listening to American music and watching American movies was as helpful as anything. It allowed them to "hear" English.

Spandel offers a lot of very interesting ideas in this lesson. The ones that struck me were teaching the editing marks in the beginning and then having them use them on progressively more difficult work. Instead of using worksheets she suggests using others' work. This is brilliant. Especially if its done in front of the class because it allows students to see things that they might not have caught on their own. Finding errors in everyday samples like newspaper, ads, and mailings is also a great idea because it teaches them to look for those things. (I would suggest the Dunn County News as a great resource for this…)

Comments: This lesson really solidified in me that I need to combine teaching conventions with other material because it allows me to point out examples within good writing instead of using arbitrary examples that the students aren't familiar with. Actually, reading the posts by the other teachers was very enlightening on how they weave grammar into their programs.

Resources for Young Writers

This list of links was lifted from the always interesting WordSwimmer blog.







Claremont Review
Giggle Poetry
KidPub: Where Kids Write!
Lightening Bug
Merlyn's Pen
NaNoWriMo's Young Writers Program
New Moon Girls
Ralph Fletcher's Tips for Young Writers
Skipping Stones
Stone Soup
Teen Ink
Write It
WriteGirl
Young Poets (Canada)
Young Writer (UK)
Young Writers Online
Young Writers Society

Writing Process / 6-Traits / Web 2.0

Here's my stab at creating a poster that shows the relationships between the writing process, 6-traits, an web 2.0. ~ Dennis

Click here for a much larger version that you can use as a poster. (Warning it's a big file!)

Right click link to open in a new window. Then right click image for download options.

Do you agree with this view? Suggestions? Additions? Questions?

I'm listening! ~ Dennis

New 6-Traits / Writing Process poster available

New product from the NWREL: Help support their great work!

Get your poster here!

Here's a question for you all to ponder! Where do Web 2.0 concepts and tools like information fluency, blogs, wikis, and e-learning environments fit in the dynamic 6-Traits / Writing process landscape?

Information Fluency Skills (the ability to efficiently search, evaluate and ethically use digital information) certainly fit in the Ideas/Pre-writing area. This is particularly true for modes of writing like the expository, persuasive and research.

What about Blogs, WIKIS or Google Documents?

Where do you see these 21st Century tools fitting in the diagram above?

Anyone willing to take a stab at creating a poster with Web 2.0 integrated into it all?

Let us know?

National Poetry Week: October 9, 2008

National Poetry Day (October 9) (Resources from Annenberg Media/Learner.Org)

Watch beautiful hour-long documentaries about the lives and works of 13 American poets in Voices & Visions <http://www.learner.org/resources/series57.html>. Featured poets include T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman, Sylvia Plath, and William Carlos Williams.

Literary Visions <http://www.learner.org/resources/series41.html> offers mini-lectures, dramatizations, and poet interviews to illustrate the most important elements and devices of poetry. See Programs 11 through 17 to explore the role of imagery, tropes, symbolism, theme, character, and much more.

Observe high school English teacher Chris Mazzino teaching about stereotypes by having students interpret and edit a poem in Teaching "The Children of Willesden Lane" Program 12, "Gaining Insight Through Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/series/cowl/ch13-19/>.

See how poetry teaches about American societal trends with "Rhythms in Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/amerpass/unit10/>. This program in American Passages: A Literary Survey features the poetry of Langston Hughes and William Carlos Williams.

The American Passages archive <http://www.learner.org/amerpass/slideshow/archive_search.php> contains artifacts related to poetry and poets such as Phillis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Emily Dickinson, and Marianne Moore, as well as poetry related to specific eras and social movements. Search by keyword and/or era and/or ethnic group to explore the archive.

Consider different approaches to teaching poetry with Write in the Middle: A Workshop for Middle School Teachers, Workshop 3, "Teaching Poetry" <http://www.learner.org/channel/workshops/middlewriting/prog3.html>.

Teaching Reading K-2: A Library of Classroom Practices <http://www.learner.org/channel/libraries/readingk2/> presents ways of working poetry into language arts lessons at the early elementary level.

In Engaging With Literature: A Video Library, Grades 3-5, watch a fourth grade poetry lesson based on poems from "Baseball, Snakes, and Summer Squash" by Donald H. Graves and "Hey You! C'Mere: A Poetry Slam" by Elizabeth Swados. See Program 3, "Starting Out" <http://www.learner.org/channel/libraries/engagingliterature/starting/>.