Discussion of Chapter 4: The Writer's Notebook

 

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    Dana Huff:Susanne, Shakespeare Set Free is wonderful. I've used it myself. I think you hit the nail on the proverbial head with your last couple of sentences. If they do their best writing when they write on this play AND you've implemented journaling for this play, it stands to reason there is a correlation. They are really thinking about this play through journaling about it is my bet. I think you have given all of us a good idea and a starting point for implementing Penny's ideas in a literature-based class.
    Susanne Nobles:I think the use of a writer's notebook in a lit-based English class is tricky -- how to keep the students engaged as writers but still moving forward with the literature as readers and writers? The fluency of writing that "filament launcher" notes above is so crucial, and the writer's notebook is the way to achieve it -- just writing each day makes it less scary and you discover things in your head that you had not realized you could write about. But how to tie that to lit? Is it enough to have intriguing ways for them to write about what we are reading? Then maybe their papers on the work will be better in the end because they will have really thought through them? I use _Shakespeare Set Free_ for teaching _Othello_, and I follow their journaling plans. The students are writing about the play and connections to their lives throughout ... and maybe I can take it a step further and make it more consistenty a writer's notebook kind of thing. I can say that they write their best work on this play.
    Penny Kittle:The tricky question is my most common one when I talk to teachers. I will say a couple of things in response. We need to look closely at our curriculum and ask hard questions about how it engages our students. It is all about engagement. I want them engaged in their own writing process because it always pays off. The other thing is that teachers in literature-heavy courses just vary units. They teach a novel for a few weeks, and then a writing-focused unit. We can use writing to support reading some of the time, but we have to realize we can't do it all of the time. Students need to study writing as its own content area some of the time, too. Then they really learn things about writing in all settings, not just about literature. I don't pretend it is easy. I wish I had enough time... but I never do.
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