All of the writing kind of blurred together, because I had read before I left for spring break, however I will just discuss the ideas I found interesting that I have not yet posted about. I really liked how he made his students write journal entries. I feel this is a very great assignment for high school students because they can just write down their thoughts and feelings in a more informal setting. It brings writing to its most basic and raw state and I think that free writing is an important thing for all writers to do. This gives the students a chance to just write without worrying about MLA/APA format, grammar, spelling, or any other writing guidelines. I thought it was really cool that even though the one boy student had a number of spelling and grammar errors, he received full credit for simply writing down his honest thoughts.
In my opinion other styles of writing can be therapeutic for high school students. Being able to just put their feelings on paper can be a relief, rather than stressing about formal structure for an essay. I feel poems allow students to tap into their creative side. I loved that Romano spent so much time working with one of his students on her poem about her parents. He really helped her improve, without straight up telling her what to do. I feel this is an important aspect in a teacher. I feel as if I took a lot of helpful advice and ideas from this book and I am glad I read it.
I provided a link to a webpage stating some benefits of journal writing
Amanda, I liked that story, too, about the girl writing a poem about the death of her parents. It helped give me an example of how to work with a student on writing without telling the student what to write. I still struggle with that sometimes! Romano's dialogues with students are one of the things I like about Clearing the Way...I think he gives teachers some good examples :)
ReplyDeleteAmanda,
ReplyDeleteGreat link! Thanks for sharing that. I completely agree with you about how important and beneficial stress-free, judgement-free writing can be for adolescents.