Authentic Writing
across the Disciplines
in Secondary School
Kate Frankel
Boston University
[email protected]
Jennifer Rabold
Boston University
Everett Public Schools
[email protected]
Susan Fields
Boston University
[email protected]
Find this presentation at http://mraadolescentliteracy.blogspot.com/
Poll Everywhere Instructions
Website
Respond at PollEv.com/jenniferrabo324
Text messaging
Text JENNIFERRABO324 to 22333 to join the session, then text a response.
Think of a positive experience you had with writing as a
child or adolescent, either in or out of school. List some
words or phrases that describe that experience.
Presentation Overview
1) What do we know about writing in secondary classrooms?
How has writing in such contexts been conceptualized?
2) “Entering the Conversation”: A Framework
3) 2 Illustrations of Authentic Writing
4) Implications for Your Own Teaching
5) Additional Tools and Resources for Secondary Teachers
Presentation Objectives
After this presentation, you will be able to:
1) Articulate what recent theory and research says about
writing in secondary classrooms,
2) Apply a framework for authentic writing to your own past
and future writing assignments,
3) Understand how teachers have used the framework to engage
students in authentic writing, and
4) Access additional tools and resources for authentic
writing across disciplines
Conceptual
Framework
A Framework for Authentic Writing
Audience
Genre
Entering the
Conversation
Purpose
Stance
What is Authentic Writing?
On Audience…
“In this realm of increasingly pervasive written
communication, to whom do we write? How do we know--and,
perhaps most important, how do others know--that we are,
indeed, writing to and for a particular audience? And, most
significant of all in this world of diverse and personal
media, why does that audience matter?”
“Audience provides the why of how writers learn to write.”
-
Alecia Magnifico, Writing for Whom? Cognition, Motivation, and a
Writer’s Audience
What is Authentic Writing?
On Genre…
“Genre is a category that describes the relation of the
social purpose of text to language structure. It follows
that in learning literacy, students need to analyze
critically the different social purposes that inform
patterns of regularity in language--the whys and the hows of
textual conventionality, in other words.”
- Cope & Kalantzis, The Powers of Literacy: A Genre
Approach to Teaching Writing
What is Authentic Writing?
On Purpose…
“When educators choose situated writing activities that
create space for learners to do work that they see as
important, often by giving students the opportunity to
interact with an external audience or to serve as an
authentic audience for their peers, learning can be deeply
authentic, social, and experiential.”
- Alecia Magnifico, Writing for Whom? Cognition,
Motivation, and a Writer’s Audience
What is Authentic Writing?
On Stance…
“Stance...describes how effectively the writing communicates
a perspective through an appropriate level of formality,
elements of style, and tone appropriate for the audience and
purpose.”
-
Anne DiPardo and colleagues, Seeing Voices: Assessing Writerly
Stance in the NWP Analytic Writing Continuum
To this, we add that stance also attends to how a writer
responds to and anticipates the voices of others, how
writing is intertextual.
On “Entering the Conversation”
“Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others
have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a
discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is
about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them
got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the
steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that
you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar.
Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another
aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification
of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance.
However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must
depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in
progress.”
-
Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form
A Framework for Authentic Writing
Audience
Genre
Entering the
Conversation
Purpose
Stance
Applying the Framework, Part One
Think about a writing assignment that you have used in the
past but would like to rethink or revise. Take two minutes
to write down your thoughts about this assignment in
relation to the five dimensions of the framework. Some
questions to consider:
●
●
●
●
●
●
To whom are your students writing?
In what genre?
For what purpose?
With what style, tone, and level of formality?
Whom do they cite?
What kind of response do they anticipate?
Illustrations of
Authentic Writing
Example 1: Editorial submitted to local npr website
Context: Tutoring Clinic
Assignment: Summer Reading - Fahrenheit 451
Evolution of Purpose/Stance:
→
●
Understanding Mildred/effects of 24-hour screens
●
Considering the modern equivalent (effects of widespread access to the
Internet)
●
→
An argument for how the internet impacts the human mind to be
submitted to local NPR website
Example 1: Submission guidelines
Genre
Features
Purpose
●
Focus tightly on one issue or idea.
●
Express your opinion, and then back it up with facts, research or first-hand
experience.
●
Please cite your sources with hyperlinks (no footnotes, please) and double-check
your facts before sending your submission to us.
●
Submissions should answer the following questions: What is my argument/point?
Why is this worth reading now — at this moment? Why should people care?
Audience
Example 1: Instructional supports
●
●
Essential Question: What impact does technology have on
the human mind?
Text Set
○
○
○
Excerpts from Book: Is the Internet Changing the Way you Think?
Atlantic article: “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
New York Times article: “Want to Brainstorm New Ideas?”
● Discussion Web to document thinking
● Genre Study
Example 1: Editorial excerpt
Does the Internet Truly Leave a Negative Mark on the Human
Mind?
Louis Williams
Many sensational news writers blame the internet for their loss of attention, but is this true? This summer, I chose to
read Fahrenheit 451 a book on the sophomore reading list. I have thought about what Bradbury is trying to convey with his
world overly dependant on technology. In the book, technology is used to saturate the populous with constant stimulus to
prevent them from exercising deep thought. Further, the society burns books to keep people from developing a taste for
knowledge. Bradbury’s description seems to hold a grain of truth, which echoes the critics’ commentary on the ill effects of
the internet. However, I believe they are overlooking the vast benefits the technology can provide. The internet on its own
has little or no effect on our minds; it is our own interactions with it that shape both for better or for worse.
Example 2: Genocide Research Project
Context: 9th grade English class
Assignment:
Elie Wiesel wrote Night so that his readers could learn
about the worst that human beings are capable of. He
wrote about his horrifying experiences in order to
prevent something like the holocaust from ever
happening again. Sadly, genocides around the world
continue to happen. Innocent people are still being killed
in large numbers today.
In order to honor Wiesel’s goal, and to prevent genocides
from happening, we have to build awareness. Many
people simply aren’t aware that these atrocities are still
occurring. In order to bring awareness, you will be
conducting a research paper on a specific genocide from
the list below.
Sense of the ongoing
conversation
Purpose
Audience
Genre
Example 2: Instructional Supports
●
Background Knowledge Building
○
○
○
○
○
○
●
●
Essential Question: Why or how does genocide occur
throughout history?
Direct Instruction and Guide Practice on Skills to carry
out a research project
○
○
●
Read Night by Elie Wiesel (Holocaust)
Read Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick (Cambodian genocide)
Guest speaker Marcel Uwineza (survivor of Rwandan Genocide)
Read policy and theory about genocide
Wide reading and research on chosen genocide
Authoritative Research Sites
Instruction in Finding Credible Sites
Note-taking, summarizing, paraphrasing,citing, organizing, synthesizing
Focused Research Questions
Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation
“Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel once said “Human suffering
anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.” This suffering
happened in Rwanda Africa where up to a million people died
in the hands of the Hutus. The Rwanda genocide is a tragic
event that we all need to be aware of because hundred of
thousands of innocent people died as a result of of hatred
and violence.”
“The Salvadoran Genocide was one of the bloodiest wars in
Central America. Although it’s not really known, it was an
atrocity that killed a lot of innocent people.”
Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation
“Though it is believed that “people are really good at heart,” as
Holocaust victim Anne Frank once wrote, many human beings are still
capable of doing the extreme to the extent of killing and torturing
their own kind in an inhumane way. An example of this cruel act
would be the Cambodian Genocide, a very gruesome event that not only
devastated the people living in the territory, but those around it
as well. It started as an idea but flourished into action, causing
many to become traumatized. The Cambodian Genocide is very important
to history because millions of people perished and suffered during
and after the genocide due to their beliefs, which is something we
should learn from to make sure an event like this would no longer
appear.”
Example 2: Students Entering the Conversation
“Genocides in history mostly occur when a group of people, or even a
single person, believe that their specific views on the world are
correct. They wish to create ‘peace’ and ‘harmony’ among the people
around them by eliminating anyone that does not fit their standard
ideals. Genocides leave large amounts of devastation behind.
Families are torn apart, countries are destroyed, and some cultures
even face the point of extinction. The Cambodian genocide is only
one example of how much one person can negatively affect the world
on an extremely large scale. One person cannot stop a genocide from
happening on their own but if people all around the world work
together, we get closer and closer to stopping the mass execution of
our own kind.”
Implications for Your
Own Teaching
Applying the Framework, Part Two
●
●
●
Return to your notes from earlier this hour and jot down
any additional thoughts that come to mind after hearing
about our two illustrations of authentic writing.
With your partner, join another partner pair and share
your ideas and future plans, including any areas that you
anticipate you will need to troubleshoot.
Time permitting, we will ask each small group to share
one implication with the whole group.
Back to the Wordle...
What do you notice?
What’s Missing?
Additional Tools
for Authentic
Writing in the
Disciplines
Online Resources
●
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Letters about Literature: http://read.gov/letters/
They say, I say: http://www.theysayiblog.com/
This I believe: http://thisibelieve.org/
The National Writing Project: https://www.nwp.org/
The New York Times Student Editorial Contest:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/learning/our-fourth-annual-student-edit
orial-contest-write-about-an-issue-that-matters-to-you.html?_r=0
●
The National Council of Teachers of English has many resources for
writing teachers, including:
○ Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing:
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/teaching-writing
○ Writing Assessment-A Position Statement:
http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/writingassessment
References
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Burke, K. (1973). The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Cope, B., & Kalantzis, M. (1993). The powers of literacy: A
genre approach to teaching writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University
of Pittsburgh Press.
DiPardo, A., Storms, B. A., & Selland, M. (2011). Seeing voices:
Assessing writerly stance in the NWP Analytic Writing Continuum.
Assessing Writing, 16(3), 170-188.
Graff, G. & Birkenstein, C. (2014). They say I say: The moves
that matter in academic writing. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
Magnifico, A. M. (2010). Writing for whom? Cognition,
motivation, and a writer’s audience. Educational Psychologist,
45(3), 167-184.
Thank You!!