Teaching writing as journey, not destination : essays exploring what "teaching writing" means / by P.L. Thomas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Thomas, P. L. (Paul Lee), 1961- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Composition (Language arts)--Study and teaching.

Composition (Language arts).

Written communication--Study and teaching.

Written communication.

Discourse analysis--Study and teaching.

Discourse analysis.

Rhetoric--Study and teaching.

Rhetoric.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 pages)

Place of Publication:

Charlotte, North Carolina : Information Age Publishing, Inc., [2019]

Summary:

American author Kurt Vonnegut has famously declared that writing is unteachable, yet formal education persists in that task. Teaching Writing as Journey, Not Destination is the culmination of P.L. Thomas's experiences as both a writer and a teacher of writing reaching into the fourth decade of struggling with both.This volume collects essays that examine the enduring and contemporary questions facing writing teachers, including grammar instruction, authentic practices in high-stakes environments, student choice, citation and plagiarism, the five-paragraph essay, grading, and the intersections of being a writer and teaching writing. Thomas offers concrete classroom experiences drawn from teaching high school ELA, first-year composition, and a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses. Ultimately, however, the essays are a reflection of Thomas's journey and a concession to both writing and teaching writing as journeys without ultimate destinations.

Contents:

Preface: Creating space for writers to happen / Kristen Marakoff

Introduction: Teaching writing as journey, not destination

Section i. Accountability, standards, and highstakes testing of writing

Chapter 1. Adventures in nonsense: Teaching writing in the accountability era

Chapter 2. Why you cannot trust common core advocacy

Chapter 3. Misguided reading policy creates wrong lessons for students as writers

Chapter 4. Reformed to death: Discipline and control eclipse education

Section ii. Being a writing teacher

Chapter 5. A community of writing teachers

Chapter 6. Fostering the transition from student to writer

Chapter 7. Who can, who should teach writing?

Chapter 8. Writing, unteachable or mistaught?

Chapter 9. What does "teaching writing" mean?

Section iii. Being a writer

Chapter 10. A portrait of the artist as activist: "in the sunlit prison of the American dream."

Chapter 11. Teaching, writing as activism?

Chapter 12. Three eyes: Writer, editor, teacher

Chapter 13. Writing versus being a writer

Section iv. Choice

Chapter 14. Student choice, engagement keys to higher quality writing

Section v. Citation and research papers

Chapter 15. On citation and the research paper

Chapter 16. Technology fails plagiarism, citation tests

Chapter 17. Real-world citation versus the drudgery of academic writing

Section vi. Creative writing

Chapter 18. On writing workshop, cognitive overload, and creative writing

Chapter 19. Appreciating the unteachable: Creative writing in formal schooling

Section vii. Diagramming sentences

Chapter 20. Diagramming sentences and the art of misguided nostalgia

Section viii. Direct instruction

Chapter 21. Reclaiming "direct instruction"

Section ix. Disciplinary writing

Chapter 22. Writing as a discipline and in the disciplines

Chapter 23. Reading like a writer (scholar): Kingsolver's "making peace"

Chapter 24. Intersections and disjunctures: Scholars, teachers, and writers

Chapter 25. Helping students navigate disciplinary writing: The quote problem

Section x. First-year composition

Chapter 26. You don't know nothing: U.s. Has always shunned the expert

Chapter 27. Is joseph r. Teller teaching composition all wrong?

Section xi. Five-paragraph essay

Chapter 28. How the 5-paragraph essay fails as warranted practice

Chapter 29. John warner swears off essays, and students? (yes, and so should everyone)

Chapter 30. Seeing the essay again for the first time

Section xii. Genre awareness

Chapter 31. Investigating zombi(e)s to foster genre awareness

Chapter 32. O, genre, what art thou?

Section xiii. Grading

Chapter 33. Rethinking grading as instruction: Rejecting the error hunt and deficit practices

Chapter 34. Not how to enjoy grading but why to stop grading

Chapter 35. The nearly impossible: Teaching writing in a culture of grades, averages

Section xiv. Grammar

Chapter 36. Lost in translation: More from a stranger in academia

Chapter 37. Teaching literacy, not literacy skills

Chapter 38. Fostering convention awareness in students: Eschewing a rules-based view of language

Chapter 39. Not if, but when: The role of direct instruction in teaching writing

Chapter 40. On common terminology and teaching writing: Once again, the grammar debate

Section xv. Labrant, lou

Chapter 41. We teach english revisited

Chapter 42. Teaching writing in ela/english: "not everything to do, but something."

Chapter 43. To high school english teachers (and all teachers)

Chapter 44. Scapegoat

Chapter 45. Teaching english as "the most intimate subject in the curriculum"

Chapter 46. Teaching literacy in pursuit of "a wholesome use of language"

Section xvi. Literacy and the literary technique hunt

Chapter 47. Formal schooling and the death of literacy

Section xvii. Plagiarism

Chapter 48. "students today...": On writing, plagiarism, and teaching

Chapter 49. Plagiarism: Caught between academia and the real world

Section xviii. Poetry

Chapter 50. What makes poetry, poetry?

Chapter 51. Teaching essay writing through poetry

Section xix. Public intellectual (writing for the public)

Chapter 52. Writing for the public: A framework

Section xx. Publishing

Chapter 53. Advice for submitting work for publication

Section xxi. Reading like a writer

Chapter 54. Guided activity: More reading like a writer

Section xxii. Rubrics

Chapter 55. Ken lindblom's "is interesting to read" and the rubric dilemma redux

Chapter 56. More on failing writing, and students

Chapter 57. Models, mentor texts, and (more) resisting rubrics

Section xxiii: Teaching english

Chapter 58. Readers, writers, teachers, and students: The pointlessness of so much of it

Chapter 59. Analogies like land mines: Treading carefully when we discuss teaching writing

Section xxiv: Writing process

Chapter 60. Writing as discovery: When process defaults to script. Conclusion: The struggle itself

About the author.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Print version record.

ISBN:

1-64113-514-X