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Sunday, May 22, 2016

Building Strong Writers


For example, lesson ten - It Gives Me... ask the students what gives them hope, joy, pride and last pause in their lives. Some students responded deeply saying it gives me pause to think about the universe and my place in it. Others said it gives me pause when I lose my homework. One of the hope ones really touched me, the student said it gives me hope when my mom says "see you later." 
A second example is lesson eight: A Pyramid of Personal Qualities. Students here had to examine their self and translate that to what they want to later become. The authors say in their notes: "This activity is not meant to focus on any specific goal or goals of students, but rather on their goals in general - the person they want to become.
A third example is lesson twenty-two, I Got the English Class Blues. Hooking the students with a blues song remade by Beyonce' the web is set. Students then paired up to look up music like John Lee Hooker, Jelly Roll, and Robert Johnson and figure out what the songs mean. The next day students are reading poetry from Langston Hughes like The Weary Blues. Afterwards students are to write their own blues poem serious or whimsical. They are giving titles they can choose from like The Intolerance Blues, or The No Allowance this Week Blues. One of the student examples I really liked was Best Friend Blues starts out "My Best Friend has replaced me with someone I know." Last, I liked the extended lesson for this that invited kids to record and add music to their poem.
Basically all of the twenty-four lessons in this book invite students to self-examine, some less, and some more. I tried to include the ones that really probed at the heart of what this book was about - self-examination with core standards. 

Building Strong Writers in Middle School is loaded with creative, self-examining lessons to get the student to write better, grander, and more precisely. One of my favorite lessons, lesson eleven happened to be lesson eleven's extension. First lesson eleven invited students to tell their story of someone who was only in their life for a short time but impacted them greatly. This lesson provides a great example of a young boy named Roger who gets a big brother named Jim for about six months. Jim gives Roger the encouragement he needs at a time he really needs it. This lesson is a lot of writing, so the extension exercise pulls only parts of the student essays that are written well and post them under a topic titled: Yes, Middle School Students Write Well. 
Some of these pulled-out sentences were beautifully, and thoughtfully written, and together made a huge impact.
These were some of them:
• I never told anyone the following story, except God in my good-night prayers.
• The turn, the evil turn i had been anticipating, had arrived.
And last, my favorite:
• I will never return to my old, gray, lethargic lifestyle because I have gained so much by living a life filled with color.
First, that last one is so not J. Alfred Prufrock, and second, a middle school student knowing the word lethargic, and using it correctly. And last, the beautiful contrast in a perfect parallel of adjectives. This is amazing! This book made me want to listen to the words and voices of students. Reading student examples was my favorite part of reading this book. 
Another student example that amazed me wasn't because it was fabulously well-written, but because of the distinct beat of a heart-felt response. It was from lesson thirteen: Help, Hope, Hurray. This student was one of hope where he wrote to someone with Asperger's.
"Dear Nick,
We'd like to thank you very much for speaking to our class last Wednesday. For that 30-minute period, you brought us into your life and taught us about Asperger's Syndrome in a way no textbook or teacher could ever do. You brought upon us a new wave of understanding, and we thank you."
In short, there were other great student examples, but these were some of my favorites.

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