Voices from and about The National Writing Project
Charlie Troughton, a social science and English language learner instructor who participated, described the feel of the process:
I wrote for hours that first day, scripting what I thought was a summary masterpiece . . . [but] my draft read like a cold, boring textbook—lifeless and impersonal. [My group] suggested I describe my kids . . . put myself into the classroom, and retell the experience. So I sat and wrote for several more hours before we joined together again for some final feedback on the changes. This time, they informed me, I was on the right track—with my students and me shining through the process rather than the process shading my students and me out of the picture
Deana Jacoby, an English teacher, reflected
Writing about the process . . . allowed me to investigate my practices, instructing me in the amount of effort and thinking that goes into writing. . . . Perhaps that is my new understanding; my return to writing might enable me to better understand and instruct my students in their efforts. Hopefully, I will be able to inspire a collaborative feeling with my students rather than a feeling of fear of judgment during the brief time I work with them in their educational odyssey.
Richard Argys writes:
I paid close attention as my colleagues talked through or read aloud their own pieces-in-progress each day, reminded that most of us go through similar, and often frustrating, two-steps-forward, one-step-backward processes in our writing. We all formulated—or had come with—questions to explore in our writing about English language learners teaching, wrestled with how best to address our topics, finally jumped in headfirst and tried to get it all down on paper as best we could, and then went about rediscovering and reworking what we’d created. Many of us ended up following paths in our writing that were different from what we originally intended, but everyone made progress—no matter how frustrated, confused, or lost in our own pieces we all felt at times. It was satisfying to get so much work done, instructive to listen and hear my new friends work through their processes and problems, and helpful to receive responses to my own ideas and writing.
Excerpt from TOTAL INTEGRATED ACROSS CURRICULUM WRITING
Eugene H. Wright
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
The British focus in the 1960s and 70s on viewing writing as way to learn, rather than just teaching formal writing techniques, led eventually to the National Writing Project (NWP) in this country. Basic to the NWP is the concept that teachers at all levels, from elementary through university, should be encouraged to become interested in cross-curriculum writing, and then have these encouraged teachers return to the classroom and require writing in some fashion and form of their individual students.
…the basic idea is to teach the subject rather than to teach writing…. In this process, proponents of the system stress that everything that the student writes should not be graded. But rather, the material should be written in "studentese" and should not be viewed as a way to produce or test a final product but rather a way to learn. The mere assigning and collection of. short papers, essays or journals does not ensure that the student learns how to write and communicate ideas or thought processes. Allowing students to write their thoughts into a journal or a short paper, they know that the quality of grammar and proper English usage is not the foremost objective. This will serve as the foundation and bases for freer expression and improvement in the individual's writing skills. Once this approach of allowing the student freedom within the writing process has been implemented, the student will learn that he has become the central point of the classroom and not the teacher. With the concept of non grading of papers, the student is hopefully encouraged to become freer in thoughts and to write or express ideas without the overriding fear of criticism or of a grade.
Additionally, the student should be allowed or required to present or read aloud his/her paper in the class. Very strict ground rules must be established saying that no criticism of either subject material, choice of words, or method of presentation will be allowed unless invited by the individual student. The concept here must be to have the student become very much at ease knowing that his/her ideas will be accepted for content rather than style or method of writing. Once the ease factor has been established, the individual hopefully will try new ways of expressing their thoughts. At this point, written and variable communications merge into a single area.
On the other side of the coin is the problem of the instructor or professor who through the aggressive use of a writing program in their classroom ends up with piles of papers many feet thick either requiring reviewing or grading. Many instructors are leery and hesitate to assign writing projects primarily for the reason that large amounts of time for grading is required to evaluate writing. However, with the concept of non-graded papers, the preliminary papers can be used as steps to a final paper which then can be graded, criticized, and returned to the student. If this idea or concept is to work to its fullest, the student must be allowed to revise and rewrite his/her papers. By use of this rewrite procedure leading to a final product, the student is not only allowed but encouraged to improve their papers or writing projects. Before the critical phase, i.e. that of producing a final finished document, the student will have had a chance to take his/her paper, after a non-graded review, and rewrite it into a finished product which also has become a learning situation or learning tool. How many of us have assigned papers toward the end of the semester either as a term paper, class project or written exam, had the students turn in the paper, and spent considerable time grading and making many comments only to put the papers at our office door and have the student never pick up their work? The whole idea of spending time grading a paper seems very discouraging and the comments serve no purpose for the student who for some reason never picks up their papers. If they never see or read the comments and suggestions, how can they learn? The writing exercise has failed to be a learning situation. If a writing project is required, which it should be in all classes, the paper should be written with sufficient time for the instructor to review, and the student to rewrite. Then the student should submit the final or completed product. Hopefully by using this process, the paper will be written to the required or desired level, and the student will have learned both in the writing sense and in a subject sense.
Another important concept in student writing is to set and require reasonable levels of expectation. Being as guilty as other instructors, many times I have said write a paper two, three, five or ten pages long on a subject which is either assigned or is the free choice of the student. I, then, expect this paper to show up on a due date either in the classroom or at my office. At which time, I will grade the supposed finished product. More often than not, as we read through a large number of these papers, we find a great many levels of writing directions and skills making us wonder if we gave the same assignment to everyone in class. This different level of response can be somewhat alleviated by simply telling the student at what level or to whom they are expected to write, i.e. saying that this paper is to be written for presentation to your classmates at the freshman level, or the paper is to be written for presentation before a board of directors of a major corporation. With realistic expectations required of the students, the results obtained should be consistent with the assigned project and the individual will write to the required level. Without defined expectations, it is only fair to expect our students to write at many different levels. Some will be very elementary and non directed and will not prove that the particular student either comprehends the subject material or has the ability to communicate through writing.
Previously mentioned, as educators we cannot expect writing skills to be sharpened only in English courses. They must be refined in every class or educational experience. In order for writing to become relevant, course content, presentation, and use of the class subject material must be so structured as to use writing. Additionally, the level of writing expectation must be set in the context of the student's experience in the use of language.