One of the first roadblocks I noticed with my Intermediate Composition students as writers is they thought they had nothing to say. I knew from my own observations that these students had plenty to say! Thus far, the daily writing prompt was chosen by me and sometimes submitted by students. We wrote for 5-10 minutes daily, and I used this journaling technique to help them develop ideas and get them down on paper. The prompts sometimes aligned with the weekly essay we read from the textbook. On Fridays, we went to the computer lab to type a paper they turned into me that was from one of that week’s journals, relating to the controversial ideas from the textbook essays.
So, although we write every day in that class, I’m not entirely finding it meaningful or motivational and only sometimes relevant and connected to their lives. They also are not greatly concerned about care and precision in their word choice, organization, grammar and mechanics (which is what we’ve been working on from day one). I am therefore providing my Intermediate Composition students with a larger audience. I created a blog space for us at http://www.chsintcomp.blogspot.com/.
Another component I am adding to the course is 10 minutes of daily reading a novel of their choosing. We went to the library on Thursday and chose books. Some were pretty excited about this, and I think they are all glad that we are mixing it up a bit. I was in a rut, they were in a rut, the whole class seems to be a rut.
It is on our blog space that we will write about the books we are reading. We might get into the lab twice a week, but for now I might just stick to Fridays. Students will journal about their books daily (summary, questions, predicting, making connections) and then they will synthesize these on Fridays into a larger blog post about their personal novel. They can also read and comment on other students’ books. I think this will be awesome!
It is on Fridays that they will still write a “paper” about the discussion topic from that week’s textbook essay. However, by posting their responses to the week’s controversial issue online, they should demonstrate more care and detail. They will also need to have evidence and support for the arguments they make. Often I find these students writing like they talk, and not showing concern for audience or backing up their viewpoints. We will work on these skills this week before they make their first blog post.
More to come on the successes and failures of creating a larger audience for my Intermediate Composition students…
