Education Week - September 23, 2015 - 21

Can a Former Journalist
Teach English-Language
Learners to Write?
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19

approach works particularly well in teaching students to write argumentative essays. For instance,
they've debated if gun laws should be changed to be
more restrictive and whether public schools should
open their doors to military recruiters. After debate,
it's not hard for them to identify arguments to support a claim or counterarguments that they must
address in writing.
* If teenagers feel they have something to
say, their writing will be much more interesting and developed.
Whenever possible, it helps to give teenagers
choices. For example, after my students wrote two argumentative essays on topics that I chose, I let them
write an argumentative essay on a topic of their own
choosing. They've written about such topics as why
skateboarding should get the same kind of respect
that other sports do, and why teachers should let
students use ear buds and electronic devices to listen
to music when doing independent work. The student
newspaper published three essays by my students.
I handed out copies of published student work with
great fanfare, and made a pitch for how writing enables teens to make their voices heard.
* Teenagers are more likely to invest in writing if it's for an authentic audience.
In addition to urging students to write for the student newspaper, I've asked them to write letters to
people inside our school. Even more effective has been
having students write letters to real authors.
These letters are quite involved. I require students

PRESIDENT & EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Virginia B. Edwards
EXECUTIVE EDITOR Gregory Chronister

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to write two paragraphs about what they've learned
in reading the work and back it up with examples. In
addition, they have to tell the author about a personal
connection they made between what they read and
their own lives and pose a question for the author.
Some students have been quite reflective in letters.
"Your book helped me to think about the rest of my
life, such as how would I act if there would be a war,"
wrote a student from Egypt to Skila Brown, the author of Caminar, a novel about civil war in Guatemala.
Another student, from Eritrea, wrote to Ms. Brown:
"Your book helped me to understand how to survive in
the jungle. It gave me a message that facing a problem
and dealing with it can help me to become a man."
* Teens are more likely to complete writing
assignments and write well if they see themselves as writers.
The editors of a special issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing on adolescent second-language
learners published in 2011 explained that identity
formation plays a major role in adolescence and can
greatly influence teenagers' interest in academics.
The editors said that making progress in writing may
seem impossible to teenagers who haven't yet figured
out who they are. If adolescents don't see themselves
as writers, they groan when I announce a writing assignment, and some do not finish it.
But increasingly, as my students have met authors
and received positive responses to their writing from
me, they have begun to see themselves as writers
and feel capable of taking on writing challenges.
No matter how well-designed a writing lesson is, it
won't fly with teens if they feel that having to write
puts them way outside their comfort zone. n

huge issue. "How am I supposed to get through 5,000
of history?"
Some Thoughts on the 'Boring' Social Studies years
Teachers are deeply and constantly concerned with
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 19
time, and for good reason.
"I can't spend any more time on the Korean War bethe students discover the answer on their own?
cause I have to be to Watergate by next week, and I still
Unfortunately, our courses aren't designed this way.
have to cover the civil rights movement to adequately
They are not à la carte. The menu is set, and the dishes
prepare my students for the test."
are going to come out in the same order every time. And
What hogwash. All the students need in order to pracbecause the structure is already set, a student looks at
tice their social studies skills is one of those topics. They
her text and thinks: "Oh, well, that question isn't in here,
are all fascinating. Let's choose one.
so it won't be on the test, so let's just move this along.
A semester could be based on the themes Inquiry,
What's on the next page, I wonder? Oh, vulcanization.
Analysis, and Solutions, and teachers could let those
How awfully exhilarating."
concepts guide the course, instead of the label Western
Civilization. A course that focuses on methods could
I could construct a lesson that leaves a gap open
for all of my students to practice inquiry
choose five interesting and unrelated events
skills and develop a conclusion, which I
or people to study in depth.
do. But might there be other options
Social studies is just that: studying
that attract the students-that allow
society. We love to try to build equathem to decide what they like, intions about how society and the
stead of giving me that choice?
people within it will act. Economics
Why not let each student decide
tries to predict these trends all the
what gap he or she wants to retime, but there really is no way to
search and solve, instead of demandpredict with any consistency what
ing that all students have a similar
a person will do. Because there is a
learning experience with the same
level of uncertainty about human betopic?
Getty
havior, we try to categorize it and make
Rather than a standardized chronology of
sense of it. We attach names to eras and titles
events, why not choose one topic to dive deep into
to chapters, and we stick it in a book, and we call it
for the semester, allowing the students to really tear the
history.
topic apart, providing them with the necessary details to
"Here is what happened in the past," we say. "Phew,
make valid arguments?
we got that figured out."
If one topic per semester sounds a little extreme, try
And then a student asks a question: "Why is the U.S.
four topics during the course of a semester. The point
prison population so high?"
is that fewer topics, with a concentration on depth, will
And then we're like, "Oh, that's not on the test, let's
allow the richness of the history to attract the students.
get back to the timeline" and the kid's curiosity is shatAs history classes are currently designed, time is a
tered, and they're like, "History's boring." n

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Education Week - September 23, 2015

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