Chapter 2: Teaching Informational and Persuasive Writing
Right off the bat, Jago confronts a major problem with student writing: students who don't read enough. Even students who are avid readers of fiction or poetry tend to avoid reading essays. How, then, can we expect students to write good essays without first reading reading good essays? We can't. Good writers read; it's that simple. If we want students to improve the quality of their essay writing, we need to supply them with essays to read - and a lot of them. Jago warns against just giving students examples of good student writing; this seems to have very little positive effect. Students either ignore the examples because "they're just written by another kid," or become depressed at the difference in writing quality.
As Jago mentions, many state standards now require the reading of informational texts, anyway. Michigan is no exception; the newly implemented Michigan standards in language arts includes three or four specific mentions of informational texts.
I really enjoyed Jago's opinion piece assignment where students learn to writing persuasive essays based on real news events. I believe in public writing and encouraging students to write for a real audience. By getting students interested in real world events and connecting with these events, Jago has given them the passion and the tools to write with real purpose. It shouldn't surprise anyone that student writing quality improves with the knowledge that audience has been expanded to include someone other than the instructor.
Showing posts with label Carol Jago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carol Jago. Show all posts
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Jago, Chapter 1
Carol Jago
Cohesive Writing: Why Concept Is Not Enough
Chapter 1: Cohesive Writing--The Method
There are a lot of writing methodology texts out there; Cohesive Writing is but one of them. I want to stress this point first off, because despite the amount of talking I'll be doing about the methodologies I like in this text, I don't want to give the impression that this is the only way to teach writing. Instead, I would suggest using this text as another tool in our toolbox.
More to the point, Jago's text tackles one very specific problem with student writing - lack of cohesiveness. I think this is a great idea for an entire methodology book. Other compositionists and educators have written about cohesion in writing, but it's usually a topic for a chapter or just a section of chapter. This text will go in greater detail and will give many examples of ways to teach specific types of writing.
Jago does a great job in this chapter of discussing the importance of writing a good prompt for students and even gives instruction on how to do it. We usually blame our students for their poor writing. More often, we should look at ourselves - and not just in our instruction; we need to give them give good prompts to kick start their writing.
We'll practice this as a class.
Cohesive Writing: Why Concept Is Not Enough
Chapter 1: Cohesive Writing--The Method
There are a lot of writing methodology texts out there; Cohesive Writing is but one of them. I want to stress this point first off, because despite the amount of talking I'll be doing about the methodologies I like in this text, I don't want to give the impression that this is the only way to teach writing. Instead, I would suggest using this text as another tool in our toolbox.
More to the point, Jago's text tackles one very specific problem with student writing - lack of cohesiveness. I think this is a great idea for an entire methodology book. Other compositionists and educators have written about cohesion in writing, but it's usually a topic for a chapter or just a section of chapter. This text will go in greater detail and will give many examples of ways to teach specific types of writing.
Jago does a great job in this chapter of discussing the importance of writing a good prompt for students and even gives instruction on how to do it. We usually blame our students for their poor writing. More often, we should look at ourselves - and not just in our instruction; we need to give them give good prompts to kick start their writing.
We'll practice this as a class.
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