Teach me.
Hi.
So, first, I want to know Kristina's great strategies for writing personal statements. I can help other people write theirs, but when I have to write one for myself, I really struggle. Honestly, my personal statement for graduate school was fine, but I don't think it was what most graduate school were looking for -- and I didn't even like it all that much.
Anyway, I'm going to jump into this discussion about personal writing. I don't think I'm one of the ones who recoils or blanches whenever Faith brings up the idea, but I do have a few concerns. I would teach personal writing all the dang time if I knew how to REALLY teach it well. I mean, I need a foolproof plan that will work for the majority of students. I have to tell you that I worked my butt off teaching and explaining how to write memoirs and short stories to the junior/senior class when I taught high school, and I really only got a handful of decent stories. And I gave handouts, modeled bad and good examples, did small group work, etc., all en route to the finished product...and they still struggled with it. True, some didn't really try very hard, but some did, and they still couldn't produce a story that wasn't boring or pointless or trite.
I am a big fan of ethnography, though. I made my AP students do family ethnographies over Christmas break; the assignment was based on an assignment I had done during my senior year of college, and I produced one of the best pieces of writing I've ever done. I'm still really proud of it. In the family ethnography, the students have to observe their families (extended, nuclear, whatever -- the holidays force them to be with some segment of their familial unit) for at least 3 hours and taking meticukous field notes. Then, they have to write an ethnography in which they describe their observed "culture" and discuss some sort of discovery or revelation that they made. That having to have a "discovery" frustrated many of them, but in the end, I received some of the most candid, poignant, and moving pieces of student writing that I have ever read -- and to me, that's writing worth reading.
So, basically, I don't know how to teach personal writing well unless it's a family ethnography. So I am intrigued by these different invention activities that people are coming up with that do use personal experience as a "point of entry," because I would like to teach personal writing better and make it really relevant to my students. However, I do think that there are many benefits to making students do a great deal of straight-up academic writing, because honestly, very few of their classes are going to allow them to write from personal experience. I'm just trying to be practical. Creating critical arguments and analyzing texts will be what most of their classes require, so I do see the benefits of an academic writing focus (and I know I keep saying "academic writing" as sort of the opposite of "personal writing," but I'm not implying that writing from personal experience can't be academic -- I just can't think of a better phrase right now. So don't get your shorts in a bunch, anyone.)
So, first, I want to know Kristina's great strategies for writing personal statements. I can help other people write theirs, but when I have to write one for myself, I really struggle. Honestly, my personal statement for graduate school was fine, but I don't think it was what most graduate school were looking for -- and I didn't even like it all that much.
Anyway, I'm going to jump into this discussion about personal writing. I don't think I'm one of the ones who recoils or blanches whenever Faith brings up the idea, but I do have a few concerns. I would teach personal writing all the dang time if I knew how to REALLY teach it well. I mean, I need a foolproof plan that will work for the majority of students. I have to tell you that I worked my butt off teaching and explaining how to write memoirs and short stories to the junior/senior class when I taught high school, and I really only got a handful of decent stories. And I gave handouts, modeled bad and good examples, did small group work, etc., all en route to the finished product...and they still struggled with it. True, some didn't really try very hard, but some did, and they still couldn't produce a story that wasn't boring or pointless or trite.
I am a big fan of ethnography, though. I made my AP students do family ethnographies over Christmas break; the assignment was based on an assignment I had done during my senior year of college, and I produced one of the best pieces of writing I've ever done. I'm still really proud of it. In the family ethnography, the students have to observe their families (extended, nuclear, whatever -- the holidays force them to be with some segment of their familial unit) for at least 3 hours and taking meticukous field notes. Then, they have to write an ethnography in which they describe their observed "culture" and discuss some sort of discovery or revelation that they made. That having to have a "discovery" frustrated many of them, but in the end, I received some of the most candid, poignant, and moving pieces of student writing that I have ever read -- and to me, that's writing worth reading.
So, basically, I don't know how to teach personal writing well unless it's a family ethnography. So I am intrigued by these different invention activities that people are coming up with that do use personal experience as a "point of entry," because I would like to teach personal writing better and make it really relevant to my students. However, I do think that there are many benefits to making students do a great deal of straight-up academic writing, because honestly, very few of their classes are going to allow them to write from personal experience. I'm just trying to be practical. Creating critical arguments and analyzing texts will be what most of their classes require, so I do see the benefits of an academic writing focus (and I know I keep saying "academic writing" as sort of the opposite of "personal writing," but I'm not implying that writing from personal experience can't be academic -- I just can't think of a better phrase right now. So don't get your shorts in a bunch, anyone.)
posted by K. | 10:09 PM
2 Comments:
Kristen,
My shorts aren't in a bunch, but I do want to write about my thoughts after reading your "post." This may not answer your questions, but here goes.... I am taking a general-semantics course right now. After each book we read, we are to write an essay--an academic writing assignment. He doesn't want personal response papers. However, when I begin each essay (I've completed three so far), I begin with a story of my life that connects with the book we are reading. I start with "personal writing" to help myself understand the content. Then after I've drafted 1-2 pages, I go back to the book and start making connections with specific lines from the author, tying the assigned text to my personal writing. In the end I've had up to 7 pages that I go through and cut until I'm at a strong three pages (the requested length).
By starting with the "personal," going to the "academic" I've actually enjoyed writing these, have learned the content better (because I'm finding relevance to my own experiences), and produced writing that I am so far somewhat satisfied with (the surprising part!).
This may not help, but maybe this is a way to think about how we bridge and teach different writings.
The family ethnography assignment doesn't sound much different that the I-Search paper that I assign. The I-search requires an interview and that the student has a genuine need to know about the topic. Many of the best papers I have read were about grandparents. They researched a family member. One student researched the life of her grandfather who was deceased. It was fascinating. I've been reading I-Search papers this week. J. wrote about AD/HD which I would usually say would be a no-no paper idea--like legalzing marijuana, but in this case, she has AD/HD. She did a fantastic job of relating her sources to her own experiences. It was such a fantastic paper. She ended up with a fifteen page paper and she wants to work on it more. I love to read those papers and that happens when they have a topic that is meaningful--like family.
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