Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices

Ralph Fletcher's Boy Writers: Reclaiming Their Voices had caught my eye for some time now. Recently I ordered a copy and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Aside from all of the writing advice/thoughts, I was thrilled that it talked about boys in general. Growing up in a family of all girls and being a mom of two girls, I can't say that I have a strong grasp on boys. Of course, I have observations from my years of teaching, but I don't think that makes up for the lack of having a brother or a son. Thus, the book got me thinking about myself as a teacher and if my classroom is an environment where boys can reach their full potential or if it more easily accomodates girls and their learning styles and preferences. It was pretty fascinating to me, and it sparked my interest to delve deeper. Eventually I would love to read other books that he mentions, such as Thomas Newkirk's Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture. (I just saw the front cover for the first time when I was getting the link for the post - I absolutely love it!)

One of Fletcher's comments early on in the book was, "Let's create the kind of classroom where every boy who enters can say to himself: This is a place where I can write, a place where I can bring all of myself to my writing" (25). The book outlines just how teachers can be more mindful of creating this environment. I especially loved the What Can I Do In My Classroom feature at the end of each chapter to list out the main classroom implications from each individual chapter in a succinct manner.

Since technology and literacy is a current area of high interest for me, I also enjoyed reading Fletcher's remarks about texting. While some people do not see it as a valid means for developing literacy skills, he said, "But it's making these boys into better writers [...] I mean, you can't spend hours working on a skill without getting better at it." What a great reminder!

Aside from the book piquing my interest in the field of gender studies, I am also excited to read more of his books about writer's notebooks. I already have a copy of his Breathing In, Breathing Out on my to-read shelf. I can't wait to get a copy of his Pyrotechnics on the Page (expected to come out later this month) as well. I might just have a Ralph Fletcher mini-marathon reading this spring. He also helped me to recenter and reflect as I am creating and re-working my 3 year curriculum map. After reading a recent post from Two Writing teachers, I had already been noticing my flaw of not leaving enough room for student choice in genres, and reading this book hit that message home. This was an excellent book on so many different levels.

State Testing Reflections - Writing Components Pondering

Aside from the regular reading and writing assessments, my students classified as English Language Learners also participate in our state's English Language Proficiency Assessment (ELPA). One test covers reading, writing, and listening, while a second has speaking. I had already reflected on the writing state assessment and the success of having a prompt writing genre, but as my students geared up for ELPA and I have been reflecting on the most essential pieces that I will make sure to integrate next year a thought came to mind regarding writer's notebooks that synthesized ideas from many sources.

Before I explain my idea, I am going to back up and give a quick overview of the influences that came together for the idea. Much of how I use writer's notebooks right now is inspired by Marsha Riddle Buly, a visiting professor that I had while on exchange in Mexico. She has been very influential in who I am as a writing teacher. She pointed me in the direction of starting to delve into so many areas that are key components of my classroom today, such as workshop in general, writer's notebooks, and word study. While writing feature articles, she showed us how utilizing notebooks to guide writers through lists, quick writes based on ideas from the lists, and experimenting with certain pieces of a work in progress (such as an introduction) can be very beneficial. I am certain utilizing writer's notebooks the way she modeled it will always be a big component of my workshop.

I am currently pondering others' ideas as well. This summer I saw how Mark Overmeyer emphasized the benefits of prompt writing and I later read his book to hear the full explanation. At the same time I was reading Jeff Anderson's ideas for instruction with editing and mechanics. Their thoughts have been in the back of my mind simmering away throughout the year as I have been implementing some of their ideas. This spring I read how Penny Kittle also incorporates a lot of quick writes in her classroom. 

I had been thinking about having my students write more quick-writes, including quick writes inspired by prompts, rather than just related to their current piece of writing in their notebooks next year. Inspired by the ideas from the various influences to give it a try, I also thought about how this would help my students when they come upon the extended answer responses on the ELPA. My thoughts right now are that I will also link my Everyday Editing lessons, inspired by Jeff Anderson's ideas (and the title of one of his books), to this practice in the notebook. I will be rethinking the scope and sequence of the teaching points I integrate taking into consideration not only my grade level language arts standards, but the English Language Proficiency standards. This again would help students score at higher levels on the ELPA writing portion.

Yet, I wanted to make sure that I was doing it for more than improved test scores. I was sifting through different rationales for the thought but leaning toward the benefits for my students as writers. Then I thought about the advice that YA author Sydney Satler mentioned to my class for one of our Author Tip Tuesdays about how practice writing unrelated to her novel each day helps her to become a better writer and impacts the quality of her novels. There's the rationale that gives me a real life authentic reason of how it can impact my students in becoming better writers, not just better ELPA extended answer writers, but better writers in general. I think I will give it a try.