Judith J. Katz
Authentic Voice
In my prior YNHTI unit, Uncovering Your Students' Authentic Voice, I discuss and define what I mean by Authentic Voice in some detail. Since Authentic Voice is an important part of creative writing I think it's worthwhile to include a shortened version of that working definition here.
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Something is written in [the student's] authentic voice when it contains ideas and
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details that could only [have been] written by him/or her. But young writers tend
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to write in broad sweeping generalizations and they do so for a variety of reasons,
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not the least of which is because they think that generalizing makes their writing
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more meaningful to their readers. It is our job to show them that in fact the exact
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opposite is true. It is important to let students know that generalized writing is
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first draft writing--which can be a good thing-- as long as they understand that
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part of the writer's craft is to replace the generalized with the specific in future
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drafts. Students need to be able to see and hear the difference between 'anyone
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could have written this' and 'only you could have written this in this way.' (Katz)
The Master/Apprentice Method (MAM)
Another concept that I have been developing for some time and that is discussed in detail in my prior YNHTI unit, Uncovering Your Students' Authentic Voice (Katz) that comes into play in this unit is what I call the Master Apprentice Method (MAM) of learning to write. I describe what I mean by MAM partially as follows:
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Reading the work of the writers who came before us, listening to the unique voice
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each brings us, attempting to walk in the footprints left to us, is as good a way as
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any of learning how to find the unique, authentic voice within each of us. In this
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way writers are no different from any other artists. We must practice scales like
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musicians, we have to stand at the barre like dancers, and we have to break great
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paintings down into the major lines and shapes we see so that others can see them
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too. In order to begin to master the elements of reading and writing in our own
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authentic voices, we must apprentice ourselves to the "master writers" who have
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done this work so successfully before us. We must choose some literary elements
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to focus on, read for those elements, discuss them with each other, and then write
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using those elements, initially imitating what the master writer has done. We must
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question the writers by questioning what we see them doing in their texts. Of
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course they cannot answer us verbally, but their work answers our questions. Over
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time we make those elements our own and their use becomes as fluid and natural
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to us as our own ability to walk down stairs.
In guiding students through, what may be for many of them, the first purposeful, metacognitive process of grieving this unit will rely on MAM for its work with existing texts (elegies, list poems, etc.) but it will also rely on the students memories of people, places, and things they have lost. Those memories will also act like guides for this work. To paraphrase T.S. Eliot "No person has his complete meaning alone." Not in art or life.
Teaching by Making Your Own Process Visible
How will students work their way methodically through the updated version of Bloom's Taxonomy: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating? How will they begin to distinguish the general from the specific, the cliché from the original? These questions are deceptively simple to us (adults and teachers) because we have practiced these skills and strategies for years. It is not that we skip any of the steps we want our students to master; it is that we have come to do so many of those early steps, let us call them processes, so quickly that we are unaware we are doing them.
I believe that the best teachers are the ones who strive to make their own thinking process visible to their students. I do not mean that these teachers require their students to think the same way as they do. Rather I mean that teachers share what they see, think, and do: they model thinking not answers. Nowhere is this more crucial than in the arts where teachers and students are focused on creating expression.
Empathy for the students' thoughts, feelings, and attempts to make sense of a difficult area of life (grief and loss) can go a long way in helping the teacher model how to create the memorial ceremony, and write the poetry in this unit. Open-minded observation of the students and how they grapple with this work can also help the teacher simplify their own process. I am reminded of an apocryphal story that when someone told Picasso he drew like a child he reportedly said: It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."
Feedback
In his groundbreaking 2009 book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement John Hattie, Professor of Education and Director of the Visible Learning Labs, at the University of Auckland, New Zealand makes quite a compelling case for feedback being one of the top three ways in which student learning can be increased. Hattie is not talking about the "red pen" kind of feedback so many teachers rely on, nor does he define feedback as a one-way conversation that goes from teacher to student. He argues for feedback that is a conduit from teacher to student, from student to teacher, from peer to peer, from colleague to colleague. He says,
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It is about teachers enabling students to do more than what teachers do unto them;
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it is the focus on imparting new knowledge and understanding and then
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considering and monitoring how students gain fluency and appreciation in this
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new knowledge and build conceptions of this knowing and understanding.
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Feedback from students to teachers involves information and understanding about
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the tasks that make the difference in light of what the teacher already understands,
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misunderstands, and constructs about the learning of his or her students … It
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matters when teachers see through the lens of the student grappling to construct
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beliefs and knowledge about whatever is the goal of the lesson … It is not the
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knowledge or ideas, but the learner's construction of this knowledge and these
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ideas that is critical. (238)
Like grief and loss and life learning is often uncomfortable, non-linear, recursive, clumsy, and full of mistakes. Neither teaching nor feedback is about filling an empty container (the students' head). Feedback that works, that keeps a student engaged and writing, rather than shuts him or her down, is feedback that accepts and respects what the student knows and builds on it, adds to it, and builds on that, all the while listening to and reading what the student knows.