The Pelican

Prompt 2: Extend a reflection on a single moment (statement, activity, rap, muffin, or termite) from the SI (summer institute)--how is that moment sitting with you today?

Well, we talked a lot about cross curriculum writing and I have been thinking about this a lot lately. After I attended the Writing Project Summer Institute, I spent four days in St. Louis doing training for our science curriculum.

The CEO of the company made a statement on the very first night that has stuck with me, "This curriculum is solid if taught as is, but is even better if taught using current events, writing, and other resources."

As we were discussing writing within science, many of the teachers were stuck on having students write the process of the experiments we would be doing. So, with a bit of encouragement from a colleague, I spoke up.

We had studied a whole lesson about pelicans and we were purposing ways to write about this lesson. So I suggested these different avenues:
           - Argument: You could write an argument to save the pelicans ecosystem
           - Informative: A brochure about the Pelican
           - Explanatory: Write about how birds adapt to where they live based on their beaks and
             what they can eat with their beaks (this would be explaining the experiment, but don't have
              them do this in "step one, step two" format)
           - Narrative: Write a narrative from the pelicans point of view about why they live in that
            specific ecosystem.
Teachers from all over the nation that came together for this training, sat there and stared at me like I was an idiot for my suggestions. However, their spoken reaction was, "Wow, how do we come up with different things like that for each lesson? I would have never thought of that." My answer was, "now you see how limitless writing can be, collaborate and ask Sangari people for suggestions, they can help us all network to provide a medium to share our ideas.

I got off into a little tangent there, but this all took be back to the writing project. I see writing as so much more than a process now. I see it as a way to express feelings and a way to share what we understand but the format doesn't have to be the same to do so. Writing does not always need to be graded for perfect grammar, especially within content areas. Students should be able to write freely without being marked about with red marks, but students should also be taught to write properly. Each paper has a different purpose, and I think it is important to help students determine those purposes.