The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety-Five

The ease with which school writing assignments came to me is equal to the difficulty that some of my students experience with them.

They are simply too overwhelming.

With these students, I sit and work with them through every step of the process, from prewriting to proofreading. They do the work, I simply help them organize. What they need is not to feel they have to climb the mountain alone.

One of the most amazing articles I’ve read and referred to repeatedly on the subject is from the PBS Misunderstood Minds Website, a companion to their eponymous television special. 

It lays out, with extraordinary clarity, many of the issues that face students who struggle with writing. You see so much on the Internet and sometimes you don’t print or save it quickly enough. I lost this one, once. I’m so glad I’ve found it again. 

https://www.pbs.org/wg…/misunderstoodminds/writingdiffs.html

The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety

Last week one of my third grade students actually had a storytelling assignment.

The goal was to create a setting, establish a set of characters, and devise a plot line based on a sequence of events – in other words beginning, middle, and end.

She also provided a Traffic Light Transition worksheet with phrases such as “in the beginning” or “once upon a time” (green) for the beginning; “later that day” or “in the meantime” (yellow) for middle; and “finally’ or “in the end” (red) for the end.

Needless to say, we had a blast.

The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety-Four

The piece of blank paper was overwhelming.

One of the things I noticed when I taught preschool was that three-year-olds often froze up when they were given paper at the drawing table. Not all children at this age are starting to draw representationally and there seemed to be some kind of self-expectation that they were going to draw a masterpiece. Then when, of course, they couldn’t do this, they became really frustrated.

In the same way, most students don’t write a perfect research paper the first time their pencil comes out. And that’s just fine. That’s what the “prewriting” process is for. Once notes are taken and ideas are formed, a student can put these together in a graphic organizer. Only then does it make sense to try for a first draft.

When they construct the pieces first, then put them in an order that makes sense, students can see that a research paper can come together logically, versus just getting written out of thin air.

That would seem a little overwhelming.

The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety-Three

It’s always about fun tools, isn’t it?

Any project is much more approachable if there are fun pens, pencils, and a great notebook available. I’ve mentioned my love of index cards, and I need my cup of blue Bic stics, black Dixon Ticonderogas, and an assortment of all colors of Flair felt tips to attack any writing morning. Don’t even get me started on the notebooks.

For the kids, the first question in this department I always ask is: what’s your favorite marker? Then we move on to “Do you like to write in a notebook or on a big piece of paper?” (for the older students and research projects). Back in the good old days --before the pandemic -- I often worked with some of my younger students in coffee shops. I would pull out the iconic Bic 4-color retractable pen – I called it my “clicky” pen – hand it over, and watch their eyes widen.

That was fun.

The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety-Two

Outlines were linear. Graphic organizers less so.

I like to think of graphic organizers as index cards laid out on a table. You have your thoughts, but they can go in all sorts of configurations. The real question is how are you going to organize them?

“Graphic organizers are a helpful learning tool for students of all ages to organize, clarify, or simplify complex information—they help students construct understanding through an exploration of the relationships between concepts. Teacher-generated organizers are a useful scaffold to support student learning. They provide students with a means to categorize cumbersome amounts of information, introduce a more refined lens to analyze a complex text, and enable students to recognize patterns and compare perspectives.” – Edutopia.com

The Corona Diaries: Day Ninety-One

Getting students to use outlines can be a challenge. I know -- I was one of them.

For many embarrassing years, I stubbornly rejected the outline idea, insisting that my thoughts would easily come out on paper and somehow, magically, form themselves into a logical whole.

It all caught up with me in graduate school, when my advisor confronted me with the painful notion that she had to, in essence, clean up my mess. While she didn’t exactly put it this way, this was the message I got.

Fast forward to graduate degree number two – I got the message, load and clear. I’m not sure why – perhaps it was the challenge of parenting two children, working full-time and going to school at night? Since it was all about keeping my head above water, I had to have a plan.

In early childhood classrooms, one of the questions you often hear is “What’s the plan?” This can be asked anywhere from the block corner to the playground. It’s a question that grounds children and challenges them to organize their thinking.

While this can certainly seem like a spontaneity-killer, when it comes to writing research-based work, not using an outline is kind of like baking without a recipe. You need to know which ingredients to have, what tools you need, and how much time it will take.

When I started doing research it was called an outline. Today it’s called a graphic organizer. More on that tomorrow.

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Nine

Back to storytelling.

The main elements of a classic story to introduce children to are the beginning, middle, and end. This can also be referred to as sequencing.

Take, say, one of my all-time favorite children’s stories, The Little Red Hen. Beginning: the little red hen asks for help planting wheat for bread; no animal volunteers. Middle: the little red hen asks for help milling and harvesting the wheat; no animal volunteers. End: the little red hen, having made the bread, asks who would like to help her eat it. Every animal volunteers, to which the little red hen refuses, because, of course, none of them helped when she asked for assistance.

Here are a few words on the importance of sequencing:

“Sequencing is one of many skills that contributes to students' ability to comprehend what they read. Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story — the beginning, middle, and end — and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in the order in which they occurred. The ability to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension strategy, especially for narrative texts. Sequencing is also an important component of problem-solving across subjects.” – Readingrockets.org

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Eight

For some children, words are enough. For others, words and images are better.

Back to Howard Gardner and those visual learners. For them, seeing the images and words together makes for a fuller reading/artistic experience.

Some of my students have had a lot of fun coming up with characters – name, physical attributes, activities – and settings, then deciding what the story is. Then they try their hand at drawing those characters in their story.

And graphic novels make for great summer reading:

“Here are three more reasons you should encourage your kids to read graphic novels this summer:

1. Graphic novels are full of text. Sure, they have drawings, illustrations, and sometimes photos, but they also have text that readers must actually decode, analyze, and comprehend. With graphic novels, kids still must follow plots and character development. They must understand cause and effect, and they must learn about perspective. All of these things will improve their reading comprehension.

2. Graphic novels are engaging. Often, especially for reluctant readers, graphic novels add the extra support kids need to help them through a text. They tend to be particularly captivating for kids, and the combination of text and pictures provides context for stories that they may otherwise not completely understand.

3. Graphic novels are high-quality reading material. Just like traditional novels, graphic novels have exciting and complex plots, characters, and conflicts. The plots have twists and turns. Characters are developed and dynamic. Conflicts are presented, unwound, and resolved like they are in other texts. The only difference is that graphic novels have more images to support the development.” – Scholastic.com

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Six

“Doing all those assignments” can be really frustrating for kids, but they are nevertheless important. You do have to learn how to do a research paper and a book report. These are skills that you need for the years ahead -- in middle-, high school, and college. And beyond…

However, if these assignments are introduced too early – back to that developmentally-appropriate business – they can backfire. One way to balance “all those assignments” is too introduce journals and free-writing at the same time.

I still remember the first diary I was given as a young girl. It had a lock and key on it! What? There was a place where I was given the permission to have private thoughts? There was no privacy in my family when I was growing up, so this almost seemed like some kind of joke. 

However, it was crucial for me to have an opportunity to write down my own thoughts, in private. Here’s why:

“Journaling encourages your child to grow while discovering open-ended writing. Instead of writing one assignment and being done, journal writing allows your child to write daily (or more!).

Not only can it be enjoyable and reflective, journaling also has multiple benefits related to literacy and social growth. Plus, you might just spark a fire in your budding writer!” – Scholastic.com

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Five

“Doing all those assignments -- it kind of felt empty to me.” – Music Student, From the Top Radio Show

 When I was a volunteer in the public school system I had a third grader who needed help writing. The teachers were struggling to support him, and I was tasked with the assignment of getting him to write something – anything – in his composition book. For 45-minutes we pretty much got nowhere, and I was about to send him back to class – feeling like I had utterly failed him – when a thought occurred to me. 

“What do you like to do when you’re not in school,” I asked. 

He looked up at me, paused, and then slowly said baseball. For the last ten minutes of our session this student – who had practically been shut down just now – suddenly had absolutely no trouble expressing himself. I heard about everything baseball – positions, uniforms, and equipment – on paper.

Some students may not like the typical school writing assignment, but they will, nevertheless, be able to complete the assignment and move on. Other students, for a whole host of reasons, will not engage with such assignments, and worse, will associate all writing with such assignments.

These are the students to catch and connect to, with fun engaging work, so that they don’t development a future fear of writing.

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Four

So, what works for writing?

From the start, young children should be exposed to storytelling, which teaches children about other cultures, expands their world, and develops empathy. Here’s an excellent article on the subject:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/why-is-storytelling-important-to-children/zvqcnrd

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Three

I’ve learned a lot about myself by looking at Gardner’s theory over the years.

For example, I’m a bodily/kinesthetic learner because I learn by doing with my hands – read handwriting and piano playing – rather than by simply seeing. 

And I can process my day much better if I spend time handwriting. If I only type something is lost. And my days goes even better if I make the time to sew or knit.

Ah, it all goes back to Steiner and all that hand work.

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-Two

While no theory is perfect, Howard Gardner’s made such sense.

I’ve taught many different types of children, in terms of learning styles, and I’ve found that his Multiple Intelligences theory really helped me to understand children who learn artistically, visually, and interpersonally.

As a tutor and writing specialist, I’ve certainly seen how, for example, I can work with an artistic learner and help them organize thoughts in creative, less-linear ways, using markers, paper, and graphic organizers to communicate their ideas visually, and therefore much more effectively.

When students who struggle with traditional writing methods that simply don’t work for their learning style see that writing can be approached differently they usually respond quite positively.

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty-One

Another experience that was different was that, unless it was pouring with rain, we went out every day when I was in kindergarten and lower school. At my daughter’s school? They weren’t allowed out if the temperature dipped below 32 degrees. They were made to sit in the auditorium and watch Home Alone II, over and over again because there were no other videos in the school collection.

This kind of short-sighted, let’s-take-the-easiest-approach helps administrators and hurts children, who need to run around to let off all that steam that accumulates when they sit at desks in classrooms too long.

One of my favorite premises from grad school was that of Howard Gardner, who developed a theory of multiple intelligences, arguing that children learn in all different ways, including the “kinesthetic” learner. 

This would be the child who needs to run around the play yard to let off all that steam. 

https://www.verywellmind.com/gardners-theory-of-multiple-intelligences-2795161

The Corona Diaries: Day Eighty

What a different kindergarten experience I had than the one my children entered thirty-five years later.

I had dolls, animals, and large wooden blocks. My children had desks, pencils, and meaningless homework with directives such as “ring the truck.”

Oh, and did I mention rest time? Needless to say, my children got none of that.

The Corona Diaries: Day Seventy-Nine

“Kids who are given inappropriate situations tend to behave inappropriately. A child becoming wiggly, disruptive, or aggressive is much more likely to occur in a classroom that is not developmentally appropriate.” – Amanda Morgan, Notjustcute.com

Four-year-olds sitting in circle for over thirty minutes, five-year-olds expected to read, six-year-olds doing too many worksheets – I’ve seen it all. In both public and private school classrooms. What do all of these scenarios have in common? They all resulted in behavior problems such as the ones Ms. Morgan mentions above.

The answer? That’s a tough one. You can’t undo the curriculum of your child’s school, can you?

The Corona Diaries: Day Seventy-Eight

Why do we push children beyond what is developmentally appropriate for them?

Here’s one answer:

“School systems, driven by ill-informed ideologues and federal mandate, are becoming obsessed with testing knowledge at the expense of training kids to develop better capacity for acquiring knowledge.” -- William Klemm, D.V.M., Ph.D., is a Professor of Neuroscience at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Texas A&M University

The Corona Diaries: Day Seventy-Seven

“The preschool, including the Kindergarten, is non-academic. At this age, a child’s intellect and understanding of the world resides fully in his or her body, and it is through this physicality that the child apprehends the world. The child’s energies are naturally taken up largely by physical growth.” – Rudolf Steiner Curriculum Guide

Is it developmentally appropriate for four year olds to be reading or writing? I have worked in classrooms where young children were expected to write their names with a pencil by the end of the year in a fours classroom and a little boy I taught went to public school as a kindergarten student and was expected to come early every day to work on reading because he was deemed “behind.” Needless to say he was not a happy little boy at this point and therein developed a lot of resistance to going to school. 

“Children learn through play, and that is what your 4- to 5-year-old should be doing. At this age, your child should be running, hopping, throwing and kicking balls, climbing, and swinging with ease.” -- WebMD

The Corona Diaries: Day Seventy-Six

One of the things I really appreciate about my Steiner education, which I could not have acknowledged until I became a teacher, is how developmentally-appropriate it is.

“Child development in the Waldorf plan is very specific. The decisions about the curriculum are based on exactly what is happening in the child’s physical, and emotional development and also in the development of the child’s consciousness.” -- Waldorf Publications.org

Perhaps this is the reason I never needed a tutor?

The Corona Diaries: Day Seventy-Five

“The children are encouraged and expected to expend a good deal of time and effort to create these books.” – Rudolph Steiner Curriculum Guide

Now I understand why I love to write.

I was given an opportunity, from a young age, to create a book. Our Main Lesson books, at Steiner, where we handwrote the lessons of the subject we were studying at the time, whether it was history or geography, were, to some degree, our own creation:

“Each student thus creates his or her own textbook for every subject.”

It all begins to make sense.