One major issue that I've run into this semester (and maybe this is an inevitable Spring semester issue) is TESTING. All day, everyday. During the course of my middle school observations, I haven't been able to observe on several occasions because the whole school is on lockdown for testing. Now, I understand that we want our students to have all the tools necessary to be able to do well on these tests, since that's the way that their success is currently measured in our school system. But it seems like we're mock testing and testing stuff that we don't even have time to teach! And here's the latest, craziest "mock" test situation: the 8th graders were being tested this past week, taking up the three English class periods that weren't already taken by a different standardized test, on something that they aren't actually testing on this year. Yes, that's right, they were practicing for a non-existant test (it was on writing a short story within that lovely 26-line block). And to what end? They had already completed a short story unit earlier in the year, and they needed to work on their non-fiction unit. My CT also explained that she had built in a few weeks for test prep, but she probably wasn't even going to be able to have time for that. Instead, pointless (to me) diagnostic testing takes precedence. Sigh.
So, to transition to Christenbury, in a perfect world, we would all be reading lots of literature (read like "litrature") and chatting about Shakespeare all the time without having our weeks and units halted and interrupted by the call of the standardized test. While she had some helpful suggestions about how to cover certain texts that may be tough to understand, I did have a problem with her overview of YA books as well as her assertion that you shouldn't teach a whole unit on poetry. First of all, her characteristics of YA books seem a little reductive, especially "a stripped-down plot." Also, the section about concern for the classics also seems too stuck in the canonical trap. Who's to say that these "classics" are necessary? And I do think that the poetry as a unit works as long as there's creative writing involved; I could see that lots of poetry gets overwhelming, but there seems to be a lot of components that you can talk about, even getting into issues brought up in hip-hop songs. Christenbury's chapters on writing and revising are right on, though, especially with her emphasis on the recursive nature of writing (since that's what we've been focusing on in Teaching Composition).
I think that the main concept that stood out to me when reading Smagorinsky was that of choice--no matter what writing assignment you're giving to students, there is room for individual creativity, which is of utmost importance. I've noticed my CT giving students a reflection at the end of the class, but she'll let them decide among three different types of reflection. So, while there's still structure involved, it lets them think about what they want to pursue and even what their individual strengths are. I also prefer genre-driven units when it comes to writing activities, because while it's important for the teacher to model certain lessons, it's also important that the students can immerse themselves in other examples of the genre. The portfolio that's produced by the end of the year is a really great idea, though I think it'd be difficult to accomplish with younger students unless you were super organized (and caused the students to be super organized as well).
Both Christenbury and Smagorinsky emphasize the importance of having time for real writing--not just writing that can be accomplished according to a certain set of rules during a class period. This real writing is tough--we're doing some of that right now in our Teaching Composition class, and it always surprises me by how much harder it is than I have anticipated. We have a few weeks built in to do revisions, and while that isn't really feasible in a high school classroom, I'm understanding the importance of time with real writing. Not that I have enough of it, but Spring Break is coming!
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