Are YOU feeling tired, uninspired, or otherwise uncertain about what to write about on the blog? Consider any of these questions to help you focus a post!
What does it mean to you to teach writing as a process?
What would the writing process look like in your class? What kind of activities would you do? (Invention? Revision? Peer review? Self-review? Checklists? Outlines?)
Do you imagine that you’ll always respond to drafts first in some way? Do you think it’s important to have students have to write something that’s immediately evaluated without revising feedback from you (or others)?
What do you see as the uses of no- and low-stakes writing activities? How can you get students to enjoy them, benefit from them, and understand their benefits?
What revision skills and practices do you think are important for your students to have? Should your students be able to revise their work at a global level from reader responses? Should your students be able to edit their own work? What are some strategies you can use to help them do that?
How can you teach revision so that students can eventually be independent critical readers of their own writing?
Could you imagine a class where infinite revisions were allowed? Would it be useful for students to be able to continue working on a piece as long as they wanted to make it as best as they can make it? What kinds of conditions and rules would you have to put in place to allow for this? Would you make this allowance for all the writing projects in your course, or just one?
Can you imagine modeling revising for students? Can you show them how much and how you revise something? (an assignment, a syllabus, or a poem or essay) What could “being a reviser” do for your students?
How can you create an invention-oriented classroom? How can you help students create a relationship with writing that’s personal and creative and that is a means to discovering what they think and feel? What daily activities can you invite them to do?
How can you help students discover what they’re interested in and help guide them while still giving them control over their writing projects?
How can you show your students that you value their writing and expression? (that you’re not just there to say it’s wrong or find the faults—students often assume this coming in!)
How can you help students disrupt the stories they have coming in about themselves as writers (that they’re not very good, or that they’ve always been good at writing)?
How can you help students understand the conventions of writing vary deeply across situations? (that, for example, avoiding the first person is sometimes, but not always appropriate)
How can you disrupt the idea that English is all about grammar and writing that’s “right,” correct, proper?
How can you help students write things that you’re excited to read?
What kind of writing/ELA teacher do you want to be? How do you want your students to see you? Why? What kinds of things can you do regularly to help you be that kind of teacher?