His closing thought on page 112-113 is something that I’ve been mulling over a lot recently especially with the 2016 presidential race in mind. In this section he says “Our students are not spending enough time in school learning how evaluate those things we want them to critically judge for the rest of their lives.” During the presidential election it felt like there was a lot of information floating around and things being said, especially on the internet, without a lot of critical examination. I was also at a placement last semester tutoring students who felt unprepared to examine their own thoughts and writing, where they had done the informational research themselves. To expect them to be able to examine media where the sources of information aren’t always obvious or even present seems overly hopeful to me. Thus writing exercises such as those presented in chapter 4 are going to become increasingly crucial to students.

I also really like the fact that he writes in front of his class going through the process aloud for them to see the stages of writing. He mentions this many times throughout his writing examples, such as in chapter four when he is comparing his favorite war films (pg. 91-95). He initially shows his students the process of how to transfer from a chart to an essay. Not many students are fortunate enough to experience this. I know that I never had a teacher go through the process of writing like that. They basically just threw us into the activity. Of course we received help along the way, however, I believe what Gallagher is doing with his students provides a deeper and fuller experience for a student’s development of writing skills. You as the teacher can show your students that they are not alone in their struggles with writing. It’s a process and it takes time to produce a strong piece of work that requires editing, drafting, and reviewing. 

 

A few of my classmates have already touched upon this particular writing activity, but one idea that Gallagher proposes in “Chapter 2: Express and Reflect” is the six-word memoir (25).  This is an idea I’ve personally experienced as a student in a classroom, and one I absolutely love as a future teacher.  Similarly, I like moving from this idea into a “tweet,” 140-character version (Gallagher, 26).  Not only does this allow students to be creative and expressive in a way that resonates with their “real” lives, it also teaches the power of concise writing.  Often times, I think students tend to write too much because they feel like they’re not getting their point across or they feel like the teacher wants length over quality, and that’s not the case. Ideally, I would like to use this writing activity at the beginning of the year to get to know students. However, I could also see this being a great way to open class with just a quick writing activity, or as a prompt for a writer's notebook writing session, which students could later choose to expand upon (or other prompts they've written on).

 

Something that Gallagher talks about continuously throughout the entire three chapters for this week is the idea of modeling for students.  I love that he takes this a step further and doesn’t just model the brainstorming or graphic organizer part of the writing process, but also the initial words-to-paper part, as well.  He suggests that it is important for students to see that we, as teachers, also struggle, that we also have good and bad days of writing, and I absolutely love this.  It has always been so important to me that my students see that I am not a perfect person, that like them I’m human.  This makes a teacher much more ‘real’ and approachable, in my opinion. 

 

One of my favorite things in chapter 2 was how Gallagher introduces the expressive and reflective writing slowly and builds on each activity starting with just the 6 word memoir. I think this gives students a place to start where they feel comfortable and they don’t go into writing feeling overwhelmed because they are starting with short assignments and gradually working into longer pieces of writing. I also loved how he talked about standing in the front of the class and actually talking his way through the writing process so that they can see how its messy, confusing, and difficult. I don’t think I had teachers do that very often in the front of the class and I think it is really helpful for students to see an experienced writer struggle with the brainstorming process and show how it should be done and also how it is ok to be confused and have jumbled ideas in the beginning. Another idea I really like is the Article of the Week and having students reflect on one each quarter and think about it affects their lives. I think that this is one way to expose students to real life pieces of writing and also show them the value and importance of it and why we need it in our lives. 

 

In chapter 3 I was impressed with both the variety of the prompts and how interesting they were for lessons on how to inform and explain through writing. My favorite one of these prompts was Square Peg/Round Hole. I liked this prompt because it not only related to characters from the books they had read in class but then they take this square peg round hole idea and either relate it to someone in the news or someone in their lives. I think this is a great writing assignment because it is not only informative writing but it connects with the student’s lives, the world, and the books they have covered in class.  I also really liked the real world examples of informative writing that he gives throughout the chapter in order to show his students that no matter what their future career is they are going to have to sometimes write informative pieces. I think students like to know that what they are learning will matter in their future. 

 

I think chapter 4 makes a really important point about how our students need to understand a world that is becoming more and more engrossed in consumerism. I think learning how to read and write reviews is a great way for students to learn how to evaluate and judge through writing because it is something they are all used to doing and they can use it to look into anything they are interested in which will make them more likely to be engaged and enjoy learning this writing style. Most importantly Gallagher  talks about how students need to learn how to evaluate and judge things like commercials, adds, and websites because as we talked about in class, students are going to have to learn what credible information looks like especially in a time when there is so much influence from the media.  

 

I know many previous people have posted about the six word memoirs, but I just thought this concept was a cool method to introduce expressive and reflective writing because this is something I see on Twitter ALL the time. There are several accounts that are based on “Six Word Stories”, and the Twitter hashtag #6WordStory or #TellAStoryIn6Words is a frequent trend. An example of this is @sixwordshort, when they tweeted “I attempted to piece it together.” Social media has always been a concept I have pondered including into my classroom, and this just gave me another idea of how I can do that. If I had each student make a Twitter account specifically for my classroom, I could have them tweet out their six-word memoir as an introduction to expressive and reflective writing. Then, just like the example in the book, they could expound on their six word memoir in a following tweet, expanding it to a 140 character story. 

 

If you haven’t read chapter one like I accidentally did, they go on to explain that one of the key ways to motivate students to learn to write better is to relate it to real life. I think this can be so easily done with writing, especially when we get to inform and explain. In past education classes, I have often described how I want to use my English classroom as a place where I can make sure my students are prepared not only for the tests in my class, but for their future. I have often described using job interviews as part of my lesson plans. Teaching them to properly communicate concisely is an important skill and is something that we can do in our English classrooms. I really like the “Job Hunting” activity in chapter 3. I would have them find a job they would like to do, them explain to me why they would want the job, what current qualifications they have for the job, and what they will need to do to further ready them for the job. 

 

Chapters three and four were equally as informative and for me, gave new life to writing topics I was somewhat concerned about teaching future students. Writing informative pieces has been somewhat of a challenge for me and reading through Gallagher’s variety of ways of teaching students how to write those texts allowed me to notice there are many different approaches to giving information. My favorite lesson plans from chapter three was the “how to” lists she learned from Rick Reilly. Lastly, chapter four left me with the lasting thought teachers are going to play an integral role in teaching students about information and how they are receiving it. Gallagher stated that our students are not spending enough time in school learning how to evaluate things needed in life like newscasts, websites and commercials. I want to ensure that I am teaching my students the best way to read, comprehend and evaluate information that they encounter. 

Chapter 3 was about informed and explained writing. This chapter, surprisingly tickled me. I love that Gallagher explains or teaches it in a way where students you “sarcastic suggestions in reverse” at the end. CLEVER!  I thought Chapter 3 tied nicely with chapter 4, “Evaluate and Judge” as both chapters are key forms or writing in the classroom and in the real world. Both are applicable in student’s everyday lives. Things like, recognizing propaganda, or teaching students to evaluate not only what they saw, but what they did not see. (Adults need this, still). The chapters covered a ton of information and honestly has challenged even how I see writing, or saw it. Writing is freeing. I appreciate the quote mentioned that, “A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.” Writing, according to the text is the very teaching of how to evaluate literature that sharpens student’s ability to evaluate more important information and real world elements. These chapters were a game changer for my one day English classroom.