"If we do the prewriting for our students they will not learn the largest part of the writing process" (p. 5).
McNiff:
... And that is the collection of thought. It is important for the student to want to write and to want to do something, anything, it has to be all theirs and they have to be fully engaged.
I think teachers who prewrite for their students/writers is more dominant in the ESL students that I tutor as compared to EPL students. ESL students are learning a double process (writing and writing in English) and when a class is pressed for time and the student needs to pass an exam to stay in college, sometimes the process of writing is taken away and it becomes the process of passing. In this case, students lose out. They are losing out on their education to really learn to write. Or perhaps they are learning repetition of phrase and idea, memorizing, (by having the teacher prewrite for them) before they can develop their own process that is true to them. Do they need to be shown how to think of ideas before they can think and develop ideas themselves? Or is it just a matter of time in the classroom and a rush of process?
Jayme, I really enjoyed reading all the questions you asked about ESL especially this one--"Do they need to be shown how to think of ideas before they can think and develop ideas themselves? Or is it just a matter of time in the classroom and a rush of process?" And I am going to be cryptic in my response--what would Gee say? Checkout some of his learning principles for an answer.
ReplyDeleteGee would reply back with something along the lines of it being important for the student and teacher to be "thinking at a situation-specific level and embodied action" (p. 83).
ReplyDeleteIt's possible that if the student is taking an immersion course to pass the COMPASS exam then ultimately the student is being situation-specific in learning what is necessary and applying what is being learned to pass the exam. The course is designed in some aspects to develop the students skills in writing and to train the student to write better but ultimately the student is not taking the course to become a better writer - unfortunately the bigger picture is actually to pass the COMPASS writing section so that the college student can take other courses and move on in school. Therefore, the student really has "no ability to customize for specific situations and that offer the person no invitations for embodied actions in different sitatuons, are useless" (p. 83).
The immersion course to pass the writing exam will teach the student phrases and terms to maybe write an argument about problems in the community, key phrases, popular oppositions. WHich is fine, if the student can later continue to develop their writing without passing the exam and using it as stop point.