I really love the simple yet powerful principles Strong
offers for designing writing assignments – his list will be a good thing to
keep handy, to check myself against lazy teaching. The CRAFT model is
especially appealing – such a simple system for making assignments engaging and
effective. Reading through the examples
of CRAFT assignments, I was almost tempted to do a couple… how interesting would
it be to pretend to be Hitler, writing a letter to Anne Frank in response to
her diary? If I wasn’t so tired right now, maybe I’d give it a go. Certainly,
this would be a more engaging assignment than to ask students to write this
essay: “Diversity and discrimination are two major and related themes in this
book. Where do these themes appear, and how do they work together to propel the
plot of the book?” (Which I found here,
along with several other painfully boring essay assignments.) The thought of
writing that essay makes me want to cry… although, there was a time when I was
writing essays like that all the time and could have whipped one up in a jiffy.
The CRAFT assignments seem like more fun for students to do (and
would certainly be more fun for a teacher to read and grade) – I wonder though
how most students would react to such assignments. Ideally, we imagine our
students saying, “Oooo, this looks like a fun writing assignment that engages
my interests, has personal relevance, invites critical thinking, and allows me
to use my recently acquired knowledge in creative ways! Let me at it!” But for
students who have lived through years of “Darth Vader” schooling, who can whip
up a well-structured regurgitation of information in a jiffy as I once could, a
CRAFT assignment is asking a lot of them. I imagine lots of groaning and eye
rolling and confusion. This is not to say that we should give in to this resistance
and resort to lazy essay assignments – in fact, it gives us all the more reason
not to give in. Such assignments might make students uncomfortable, but that is
the point – the challenge of writing in new and creative ways creates that
cognitive dissonance that drives student learning. But I think it would be naïve
to think that you could give an assignment like this to students who had never
been asked to write in this way and expect them to take to it without some
guidance and preparation. However, I think once they got the hang of it and saw
how fun it can be, all those writing lasers would light up, fighting back the darkness.
(Sorry guys, I’m really tired and I like that metaphor and wanted to sneak it
in somehow.)
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| I had this idea for a CRAFT assignment where students take on the role of a mother cell, writing a letter for their daughter cells' baby scrap book about the day they were born ... "Next, during metaphase, all of my chromosomes lined up along my equater, coming together in one final embrace." ... OK, time for bed! |
Hi Jenna,
ReplyDeleteI also thought about how students would be hesitant to dive into these kinds of assignments. Without much experience with more creative writing styles, students would probably balk at them initially. Easing them into these with very short writing assignments (a paragraph) of this type would be a good approach. I must say I laughed at the suggestion of a physical education writing assignment, if such a thing were sprung on me in high school it would have reeked of some kind of school-wide writing initiative (I was in HS before NCLB, kids aren't writing in PhysEd now are they?).
Hi Jenna - much like Nathan, I was aware that these assignments are not easy to formulate on the fly. As you had stated: "But for students who have lived through years of “Darth Vader” schooling, who can whip up a well-structured regurgitation of information in a jiffy as I once could, a CRAFT assignment is asking a lot of them. I imagine lots of groaning and eye rolling and confusion." From a teacher's perspective, I wouldn't want to read all of these "regurgitations". That would be painfully boring. I really do think that the CRAFT format needs to be implemented early on (late elementary school). Essentially when students being major writing assignments/projects, although creativity should be allowed from Day One of schooling.
ReplyDeleteWe must provide them with the tools first but I do think that Strong's CRAFT can be used effectively. Those Anne Frank assignments were wonderful examples of Strong's argument on clarity. They look like they've been designed with absolutely no effort, in return the teacher isn't going to receive any effort. Most likely they will head to google and type in "Diversity in the Diary of Anne Frank" or "World War II's effect on Anne Frank", this will lead them to the passages that the teachers is looking for. Again, I do think we need to be more clear but at the same we must scaffold CRAFT so students do not get too overwhelmed.
Hi Jenna, nice work! I like your point that students need guidance and preparation, especially if they are not used to this particular writing style. I also thing we can include some teachers in that group. Many science and math teachers aren’t particularly adept at writing, or grading writing papers. I see that weakness in myself. I love the idea of being able to use writing formats that math and science teachers don’t traditionally use. That being said, if I’m not able to properly evaluate a student’s creative writing, they may stop taking my CRAFT assignments seriously. Thank you for pointing the potential difficulties in these assignments out, because it caused me to think I need more practice evaluating writing.
ReplyDeleteHi Jenna, nice work! I like your point that students need guidance and preparation, especially if they are not used to this particular writing style. I also thing we can include some teachers in that group. Many science and math teachers aren’t particularly adept at writing, or grading writing papers. I see that weakness in myself. I love the idea of being able to use writing formats that math and science teachers don’t traditionally use. That being said, if I’m not able to properly evaluate a student’s creative writing, they may stop taking my CRAFT assignments seriously. Thank you for pointing the potential difficulties in these assignments out, because it caused me to think I need more practice evaluating writing.
ReplyDelete