Saturday, September 22, 2007

Rough Draft Ideas for Indy Teach

My assigned reading for the Indy Teach is Writing Down The Bones by Natalie Goldberg,
The Main Ideas I got from skimming the novel, The Main Ideas of this book, that writing can be fun, with the ideas and creative push and the grammar and the other sentence structures will follow. A quote that I like is the begining, which reflects what I have in mind for the exerise and teacher session, "Garfield, the Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Star Wars. I use notebooks with funny covers. They come out fresh in September when school starts. They are a quarter more than the plain spirals, but I like them. I can't take myself too seriously when I open up a Peanuts notebook. It also helps me locate them more easily-"Oh, yes, that summer I wrote in the rodeo series notebook." Goldeberg p.6
The main idea is to teach the book as a guide to play with writing like somebody plays with clay or painting use it as a way of thinking "outside the box" of writing rather than grammar; colons, semicolons, and run-ons. In each chapter, very short chapters, she describes ways of writing in journals, these exersies are way to to give the class as a way for them to teach their students as a way to get the grammar at the end rather at the beginning to show the creative potential of the students rather then stunting at the first of the first of the year. I would the give the class a few instructions about how she says about to get started and have;
First Thoughts
Keep your hand moving
Dont cross out
Dont worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar
Lose control
Dont think, Dont get Logical
Go for the Jugalar
Have some of the students read they first thoughts see how what is put on the paper and see they are
The Main Questions
How the students' writing is more to write for the teacher rather write for themselves?
The steps of writing or the process one must go through the semester or school is more important then the output of langauge arts, grammar and phonetics, is equally important as well?
Activities
Have the students write for five minutes than share they rough ideas and get into groups of 2-3 have them again write they piece concerning the rules, use a pseudo-writing group where there are discussing their ideas, have go over them as someone would do in a writing group, and have that last about ten minutes and have for the final work to post it on their blog as the class did for the poem, "I am From"

1 comment:

Shannon said...

I like your synopsis so far of the text. Goldberg has a lot of great writing activities that we might recreate in your indy teach. I'd suggest finding a few that spark your interest and having us try them out. Also, you might provide a list of other writing activities (along with the writing rules as you have already posted) on your hand out as well. I'd love to meet with you as your time to present draws near. Good luck as you continue to plan Rob.