The article "Fostering 'Good' Writers: Making Writing Meaningful" discusses the importance of letting
students know the significance writing can have in their every day lives. It
reveals that good writing should not just be about the technical action of it
(grammar, spelling, etc), but should be about what they are writing, what the
purpose of their writing is, and who the audience will be.
Other than the main
message of the article, which I stated above, I personally feel the article was
very redundant. The writer also discussed an activity in which he got his
students to write to businesses and I just don’t think that applies to the
interests of today’s students.
The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword
My favourite thing about
the written word is the power behind it. It gives people a voice and can even
inspire cultural change as it has done so many times before. An example of this
is “The War of the Pen” in England, during the French Revolution. While the
French were having an uprising of the working class over the bourgeoisie,
England took this opportunity to write their opinions on the division of social
classes. People who never had a voice before, such as women, or lower-class
men, were now able to make a difference and call attention to their issues and
reach out for support by making their writing ubiquitous. The Power of the Pen is explained simply for students here.
Today, there are many
social justice issues touched upon in the media. Our students are bombarded
with opinion piece after opinion piece. But who says they must be complacent
consumers instead of participating in the exchange of knowledge? If you want
your students to care and see the significance in their writing, show them that
they can use their writing to make a difference about something they believe
in.
Teach your students how
to analyse things first and foremost. Use commercials, TV shows, movies, video
games, or anything that they are interested in. Get them to analyse characters
and portrayals. Are the characters stereotypical? Racist? Sexist? Biased in anyway?
Get your students to pick something they don’t agree with or think is unfair
and get them to write about why they think it’s unfair. You could even get
older grades to research historical events of unfair treatment of marginalised
groups to back up their thinking of why portraying these negative stereotypes in
media is harmful and just perpetuating the unfair treatment. Or your students
could go the opposite way. For example, if a movie they love portrays a
marginalised person in a place of power or in a positive light, then your
students can discuss why this is interesting and how it could help negate
harmful stereotypes. An example of this is to analyse the portrayal of Wonder
Woman in the new movie. Do they think it is empowering or do they think it
perpetuated negative stereotypes of women?
This article is very
useful to help your students grasp analysis. The steps shown in the article can
be applied to any analysis. This can be applied to fiction and non-fiction
writing, movies, TV shows, songs, and basically anything that has some sort of
substance.
Once your students know
how to analyse properly they can write their opinion piece in response. You
could even get students to post their final products in a blog or online on
some form of social media (regulated by you of course). In this way, students
see that it is easy for them to get their voice out in the world and heard. But
they also learn that their opinions need to be backed up by evidence so that
they understand how to make a clear point and not just whine online.
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