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Hi Marilyn,

Congratulations on your well deserved recognition. Our students thrive on attention by and contact with caring mentors.

Thanks for sharing your perspective on these young students. I'd like to combine our different vantage points into a conversation that can drive us all to improve our practice to develop the voice and bring out strong writing of these smart but struggling students.

Students often a stumped trying to figure what the teacher wants them to say, at the expense of ever exploring what they want to say. Students working with each other helps somewhat. Changing the balance by having more adults in the room generates more free ideas. Free of just teacher-suggested direction, students move toward a broader world of ideas.

Confidence and risk taking seem related.

     We know that our students don't always take the chance to air their ideas in the classroom or at home so often in tutorial appointments we listen to students and ask them over and over, "What do you want to say?" and "Who are you trying to say it to?" 

     Our major goal this year is to identify which behaviors stifle a student's voice as a writer and figure out how to reverse them. As you know, in writing instruction, we have a stage called brainstorming, which means generating ideas.  We are learning that our students have to go through a set of steps BEFORE they can brainstorm.  Some of those steps are organizational, like sifting through stacks of papers; some of those steps are cognitive, like having a conversation with a tutor to find out what the student is thinking; some of those steps are psychological, like the student asking him/herself "do my ideas have validity?" "does anyone care what I have to say?"
    
     Lately, we have been thinking about how ideas grow before we share them with another person or on paper.  Last week, I flashed back to a personal story.  I attended New York City public schools in the 1960's.   Both my parents had to leave high school in 9th and 10th grade. From the 6th grade on, when I didn't know how to do my homework my mother would often say, "I don't know what you have to do, but I know you'll get an A."  I sighed.  Sometimes I got an A, but usually I was frustrated and often handed in my work late.

     It was lonely always having to work my studies out for myself, and--unlike our students here-- often I didn't  have "happy to help you" teachers. So books were my silent informers.  I went to books for everything.  So it struck me--if books are not a major part of your life, and your support network is not always helpful--how do you develop the confidence to develop and voice your ideas?

     The tutors and I are working on answering that question.  If you have any personal or teaching stories to add to the discussion, we'd love to hear them!

     Thank you again, and for those of you who are celebrating Easter this weekend, have a good holiday!

   Marilyn

   -- 
   Marilyn E. Matis, Writing Coordinator
   West Roxbury Education Complex
   marilynmatis@gmail.com
   (781) 439-4275