Project Title: Writing and Being
Project Author: Gene Fazio (Mesa)
Abstract: Write a concise summary with descriptive information about your project, location, time span, your relationship to it, etc. Include specific information-- since you have completed your project, your knowledge is valuable and can be shared with your colleagues.
The goal of this summer project was to discover methods for taking our classroom instruction to the next level of making a difference in our students’ lives as they expand their writing capacities. Writing is often seen as a descriptive process. We say what we see. However, Dr. G. Lynn Nelson in the GWAP Summer Writing Project would emphasize that writing is also a creative process. We see what we say. Writing is an excellent way to help students to make connections between their use of language and their ability to manage their emotions. As Dr. Nelson would often say, “We can publish with paper or publish with pills.” As a result, we can make a difference for our students in their life skills as part of the writing instructional process. The project consisted of attending the 2006 Conference for Global Transformation from May 19-21 in San Francisco, California and studying books and tapes authored by Eckhart Tolle, best selling author of the Power of Now.
This project began at the end of the spring semester and was completed at the end of the first summer session.
Outcomes: In a paragraph or two describe what worked well. Did you accomplish your objective(s)? Were you able to complete your summer project as written? If not, what did you modify and why? What did not go as well as expected, if anything? Were there any surprises? Note: Use the questions as guides for your outcomes. Do not include detailed list of workshops attended, speakers who presented, or a list of items you have seen, heard, or read.
I began this project looking for something that would help me connect my teaching of writing with the lives of students. What I ended with is a vision of a program that would empower students to cause transformation by creating a world where no one is left out. That is, all students will have the tools, training, and opportunity to tutor reading and writing, thus empowering students who empower other students and creating a world where no one is left out.
I did accomplish Goal #1 of incorporating writing and being into my teaching. Here is an example of applying the writing lesson of showing and not telling with the life skill of managing emotions and perceptions. Students read an example of telling and an example of showing.
<sum> (Telling) The football coach feeling anxious wondered about his future.
<sum> (Showing) The football coach feeling a knot in his stomach and his muscles tighten wondered about his future.
Students then do writing exercises that have them describe where and how an emotion shows up in their bodies. By doing these writing exercises, students build a foundation for understanding concepts from Tolle and others. For example, a key to managing emotions is to observe your emotions in order to “disidentify” from them. (From “I am angry” to “I am feeling my jaw tighten.” The simplicity of this makes it possible to share with other teachers.
Professional Growth: Your own professional growth is a large part of your project. Your professional growth is important to you, your students, your college, and possibly other colleagues. How did project affect you professionally? What skills did you learn? What environments were you working in and how might your summer project influence your teaching or other responsibilities? Did you gain a different perspective? Was it professionally valuable for you?
This project was extremely valuable to me. Doing the readings and listening to the tapes of Tollee, I not only found items for connecting writing lessons with life skills, but I also opened the door to relating the filed of ontology to the teaching of writing. For example, in "The Practicality of Being," he talked about a new state of consciousness that goes beyond thinking. He said, "Go beyond the need to think. Act and perceive in a state of conscious presence." In sports, there is a saying about thinking too much. "when you analyze, you paralyze." During a game, a wide receiver does not have time to think about "how to be a wide receiver." During the game, he can only BE a wide receiver. Since doing the summer project, I am in the inquiry about the difference between teaching students "how to write," and training students to BE writers. Ontologists call this the difference between knowing and being. As a result, I have been able to open the door to writing lessons that train students to BE writers and results in students having writing happen to the extent of having them be surprised by what comes off of their pens.
I was also able to see the implications of teaching students how to write versus training students to be writers. Consider that teaching involves explaining how to write and the transfer of information. As a result, with teaching there can be a knowledge barrier, especially for under-prepared students. The more one knows, the easier it is to know more. Training involves the classic stages of apprentice training—modeling, scaffolding, coaching, and fading. This process works best with one-on-one instruction, BUT it reduces the need for explanations, and thus creates new opportunities for under-prepared students “not to be left out.”
Also, one of my activities in the past wasrunning a community literacy program. This provided an opportunity for my students to “learn twice” by teaching what they learned in the classroom, but I had to motivate students. Now, I ask students if they would like to live in a world where no one is left out, and tell them that when they create that world for other they create that world for themselves. This goes beyond motivating; it inspires students, and as a result, many more students are signing up to work in community literacy programs.
Dissemination: How will you share this information with your colleagues, department, students, or college?
I will share this information in the usual ways—one-on-one conversations with colleagues, Kaleidoscope, and MCLI. However, I have also created a non-profit corporation for expanding community literacy programs and will be hosting a community meeting at my home on October 16. This meeting will include CEOs of valley businesses and other non-profits, two state legislators, and faculty/administrators from our District. The core of the community literacy program will be a program that trains students to be writers with one-on-one instruction. This process will remove the knowledge barrier for many under—prepared students who have struggled with their reading and writing in the past. Most importantly, the experience of going through a training program for being a writing also prepares students to be a literacy coach who has the ability to tutor other students in reading and writing. Now the former apprentice becomes a mentor for the new apprentice. Finally, this program will connect new writing abilities with learning life skills.
For more information about this project, check out the "package" in the Maricopa Learning eXchange:
http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/slip.php?item=01873