by Fitz | Sep 20, 2019 | Essays, The Crafted Word Blog, Workshops
I am just about to sit down, sip on a cup of tea and grade your essays. Sometimes it is daunting to look at the list of submissions–then look at all the other things in life I need to do–and find the energy to begin…but it is what I have to do. I trusted you to do your part, now I must do mine. Since I have so many papers to grade, I have a bit of a system I use. It works for me, and I hope it will work with you. I do not really believe in the term “rough draft.” Every essay should be as good as you can possibly make it be. Then again, no essay is really as good as it can be. Most of your essays use a rubric of some sort to guide the flow, structure and content. If you pay attention to that and if you follow the “details” of the assignment, you will do well. Usually I put checks where you do well; I put slash marks where a new paragraph should be; I circle areas where there is a punctuation, grammar or proofreading mistakes, and I leave a comment with overall assessment of your work. And then I give it a grade.
If you want to revise, rewrite or rework your paper, I will certainly allow that, and I will increase your grade “if” you sincerely work to fix the mistakes. If you don’t, I am not going to chase you down. I will simply hope you work more diligently on the next paper or project. I do my best to return your papers in a timely way. If your paper is not turned in on time, it may take me a while to grade it. I just do not have the time to grade papers at your leisure. Usually, I will ask you to write a brief “metacognition” attached to each paper that lets me know about your experience in writing the paper. It helps me to understand the good and the bad of any assignment, and it should help you understand more fully what you need to work on as you grow and mature as a writer.
Metacognitions do count as journal entries! Sometime tonight your iPad should ding to let you know your paper is in. Please look at your essay, read my comments and try to figure out why I marked what I marked. I screw things up all the time when I write. I get it.
Writing well is not easy. Smile and resolve to make what could be better, better! It is what all writers worth anything always do.
by Fitz | Sep 16, 2019 | Essays, The Crafted Word Blog, Workshops
If you want to learn to write well, start writing and do not stop. If you do not want to learn to write well, this will be a wasted class—empty time leading towards a deeper emptiness. We are all born communicators. We all feel angst when our words are misunderstood, misinterpreted, and misplaced. Our lives, and the lives of those around us, are surrounded and immersed by our words. It is the one continual reality that will pervade our lives, so why not create the space and the time to richen the time given to us to learn, practice and share in the process of crafting our thoughts, ideas, hopes, dreams and experiences in memorable and profound ways? For better or worse, we are judged by our words and our actions, but it is primarily through our words that we are remembered, especially if the power of our actions and our words are brought together to perfect our humanity and inform the directions our lives take.
I do not teach writing to help you get into a better school or get a better grade. I teach writing because I believe writing can make your life a more fulfilling, more wise and more centred life—a life that hopefully leads to a golden and ripe old age surrounded by family, friends and the contentedness of a life fully-lived. The academic benefits of writing well are just a no-brainer to me, and you will certainly not regret learning how to write a good essay in the crunch of pressure and deadlines, and much of this year will be spent learning to do just that; but, the true value in writing in a sustained and continual way is that it will help you find the words that truly express what is in your head and heart at any given moment—not simply in response to a writing prompt or assignment.
You will not grow old (or perhaps even grow up) wishing you had spent more time on your xbox or Snapchat, but you will always regret the time and opportunities you let slip away from you. I certainly do. My shelves are full of books I wished I read. My mind is full of the would haves, could haves, and should haves that I either ignored or passed off as, at the time, not worth the effort. My life is very, very good, and I am supremely happy, yet I know I have left too much trash in my wake. Too many times I turned around before reaching the peak of the mountain; too many times I took the road more travelled by, and too many times I let silence fill the void that words should have filled.
If I can get you to willingly fill voids with words, then I can say that my job is done. If you leave this year with more love and lust for words, I will at least know that I helped prepare you for the unexpected twists and turns your own lives will take. If you pick up a book or write in your journal simply because you want to, then I will notch that on my stick of life as a great and worthy accomplishment.
So this is why I do what I do. The hard part is that I cannot do it without you. You have to be the writer. I can bring you to the river, and I can tell you what I know, but you are the one who has to jump in and swim.
No one ever learns to swim by standing on the shore.
by Fitz | Sep 12, 2019 | Create, Essays, Share, The Crafted Word Blog, Workshops, Write
So much of school can—and often is—hard, but what should be easy, should be made easy. Finding, creating, and submitting assignments should be easy. Receiving timely assessments and grade updates should be an expectation of every student and a practice of every teacher. I have spent the last 12 years working and trying to make my curriculum a paperless stream that is simple and effective, but for it to work, you must be willing to swim in that stream. The school is embarking on a noble effort (Using My Fenn and Finalsite) to help facilitate how we assign, grade, and manage our respective classes. For the most part, and if used wisely, it is a pretty good system. For my part, I will post all of your assignments on Finalsite and allow you to see your assignments and view your grades in a fluid and ongoing way throughout the year. It is important that you check your grades regularly to be sure that I have not made any mistakes when entering your grades. It does happen sometimes, and I am more than willing (even eager) to fix what is wrong. We also take the idea of a digital workflow a bit further than is possible with Finalsite, so it is important that you embrace and utilise the following resources.
The Crafted Word: Fitz’s Reading & Writing Website
Website: http://thecraftedword/fitzenglish8
The 8th Grade pag e and Freshman pageon my website (and the website as a whole) will always give you quick and easy access to the whole spectrum of what we are doing in class. Additionally, it allows me to share my own blog, view and download my resources and rubrics (of which I have many!) and it serves as a central hub to read my essays on writing and reading, to study my punctuation and grammar rules, to learn and practice essential vocabulary, engage in class forums, and access our class writing community. In short, it contains everything I know and have created over the years to help anyone become a better reader and writer. It is also easily accessed anytime by any device connected to the internet. Bookmark the page and you will always be “one click” away from knowing what to do.
Blogging: Creating and Maintaining a Personal Blog
- Required Apps: Weebly (free download from the app store),
- Day One: a private journaling platform (paid app $3.95)
As a long time writer in my own right, I have always kept a journal, which later in life evolved into an online blog where I share my words—songs, poetry, essays, journal entries, videos, podcasts and photo galleries with whomever is interested or willing to read, to watch or to listen. I create blogs using Weebly for each of you to do the same, which we share as a class writing community. It has always been an energising and powerful way for my students to live and act like a true writer—and that is what you will be: a true writer; moreover, we will comment on each other’s work and strive to help each other create a compelling and intellectually rich digital portfolio. Since you may not want to share everything you write, we also use Day One, which is without peer the best and easiest to use journaling app I have ever used. ( I am using it right now to create a draft of this post!)
iTunes U: Accessing, Creating, Submitting & Grading Assignments
- Required App: iTunes U (free download from the app store)
Since we are an iPad school, I feel it is important that we learn to use our iPads as effectively and dynamically as possible. iTunes U allows me to post assignments, documents, videos, and literature that you can upload and complete with relative ease. It also allows me to grade, edit, comment on your work, and return our work to you in an uncluttered and easy to use interface. It also allows for private discussion on individual assignments. Perhaps its greatest feature is that it works with almost every iPad app out there, so frustration levels are kept pretty low.
Pages: Document Creation
- Required App: Pages (free download from the app store)
Pages is a feature rich, easy to use program for creating documents that simply works better on an iPad than any other program I have used on an iPad. Finished documents can be uploaded to iTunes U quickly and easily, and it allows work to be saved as pdf’s, word documents and epubs (which can be saved to your iTunes libraries as iBooks).
Other Required Apps:
- Garageband: we use Garageband to create podcasts and voiceovers for video essays.
- iMovie: we use iMovie to create really cool videos throughout the year.
- Keynote: we use Keynote for creating presentations.
- Adobe Voice: we use Adobe Voice for creating a quick and beautiful visual and audio presentations.
- Book Creator: we use Book Creator to create and share individual portfolios for distinct units of work.
- Notability: we use Notability for notetaking, uploading and annotating selections of literature, revising and peer editing–and many other handy things.
I hope this does not look daunting to you, and it should not be. I will spend time in class this week to get you all up and running. I am surely not reinventing the wheel because I have tried it and it works, and I am confident that it will help us all have a rewarding and productive year in 8th grade English. In practice, it will help us create and sustain a workflow that will simply become an organic part of your life and a practice. As always, contact me if you have a question or problem that needs fixing.
Thanks,
Fitz
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