Review_Author: Maria Valvis
Book_Author: Timithy J. Lensmire
Book_Title: When Children Write
Date: 4/26/99
Time: 12:45:48 PM
Remote Name: 128.175.72.114
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WHEN CHILDREN WRITE BY TIMOTHY J. LENSMIRE. Courtney B. Cazden words at the beginning of the book: writing workshop classroom around the country are trying to create an environment where children write in community, they write and then share their writing with their classmates. This type of writing workshop she said “may be considered one of the best examples of cooperative learning.” It is easier to talk about writing workshops that to actually enact them in the schools. And nothing better to illustrate this statement that to follow the progress of Timothy Lensmire in his workshop project. The book described in details all the difficulties that Timothy Lensmire, a teacher doing research in writing workshops, encountered. Also, his expectations and hopes at the beginning of the process and how the results differed in many ways from his expectations. The introduction is kind on a summary of the book without given any particulars or specific case results. He explained how the community workshop that he intended involved many more issues than writing. Diversity among the students became a big issue. Difference in gender, cultural views, social classes, discipline, and relation among the students are some of the issues that Lensmire was forced to take into consideration. In the positive side, Lensmire described what school writing does for students in contrast with writing workshops. He said: “traditional writing instruction functions much like other traditional forms of pedagogy to silence students, deny student experiences and meanings, and alienate students from the teaching and learning they encounter in schools”. In contrast, “writing workshops approaches emphasize providing opportunities for students to engage in and practice the craft of writing”. In writing workshops the students select the topics, audiences, purposes, and the support of the teacher and form of their texts. Gradually the students become better in expressing their ideas in the texts. Workshop approaches teach writing as a complex cognitive and communicative process that is framed by purposed. In the first chapter, Lensmire articulated his goals for teaching writing and his initial understanding of what the teacher role should be in the process.. He had two goals to teach writing, the first focused on the individual’s expression of subjectivity to find themselves in their writing and also their interrelation with their environment. A second was a political point of view. He studied Vygotski social- psychological framework, but grew frustrated and moved toward Bakhtin. They both agree in a social account of minds in which consciousness emerges when there is interaction between individuals. Lensmire enumerated and made references to many theories of practices and social cultural notions that influenced him. In the second chapter, he talked about his difficulties finding a suitable place to begin his research and how finally he decided to work with Grace's 3rd grade students at Clifford Elementary School. He taught for 45 minutes every day. It was a very difficult experienced for him, things did not work the way he has envisioned. He encountered many conflicts between his role as a teacher and his role as a researcher. I find interesting his discoveries not only in the classroom context but also about human nature and children social behaviors. He discovered that children from the trailer parks formed their own subculture and were isolated from the rest of their classmates. He noted how gender and social class lines separated children. The children from the trailer park were at the bottom of the social hierarchies of status in the classroom. Boys worked with boys and girls worked with girls. At the top was James who was the leader that many students followed. He influenced and commanded the rest of his classmates. Nobody escaped his influenced. In the next chapter, Lensmire explored the influence of audiences in children’s writing. He felt his limitations to influence the audiences and the feeling of students that felt uncomfortable sharing their work with their peers. Another theme explored in the chapter is how the routine and norms of the writing workshop helped and hindered students in their efforts to work and share their texts with desirable audiences. Some students liked and enjoy sharing their work with their peers and getting feedback from them, others like Jessie, disliked very much to share their work with an audience. Jessie was in the bottom of the class social status; she came from the trailer park and was overweight. She liked to work alone and share her writing only with her close friends. Karen and John, on the other hand, liked to share her writing with her teachers.
In chapter 5 Lensmire tried to explain why children prefers fictional writing and avoid personal topics. Fictional narratives offered children some advantages: 1. Distance: children avoid bringing their personal experiences to the open to be review by their classmates, their personal life remains a private matter out of reach and criticism. “By writing fiction they can avoid the close identification between author and story that personal narratives involved” “fiction lessened, the risk associated with self exposure'' Despite those feeling many children identified themselves in their fictional characters. 2. Control: children can shape their texts to please their audiences. They can make them more interesting and enjoyable. Fiction is more exciting and interesting than non-fiction. 3. Non-fiction narratives are more restrictive than fiction. 4. Fiction allows children to build a world of their own where they can express their own visions and establish a place for themselves in this imaginary world. But sometimes those fictional worlds they create reflect their own world and there own personal experiences.
CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE WRITING WORKSHOP 1. Children had different feelings about sharing their work with their peers and publishing it. Some liked and worked for the audience, and others preferred a very selected and restricted audience, and stills others refused to share their work with an audience. 2. They included classmates in their stories and their place in the stories was very much in accordance with their status in class. 3. They preferred to work with children of their own sex and similar social status in many cases. 4. They avoid non-fictional writing but wrote themselves in the fictional narratives, and sometimes wrote about themselves using fictional names. Especially children with low status in the classroom. But most of the time, the stories did not get published. 5. Children stories reflected differences in status and power among children and influenced future relationships. They were rhetorical and influenced how people think of themselves and of their classmates. 6. Children evaluated and excluded each other by gender, by social class, by personality, in ways that reflect the worst sorts of divisions and denigration in our society. If this a reflection of class environment or home practices and beliefs? 7. Peers, as audiences for children’s writing was both beneficial and risked. It brought with it friendship, trust, social energy, conflictive issues, teasing and sometimes discouragement for the child. 8. Writers in the workshop were vulnerable and assertive. Their audiences influenced them.
In the last chapter of the book Lensmire explained in details his response to some of the more conflictive readings that he encountered in the writing workshop and the reasons behind those responses. He felt that the writing workshop was a site of struggle over identity, participation, meaning, and values. They decided what to write about, who to tell and how and specially how to treat each other. Lensmire wrote: “traditional writing instruction, paralleling usual classroom discourse (Cazden, 1986), locks the student into a teacher-controlled pattern in which the teacher assigns writing, the student writes in response, and the teacher evaluates. Workshop approaches attempt to disrupt this pattern in at least two ways. Through student selection of topics, the child makes the first move in an interaction that places the teacher, ideally in the position of response. Encourage children to turn away from the teacher and focus in each other. Workshops promote an authentic, meaning finding audience and peers are a significant part of the audience” Lensmire feels that advocates of the writing workshops seldom realize the ways audiences can shape and constrain the writing of every young child. An important conclusion in Lensmire analysis is the ways in which he think responses to children should focus. 1. “ Responses should pay inmediate attention to peer culture, social relations among children and the meanings and values they assign to each other, texts, and teachers.” He understands the relevance of knowing children as individuals to gather information but that it is not enough. Teachers should know the way children are connected to each other. 2. Adequate response must include goals that go beyond supporting student intentions. It would include a vision of the type of classroom community in which teachers want the children to write and learn. In writing workshops children write as members of communities whose beliefs, concerns and practices instigate and constrain their writing contexts.
In Lensmire re-vision he proposed the following: 1. Teacher response to children’s text should be critically pragmatic, and aimed at promoting an engaged, pluralistic classroom community. Concerned with the intellectual, moral/political, and aesthetic fruits of children’s texts. Viewing differences in children as something positive. Teachers should encourage children to learn from each other. Teachers should discuss with the children on what their text has to say about themselves and about others in the classroom. Also, about further implications for them and for the rest of the students in the classroom environment ( Rhetorical effects on the texts in other children) The teacher must decide on what type of community of interaction they want in their classroom. Lensmire choose an engaged, pluralistic classroom community that acknowledges the diversity of the students in the classroom. Diversity of class, race, gender and individual needs. A classroom where all the students will participate. Where the children will pay attention to the needs of others, learning to care for each other. How can this be accomplish, I will like to know? Is Lensmire statement the answer: “teacher should use their power in the classroom to influence children beliefs, concerns, and practices of the members of the community” I THINK THIS STATEMENT IS A DANGEROUS ONE IN THIS SOCIETY IN PARTICULAR, IF A TEACHER TRIES TO INFLUENCE THE STUDENT BELIEFS SHE/HE WILL BE IN TROUBLE WITH THE SCHOOL BOARD AND SPECIAL WITH THE PARENTS. THE TEACHER INFLUENCED IS VERY MUCH LIMITED TO THE PRACTICES AND BEHAVIOUR OF THE STUDENTS IN CLASS (COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE) Lensmire also suggest that teachers should care and learn from their students, being open to new ideas. IDEAL SITUATION 2. Greater teacher participation in the determination of children projects. Collective writing projects. Genre studies seem a good idea to select writing projects in classroom. Teacher will benefit with the teacher intervention and help to make texts and themes accessible to the students. Lensmire assumed that teacher intervention would expand student changes for growth in writing. He also suggested that the writing workshop should include writing in response to reading, like book review (writing projects as problems to be solved). They should have access to different readings that will enhance their understanding of the world.
He concluded by saying that workshop approaches emphasized individual voice and projects. Also the possibility of working together and learning from each other. In his opinion a balance is needed where children are allowed room to express themselves with the teacher or mentor guidance.