Crafting Writers, Chapters 7-9

I especially enjoyed this section of Crafting Writers because I found it to be easier to digest and applicable to all kinds of teaching.  There were a few parts in particular that stuck out to me:

First, the idea of lessons as described by Hale.  Since we are talking about mini-lessons and doing our own in class tomorrow, I found Hale's description of a lesson to be especially helpful as I think about teaching my craft lesson to our class.  Hale says, "But I do think that reserving the label of lesson for those times when we teach new material or skills will help teachers keep themselves accountable for teaching lessons that are aimed at growing students' independent skill sets in writing" (Hale 98).  I like that Hale used the phrase accountable.  I think that oftentimes teachers are worried about being accountable to the state standards, which are important as well, but teachers should also strive to be accountable to themselves and their students.  Hale's two main questions: What exactly am I teaching and Why am I teaching this? How will it help my students as writers? are critical questions for teachers to ask and a concrete way to hold themselves accountable to the lessons that they are teaching.  Hale says, "My true test of a craft lesson is how well my students can hold on to what I teach them and bring what they learned into their writing independently" (Hale 99).  Once students can directly apply the lesson to their own writing and continue to do so, the lesson has been fully taught.  Hale's way of assessing herself seems effective and a strategy I aim to follow in my teaching writing.

A second part of Hale's writing that I found particularly important was the emphasis she placed on finding strengths in each student's writing when learning specific craft.  Hale writes, "Specific craft, because it is so precise, can be done by students at many different levels.  I am looking for who exemplifies the lesson, not who wrote a 'beautiful piece of writing" (Hale 110).  I found this statement to be incredibly encouraging because I often worry about how I will find strengths in students who appear to be struggling in their writing.  Specific craft lessons seem to be a great way to encourage students who aren't necessarily the best writers because you, as the teacher, are simply searching to see if they understand the specific craft, not writing as an entirety.  Focusing on one small thing that a student does well seems much more manageable than trying to encourage every student on his or her piece of writing in general.  This section, along with the discussions we've been having in class about students attempting to spell big words, etc. have both proved very beneficial to me in my ability to encourage ALL students in their writing.