Teaching Writing to Diverse Students
Recently, someone asked how one teaches a multi-ethnic and diverse groups of students to write. My answer here is informed by my experience working with students in California, the most diverse state in the United States.
The best way to teach a diverse population is to start by embracing its diversity, asking students to do informal journal entries about themselves and their understanding of writing. Asking students to write journals is already a way of teaching writing, so while the students write about themselves, they will also be learning writing. Why does this make sense? Writing is not something beginning students are ready to dive into, even if it may consist of short exercises: it's writing, so it is a challenge at first for some students, diverse or not.
These diagnotic journals are important in that they allow students to warm up and to talk abvout themselves through writing. Most students like writing about themselves (call it the memoir bug),but this is good. Such an exercise (which is simply a process) helps the teacher to know something about the students and to design instruction that serves the needs of these students. One exercise is never enough, of course, to determine what the students need, but it is a starting point in that it gives you an idea of the levels of writing your students bring, and the order in which the teacher must facilitate course material. I deliberately avoid using the word "deliver", because the best teaching is not just a process of delivering course content. As Paulo Freire pointed out a long time ago, the best teaching is one that is interactive and allows students to be course designers just as they are learners. But do they really design course? They influence the way the course is designed, helping the teacher to align learning outcomes to what inspires the students to like writing, so that whether they like it or not, they will actually write.
Teaching a diverse population of students is an opportunity to approach teaching as a discovery process. No single approach ever works, and not all working approaches work for every student, so teaching instruction is an ever-shifting plane, where teachers should adjust approaches to meet the learning needs of the students. Ultimately, the learning outcomes should be achieved, and the good thing about student learning outcomes is that they primarily serve students.
It is also important to seek to understand how diverse your students are, to actually open your eyes and look at your students. But do more than looking; learn their names, remember one thing about them. If a student points out in a journal that he or she likes hiking, a reference to hiking in the many examples that we give when we explain concepts. The point here is, although the students are diverse (and diversity is not a disease), they have needs which flourish when acknowledges by the person who facilitates their learning. This acknowledgement, is one way in which trust can be built between student and teacher. In order to take the students where they need to be by the end of the course, it is important to take them from where they are, but first, we have to understand where that is.
The textbook publishing world is cashing in on diversity, publishing books that reflect, by way of the selected readings and exercises, the diversity of our students. And that's a good thing. Teachers must select textbooks that reflect the interests of their students while insuring that the readings and exercises are of a high qaulity. The students know what they have to do: learn. For a teacher to show them that the students, in their diveristy, have a lot to offer is one way of enhancing the learning process, in which case both student and teacher are learners.
The best way to teach a diverse population is to start by embracing its diversity, asking students to do informal journal entries about themselves and their understanding of writing. Asking students to write journals is already a way of teaching writing, so while the students write about themselves, they will also be learning writing. Why does this make sense? Writing is not something beginning students are ready to dive into, even if it may consist of short exercises: it's writing, so it is a challenge at first for some students, diverse or not.
These diagnotic journals are important in that they allow students to warm up and to talk abvout themselves through writing. Most students like writing about themselves (call it the memoir bug),but this is good. Such an exercise (which is simply a process) helps the teacher to know something about the students and to design instruction that serves the needs of these students. One exercise is never enough, of course, to determine what the students need, but it is a starting point in that it gives you an idea of the levels of writing your students bring, and the order in which the teacher must facilitate course material. I deliberately avoid using the word "deliver", because the best teaching is not just a process of delivering course content. As Paulo Freire pointed out a long time ago, the best teaching is one that is interactive and allows students to be course designers just as they are learners. But do they really design course? They influence the way the course is designed, helping the teacher to align learning outcomes to what inspires the students to like writing, so that whether they like it or not, they will actually write.
Teaching a diverse population of students is an opportunity to approach teaching as a discovery process. No single approach ever works, and not all working approaches work for every student, so teaching instruction is an ever-shifting plane, where teachers should adjust approaches to meet the learning needs of the students. Ultimately, the learning outcomes should be achieved, and the good thing about student learning outcomes is that they primarily serve students.
It is also important to seek to understand how diverse your students are, to actually open your eyes and look at your students. But do more than looking; learn their names, remember one thing about them. If a student points out in a journal that he or she likes hiking, a reference to hiking in the many examples that we give when we explain concepts. The point here is, although the students are diverse (and diversity is not a disease), they have needs which flourish when acknowledges by the person who facilitates their learning. This acknowledgement, is one way in which trust can be built between student and teacher. In order to take the students where they need to be by the end of the course, it is important to take them from where they are, but first, we have to understand where that is.
The textbook publishing world is cashing in on diversity, publishing books that reflect, by way of the selected readings and exercises, the diversity of our students. And that's a good thing. Teachers must select textbooks that reflect the interests of their students while insuring that the readings and exercises are of a high qaulity. The students know what they have to do: learn. For a teacher to show them that the students, in their diveristy, have a lot to offer is one way of enhancing the learning process, in which case both student and teacher are learners.
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