Drafts, Pedagogy, and the Classroom

Shitty first drafts.

I remember having to do the dreaded "free writes" in high school and they persisted throughout college.  I shuddered, like Lamott, to think of who might read my draft if I were to suddenly meet my demise.  I imagined that everyone else who was a "good writer" did it effortlessly and elegantly.  I felt more like the horse tripping over the low bar.  

It can feel like there is a lot at stake in writing because, as most teachers have pointed out, students are only shown the finished product of professionals as examples.  I appreciated the process-related models that emerged in Chapter 5 of Andrews and Smith (2011) because there seems to be more room for the much needed meta-cognitive aspect of writing.  I'm referring to the later methods in cognitive psychology.  Rather than teaching the model for writing, there seems to be a shift in focus to helping students recognize their process for writing and honing that ability.  I think as teacher of culturally relevant writing, this is also important to acknowledge, that our students know how to tell stories or make arguments in ways that are grounded in their culture.

I was afraid, reading the beginning of Winn and Johnson's chapter 2, that the authors were making a case for culturally relevant pedagogy as a some kind of magical antidote to education.  However, I appreciate how they linked it to critical literacy and the need for multiple viewpoints, and even acknowledged criticisms of the views that inform CRP.  I think that nuance in the discussion of race and education is sorely needed.  I also think in reality, half of our practice will be justifying culturally relevant pedagogy (the real thing) to our administration and co-workers depending on the district, which means we should equip ourselves with these kinds of resources if we are going to take up such a pedagogy.