Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Praxis-Paper Proposal

I'd just like to post my praxis-paper proposal, in case anyone actually isn't too busy to read blogs this week and actually takes time to offer any suggestions they might have. :o)

Praxis-Paper Proposal

In another class, Language and Learning, we read a book called Reading, Writing, and Rising Up by Linda Christensen. The thing that has really been on mind about this book is the way in which Christensen teaches writing to her students so that it not only improves their writing skills, but that it brings the class together as a community. She writes of her high school students who did not want to write and were not comfortable with one another, and not only were they not comfortable, some of them already had histories with one another and flat out disliked each other. Some students were the targets of bullying by other students. But by getting the students to write personal stories and share them with the class, the students all came to empathize, and in many cases, sympathize with one another by learning of their shared experiences.

The reason this interests me so much is that my younger brother was the victim of an extremely bad case of bullying in middle school, and after reading Christensen’s book, I wondered if perhaps the students had been in a classroom like hers, where they were all encouraged to write deeply personal essays, if they may have realized my brother’s humanity as well as their own and that, just possibly, the bullying would have stopped. Somehow, kids find it so easy to dismiss others, even dehumanize others, but it becomes a much harder thing to do once you really get to know someone. When you get to know someone and understand how they feel, as well as what you share, it’s so much harder to write that person off. It’s harder to stop yourself from caring. If I were to become a teacher, this is something I would definitely want to foster in my students. There are few things more important than empathy.

I’d like to write my paper on this subject, but perhaps also including Ballenger’s idea of “Writing Badly”, and possibly another’s work in the realm of revision (where my students, much like we do in class, help each other to revise, instead of always looking to me, the teacher). I want to create a place where students feel comfortable to, first of all, actually start writing, and next share that writing with others. I want them to write about what THEY want to write about, and I want them to connect with one another. I want them to learn to care about others. I want them to learn from one another. Through this, their writing will improve, as well as their character.

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