Blog: Affective Dimensions of writing.
It is a very interesting thing that I do not consider myself a writer, yet my chosen major of history has made me write more papers than I can count. So maybe, although I am capable of writing, I do not seem myself as incredibly great at doing so. I choose to express my ideas principally through writing, and talking to myself. While I have never recreationally written, I do remember I did a lot of creative writing in elementary school in grades 4-6. I do keep a journal, its the only free writing that I do. The papers I have enjoyed in school are the ones that require a good amount of research, and you take that to create a thesis and defend it throughout the paper. (it has a specific name I just don't remember) I enjoy these types of papers because of the research aspects, you find things that may be new to you that you find interesting. Or you find that one source that completely solidifies the argument you want to make. As I got older I started to dislike the free writing done in elementary school. I would rather write about something specific than create something out of nothing. Maybe that is just me being lazy. I will structure my student's papers to be research oriented and they create and defend a thesis and defend it.
Hi Keaton,
ReplyDeleteI think the genre that you are describing (an argumentative or persuasive research paper) is probably one of the most important papers that you will have students write in history.
One characteristic of effective teaching, however--no matter what you teach--is variety. So while you do the research paper, I could see you doing different pre-writing activities for each research paper that you do. For example, the pre-writing activities for some research papers could be debates, while the pre-writing activities for other papers could be graphic organizers or tables, etc.
In addition to research papers, you could also do other genres such as historical letters, speeches, photoessays, or other texts that will appeal to students who may not like the research genre as much.
Just brainstorming ideas here. :)
Thanks for your posting about a very important writing genre that you can incorporate into your curricula.