Mentoring a Writer Project
February 9th, 2015
On February 9th we went to Hawthorne school where we were to be paired up with a grade 8 gifted student for the writer-mentoring project. After arriving at the school and being shown around, we then met the teacher, Mr. John Harder, and his students. Mr. Harder explained how the writing projects for the students are very open ended and interest-based. After giving a brief explanation of what the students were working on and where they were expected to go, members of our PED class were then paired up with members of the grade 8 class.
I was paired up with a young girl named Lillian. Before looking at her writing, I first just asked a few general questions about what her interests are, where she was from, how many siblings she had, etc. It was interesting to learn about Lillian, who lived in China until she was 8 years old before moving to Ottawa. Unfortunately this discussion led to the realization that she would be absent from several mentoring sessions while she visited her family back in China.
Despite her impending trip to China, Lillian and I began to look at the writing she has been working on. She had two pieces with her. The first piece was technically for a geography mark, but as she explained to me it is also cross curricular because it was also a sort of creative piece. It was creative in the sense that the topic was chosen by Lillian and explored in her own chosen way. The point of the assignment was to look at how people adapt/change in ordinance with some sort of geographical change.
As her topic, Lillian had chosen to look at the human geography issues surrounding China's "One-child policy." Before actually reading her finished draft, I began by having Lillian explain to me what the goal of her writing was. She told me that she was interested in the policy because in countries outside of China, it is often stigmatized as something negative. The goal of her paper was to look at the origins of the policy, in order to alleviate some criticism. Following that, she also wanted to explore what the ramifications of the policy will be in the near future.
After having Lillian explain the idea, I figured it was time to look at her work.
I was impressed, to say the least. I read through it once and noticed only minor issues with her work, mostly with sentence length and paragraph structure. After I read through it, I asked Lillian how she went about writing it. She explained to me, in other words, that she tends to do the "vomit on the page" routine. Once she had come up with her topic and had done some basic research, she just began to write and would use the internet to support any ideas with statistics.
After explaining her process, Lillian omitted that an area of her writing process that she thinks could use some improvement or development was in revision and editing. She said she had trouble deciding where to end and begin paragraphs. I noticed that she also seemed to struggle with transition sentences to link big ideas together.
Before delving into issues of structure, I commended Lillian for her excellent work. I then pulled out the six traits +1 of writing and showed them to her.
I went through each and we agreed on what they meant. I told her that for her writing, her voice and sentence fluency were exceptionally strong. When I was reading her work, I could hear her voice in the words, which made it very clear and easy to read.
I think this speaks to her giftedness as a student; Lillian has a remarkable ability to express her thoughts in words and to connect ideas as she goes. This sometimes seemed to lead to run-on sentences, but as a grade 8 student I consider that to be a good issue to have. I have kept this in mind as something to work on.
Her ideas were also well developed. As I have mentioned, the two of us had already agreed that organization was an area we would like to work on. As for word choice, I told her that she did a very good job of using clear and simple language. We discussed conventions and how the conventions of formal writing become more important in high school and post-secondary writing.
(I have also attached a YouTube video about the One-Child Policy and its social ramifications that I think may be interesting/helpful to Lillian).
After going through these traits, we also looked at another creative piece of writing she was working on. This piece was supposed to explore the idea of a paradox, and to explain in detail one paradox. Lillian chose the chicken and the egg paradox. Since we were short of time, I did not get a chance to discuss this piece with her very much. However, I did read it and I was again very impressed. Lillian is an excellent student and definitely has a bright future ahead of her. We said goodbye and agreed we will pick up where we left of when she returns from her trip to China.
February 16th
As I mentioned in my previous post, the student I worked with on the first day at Hawthorne, was not present on February 16th. I was instead paired up with a grade seven student name Mackenzie.
Mackenzie was a bit more introverted than the bright and bubbly Lillian. Since I was basically beginning the process again with a new student, I spent a few minutes getting a sense of who Mackenzie was.
Mackenzie only had one piece of writing with her. It was a similar geography assignment that I had seen with Lillian. Also similar to Lillian, Mackenzie had chosen to write about a topic and place that was dear to her heart: Winnipeg. Her paper was on the Red River floods which occur annually. The paper basically explored several questions: 1) why did people settle on land that floods in the first place? 2) how have the people of the Red River Valley dealt with these floods?
Mackenzie's work was well written. I went over the traits with her and made note of her strong word choice and sentence fluency. Unlike Lillian, Mackenzie tended to use shorter and more succinct sentences. This made the writing a little dry but informative.
I asked Mackenzie about her writing process, and she told me that she sometimes gets intimidated by the blank page effect. I asked how she deals with this. She said she begins by jotting down key ideas as a sort of outline, then begins by writing about something she feels most interested in. I suggested other strategies such as mind-maps and free-writing exercises. She said she has used these before and they do help her sometimes.
The time went by quite quickly and since I knew we would not be paired up again, we did not make any plans for how we continue the mentoring process.
February 23rd
Unfortunately I was absent with illness this day. Lillian was also absent but we will hopefully both be present on March 9th when the mentoring continues.
Unfortunately I was absent with illness this day. Lillian was also absent but we will hopefully both be present on March 9th when the mentoring continues.
March 9th
I was able to reconnect with Lillian on this day and continue to look at her writing projects. The assignments we had looked at a few weeks ago had now been handed in, so on this Monday Lillian had a few new projects on the go. These projects were far less developed than the previous work I had seen so it was interesting to get to work with her at a different phase in her writing process.
After discussing the two topics she was thinking of writing about, I asked Lillian which piece she felt could use more work. She decided that she felt less sure about her geography task and that we should work on that one. The assignment was chosen by her and was focused on the recent decline of the Canadian dollar. Lillian explained how she was having trouble understanding the causes of the decline in the dollar. I responded by agreeing that it is a very complex issue and certainly not an area of my expertise. I thought this sounded like a tough subject to tackle for a grade eight student, gifted or not. Since the assignment was centred around a human geographical issue, I suggested that she ask more questions about the effects of the decline in the dollar on human behaviours.
In order to help narrow her focus to a few key ideas, I introduced her to the concept of developing research questions.
From this point, I helped Lillian construct a few questions that focused more on the human aspects of the issue rather than the complex and confusing economic/statistical side. Some of these questions included: "how does the decline in the strength of the Canadian dollar affect the way Canadians spend/save their money at home? does it affect Canadians in their day to day lives?" or "how does the strength of the dollar affect the way the Canadian and American economies interact?"
I think developing these questions helped Lillian to narrow her focus down to a specific area of the economic issue: the effects of the decline on Canadians. Once her focus had been narrowed, more specific questions began to emerge, such as: "how do experts' predictions about the economy affect spending?" and "who should/do Canadians trust when listening to predictions about what will happen to the Canadian economy?"
While these questions are still daunting, they formed a basis from which I began to construct a rough outline with Lillian. The outline was simply a list of main points arranged in a logical order that would flow smoothly as a well organized paper. I explained my belief that while outlines may not be something she is entirely comfortable with yet, they are a valuable tool and are worth exploring. This opened up a discussion about how she does not usually create an outline at all, and that she wanted to learn how to make one. We talked about how some people need to start with an outline while others can just dive right into writing a paper without one. I told Lillian it is a good thing that she is able to jump right into her writing and that it shows when reading her work in the way her voice comes through.
We also discussed her concerns about how her writing may suffer from not employing a plan with an outline etc. Lillian admitted she often writes long sections without rereading, which sometimes leads to superfluous language, shifting focus, and repetition. I then told her that for me, the outline works as something I can use as a guide when i am writing. I always start with an outline that lists my main points in the order I want to bring them up. Then when I begin drafting, if I feel that I am losing focus, I refer back to the outline to keep my ideas concise. Of course writing strategies are very subjective, but allowing yourself time to develop and plan ideas is an essential part of the process.
After this discussion, the time was pretty much up.
However, one other thing that popped up during our discussion was Lillian's confusion surround the use of the words "affect" and "effect." I tried my best to explain that 'affect' is the verb ad 'effect' is the noun. In the future, this poster may help:
In order to help narrow her focus to a few key ideas, I introduced her to the concept of developing research questions.
From this point, I helped Lillian construct a few questions that focused more on the human aspects of the issue rather than the complex and confusing economic/statistical side. Some of these questions included: "how does the decline in the strength of the Canadian dollar affect the way Canadians spend/save their money at home? does it affect Canadians in their day to day lives?" or "how does the strength of the dollar affect the way the Canadian and American economies interact?"
I think developing these questions helped Lillian to narrow her focus down to a specific area of the economic issue: the effects of the decline on Canadians. Once her focus had been narrowed, more specific questions began to emerge, such as: "how do experts' predictions about the economy affect spending?" and "who should/do Canadians trust when listening to predictions about what will happen to the Canadian economy?"
While these questions are still daunting, they formed a basis from which I began to construct a rough outline with Lillian. The outline was simply a list of main points arranged in a logical order that would flow smoothly as a well organized paper. I explained my belief that while outlines may not be something she is entirely comfortable with yet, they are a valuable tool and are worth exploring. This opened up a discussion about how she does not usually create an outline at all, and that she wanted to learn how to make one. We talked about how some people need to start with an outline while others can just dive right into writing a paper without one. I told Lillian it is a good thing that she is able to jump right into her writing and that it shows when reading her work in the way her voice comes through.
We also discussed her concerns about how her writing may suffer from not employing a plan with an outline etc. Lillian admitted she often writes long sections without rereading, which sometimes leads to superfluous language, shifting focus, and repetition. I then told her that for me, the outline works as something I can use as a guide when i am writing. I always start with an outline that lists my main points in the order I want to bring them up. Then when I begin drafting, if I feel that I am losing focus, I refer back to the outline to keep my ideas concise. Of course writing strategies are very subjective, but allowing yourself time to develop and plan ideas is an essential part of the process.
After this discussion, the time was pretty much up.
However, one other thing that popped up during our discussion was Lillian's confusion surround the use of the words "affect" and "effect." I tried my best to explain that 'affect' is the verb ad 'effect' is the noun. In the future, this poster may help:
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