Teaching Writing at the Grassroots Level Part II

by Carmelita Cochingco Ballesteros.
July 1, 2012
I wrote about a girl whom I called Rica in Part I. She was 12 and was going to be in first year high school. But she had extremely limited proficiency in English. I tried to help her and other writing students grapple with lack of clarity, inadequate content, lack of focus and organization, broken grammar, and atrocious spelling.
I decided to put in action the writing community approach as espoused by Donald H. Graves, father of the process approach to writing. I pulled everyone together instead of having each one do a different lesson.
This was the class routine we established. First, as the students came in, they read a picture book or graphic novel. I brought my grandchildren’s books so we could have a classroom library. Second, they chose five words from the book they read and wrote them on our word wall (blank cartolina on the wall).
Third, I spoke with every child about the words he or she had written on the wall. If a child said she didn’t know what a word meant, but was intrigued by it, we looked it up together in a dictionary which I always kept in the room. If the child still didn’t understand, I demonstrated its meaning or gave examples or used the word in a sentence. Then we went back to the book and investigated how the word was used in it.
One day, a child told me she liked the word ‘frantic’ and knew what it meant in Tagalog, but couldn’t explain it in English.
I said, “Okay, tell me what it means in Tagalog.”
She said, “Natataranta.” I smiled broadly and asked her to use the word in a sentence.
She said, “My mother was frantic yesterday because we had guests.”
Wasn’t that brilliant?
Fourth, I asked the children to retell the stories they read. Ninety-five per cent of the time, they asked permission to retell the stories in Tagalog. Their retelling is 95% accurate. They’re great translators. They have no comprehension problems in reading English stories, but they cannot express the meaning in English.
Is it a language problem? Is it the reading strategy they have been taught?
Fifth, we all did free writing for 10-15 minutes. The kids and I made a small circle, then I gave each one a blank sheet of paper, including myself. On top of the sheet, we wrote our full name, the date, and “Free Writing.” I explained that the objective was to fill the page with words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. We should write continuously without much thinking. If we couldn’t find the right English words, we could write in Taglish or Tagalog.
Rica’s first free writing output consisted of three short sentences and two short phrases. The other kids produced longer outputs, but they exemplified the stream of consciousness technique. That means that the ideas were disjointed, an accepted norm in free writing.
When we shared our first writing outputs by passing them around, each child broke into a wide grin when he or she read my description of apl.de.ap of Black Eyed Peas. They said it was funny.
Implicitly, they understood cohesion and coherence as shown in my description. I had succeeded in painting a vivid picture of apl.de.ap with words. Please take note, once again, that the children didn’t have any problem understanding my sophisticated description of apl.de.ap.
Sixth, I gave mini-lessons on parts of speech, sentence structure, paragraph organization, cohesion, coherence, vividness of description, chronological sequence in narratives and process description, and others.
Seventh, we went back to each student’s writing project. For example, the girl who chose the word ‘frantic’ was working on a problem-solution essay. So we’d confer and I’d ask her questions to stimulate content enrichment as well as a more logical organization.
The eighth step would have been publishing. But I didn’t ‘publish’ drafts in progress in the classroom which was shared by many other students.
Let’s fast-forward to the last day of the summer classes on May 31, 2012. Rica came late for her writing class, but in time for the academic writing class of some university students. I asked her if she’d like to sit in. She nodded, so I gave her the lesson which had been done by her classmates.
Rica was familiar with the writing workshop routine, so she basically helped herself. Rica chose to read Anthony Browne’s “Voices in the Park”. She said she liked the title and the cover. After reading it, she said it made her happy because the lonely boy had found a friend in the happy girl.
Rica’s free writing output was a coherent paragraph about her friends and the things they usually did. It would not be a winner in an on-the-spot writing contest, but it WAS coherent.
I noticed that Rica exuded a quiet confidence. It was remarkable that she did not feel intimidated by the tall, muscular, and huge university students in the academic writing class where she sat in. More significantly, although she was late for her class, she still came to have her last writing session and wrap up everything. Most of all, her posture had become upright, she made eye contact, and she spoke audibly and clearly.
Because it was the last day of the summer classes, I told Rica as well as the big boys and girls in the academic writing module to accomplish an evaluation form which simply asked what they liked best in their module and what they’d like to suggest.
These were Rica’s choices: 1) free writing, 2) the grand pareid, (sic) 3) the seed – this is beautiful, 4) wecent be aniting (sic) – that is my favorite, and 5) Anie the ant. (sic)
Let me respond to Rica’s choices.
My heart clapped with a roaring round of applause when I saw that free writing was the first thing which she liked. The Grand Parade was a one-act play I wrote based on a picture book by Carla Pacis. All of the little kids took part in it and actually had a grand parade with four majorettes and a snare drum ensemble.
Let me call your attention to the word ‘beautiful’ in Rica’s third choice. She got the spelling right. When I reviewed her writing outputs, I realized that she had been working on it. It was a struggle since beautiful isn’t an easy word to spell. In the end, Rica succeeded. And she did it on her own.
“We Can Be Anything” is a rap song composed by apl.de.ap (Black Eyed Peas) to launch his education advocacy in the Philippines. It says, “You can be a doctor, You can be a governor, You can be a professor, You can be a leader. Get your education, change your situation…”
“Annie D. Ant” is an excerpt from a play I wrote based on my picture book of the same title.
To be continued…