- Mar 2024
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victorianweb.org victorianweb.org
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By eleven o’clock the next day we were well upon our way to the old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage. “Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. But Holmes shook his head gravely. “Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?” “They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” “You horrify me!” “But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.
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- Apr 2020
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www.thelancet.com www.thelancet.com
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Ranscombe, P. (2020). Rural areas at risk during COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(20)30301-7
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- Sep 2017
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www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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After about third grade, very little time is devoted to explicit writing instruction
Not at Countryside Middle School!
Our Literature and Writing Workshop rigorously maintains focus and practice time devoted to writing, from grammar, style, and technique, to active writing and publication (sharing) in formal and informal modes. Writing and active focus on writing are daily efforts.
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Should a parent correct a child’s writing, or just be encouraging?
This is the ten million dollar question with a vending-machine answer: The work is the child's. It must be the child's entirely if the goal is to develop and hone writing skills. Loving parents might and often do get too involved.
It does the young writer zero good to lose control of a written work (and it feels terrible even if never admitted—I was one of those kids). That problem is compounded when the teacher reads a twelve year old's assignment that looks too much (or entirely like) the bona-fide polished work of a mature writer with several college degrees. The teacher is not impressed and the process breaks down, for she or he is supposed to be evaluating and coaching a middle school writer on genuinely warty, often needy middle school writing.
It does a young writer zero good to be a "middle man" left to watch back and forth between adults when the writing at the center is not the student's. A teacher can't minister to a young writer's real needs and the student can't learn if it's not the student's real writing at undergoing the writing workshop processes.
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analyzing text does make a difference
Right.
There is reading and there is active reading. I support both but in appropriate settings. Everyone should enjoy ample time just reading for pleasure, escape. When reading for a specific purpose the foundation of which is understanding, we must be active readers—even while the process can still be enjoyable.
Reading actively takes additional effort and concentration, often with note taking (or annotation in a cool web-markup tool like this!), and purposeful thought about what is said, how, and why.
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start talking about persuasive essays or an informative paper
We do this work a great deal—we don't use these labels "persuasive essay," "informative paper" because (a) outside of school nobody at all uses these terms for real writing and (b) such labels tend to mystify and ossify thinking about writing in ways that aren't helpful. We focus on purpose, technique, sign-posting and evidence, and more in the composition of many types of writing like these and others.
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writing assignments to work on at home
Because we devote 3/5 of all class periods explicitly to in-class writing instruction and independent, guided writing time (and the other 2/5 involve our writing at least indirectly by working with other texts which we read and analyze for writing about), we aim to minimize the writing done at home.
By design, students have time at school to write, revise, consult with the teacher, critique the writing of others, and write some more. When writing is done at home, it is intended to be as overflow when more than what's available in class is needed.
There's a magical dynamic here. When student writers know they will have adequate time for writing in class, supported, scaffolded for their needs, and that what they don't get done in school must be done at home, they tend to use school time better. Writing workshops become focused, intentional, productive spaces where tons of learning and growth occur.
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Is my kid writing at school
Yes, at Countryside Middle School, we do this in a nearly unbroken stream of constructive activities.
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middle and high school, the most common activities are fill-in-the-blanks on worksheets, writing single sentences, making lists or writing a paragraph summary
Nope. Not at Countryside Middle School. We write, scrutinize, revise, share, and write more. Our students learn to consider, brainstorm, draft, revise with feedback, finalize, and share in many formal and other modes, primarily at school in a controlled and closely monitored learning environment.
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Kids are constantly creating text when they are at home. They tweet, they text, they Facebook. Each of those has its own rules
Writing in formal modes like essays, responses to literature, book reviews, etc., have their own rules and expectations, but they're not by a thousand miles the only kinds of writing that people do or that have importance.
Kids (like adults) are increasingly social-media writers. It may seem at times that these modes are the Wild West with lawlessness and emoticons, but there are rules and expectations—particularly concerning positive interactions and relationship building as good digital citizens.
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with them about the author’s craft
This is the primary purpose for readings of all kinds selected in my English/language arts curriculum. All reading done for class purposes is intended to be active reading.
With younger readers like middle schoolers, this doesn't always come easily and part of the comprehensive process is to teach the skills involved in active reading while reinforcing their value.
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