“Middle school is the time for students to take what they learned in elementary school and develop it into coherent thoughts for communication.  It’s the time to develop their own writing voice.”

 

As teachers under pressure from mandates and curriculum requirements, we sometimes see the developmental stages of our students become overshadowed by looming deadlines and requirements.  However, developing minds is our business, and Jennelle Martin, an 8^th grade English teacher at Caroline Middle School, makes it her priority to draw out the writer in each of her students.  With an emphasis on creativity and innovation, the keys to success in her classroom are handed to those who are willing to free their minds to make room for the voice to be heard.

Martin explains her philosophy, “Middle school isthe time for students to take what they learned in elementary school and turn it into coherent thoughts for communication.  It’s the time to develop their own writing voice.”  Martin says she doesn’t focus on polished writing throughout the first semester of the year, instead opting to generate madman /madwoman writing with her students that will free them to unlock creative ideas.  She says, “I actually use those terms with my students, and I let them know what I am trying to do, allowing them room for imperfection.”  This gives her students the freedom to write more, and with that freedom she has seen them generate up to two pages of writing in ten minutes filled with original ideas.  Martin says, “If I had told them to write an essay in a week and had them polish and revise and edit it in the first part of the year, then many students wouldn’t have even turned it in.  This practice puts them in a better place for writing.”

Martin says her students are challenged by the freedom to write without rules.  They want to ask her questions about length and grammatical requirements.  They want to know how long the piece should be by the time the clock runs out.  They claim they are not creative and don’t see themselves as writers.   Martin says she stops them in their tracks.  “It’s funny that I have to set up rules in order to have students write with no rules.  I don’t want to influence them in any way about how they interpret creative prompts, so I’ve set up these rules when they are doing the madman/madwoman writing.  They’re not allowed to ask questions.  It unsettles them, but at the same time it excites them to write more and they have more motivation to write.”

Martin says that during the second semester she helps students move toward the revision and editing stages by fostering a culture where they can participate in peer review and show each other their work.   She says, “This stage is a little slower because a lot of them believe that once they write it the first time they are done.  I show them how to critique other writing before looking at their peers’ pieces so they know what to suggest.”

Because she teaches up to 30 students in a class, Martin has developed some creative ways to include the steps in the writing process.  She has her classes share in smaller, collaborative peer groups rather than as a whole class, and she gives students a chance to keep a portfolio of all their work from which they might choose one or two samples to take through the entire writing process.  She explains, “Instead of giving everyone the same essay and requirements and reading 100 of the same essay, I have them choose from their fiction and nonfiction and write one solid final draft.”

With creativity and ingenuity at the center of her lessons, it will come as no surprise that Martin has decided to share her NVWP lesson on Synectics, designed to help students decipher the sometimes ambiguous nature of metaphors and similes.  This lesson might be especially helpful when working with poetry.

 

Synectics PowerPoint for Educators

Martin_Synectics1 Lesson Document