Putting @kpchandl in Conversation with @DoodlebugKRY in a Graduate Course on Writing: Motivating Us All

Sometimes, as an instructor, it is exciting to pair readings to see, exactly, where the most solidified suggestion might come across. The readings for the night was Ch. 1 of A Good Fit For All: Collaborating to Teach Writing in Inclusive, Diverse Settings with Ch. 3. "Motivating Writers" by Pietro Boscolo and Carmen Gelati in S. Graham, C. A. MacArthur and M. Hebert's Best Practices in Writing Instruction. Of course, another purpose for the night was to get students ready to compose their own book review (in brochure form) for a sequence of writing lessons they want to work on for the end of the semester.

Who'd I summon to 'save the day'? Karen Romano Young, whose illustrations and one-page informative texts captivated teachers during our summer institutes.

My hypothesis was that doodling thoughts from my reading of KCO's first chapter, would model a way to tackle the Boscolo and Gelati chapter on motivating writers. My thinking was that if I could doodle my response to what I thought was most important to KCO's work, then they could do the same when tackling how to best motivate writers. I told them, "This is the first time I'm trying this, but I am thinking that Karen Romano Young is onto something."

Doodling is thinking and can be instructional. The theme for the night was teaching informative and explanatory texts (Gallagher, Write Like This).

It worked.

My graduate students doodled their response to sections of the Boscolo and Gelati chapter, after I went over my doodle and thinking of Kelly Chandler Olcott's first chapter.

As I shared my doodle, and discussed how I filled my writer's notebooks, the students quickly saw that my comprehension of her work went hand-in-hand with the chapter lay-out, as she sectioned it.

After the students doodled their sections on the motivating writers chapter in Best Practices in Writing Instruction, they shared what was most important. They hit all the major points the authors were making. I wrote down all they reported as they worked off their doodles to tell the class what their section explained and informed.

My point? Pairing Kelly Chandler Olcott with Boscolo and Gelati, with the use of Karen Romano Young's doodle examples, brought all of us to the same page about motivating heterogeneous classrooms to reach informative/explanatory writing with the students they teach.

I was saved from lecturing. I was saved from being a sage on a stage.

What happened was the teachers saw themselves reading as writers and drawing out how it is the writers informed their readers and explained the points they wanted to make.

Wola! The evening was rich, communicative, influential and beneficial. Numerous educators said, "I'm so going to do this with my students tomorrow."

BOOM! That's what my instructional choices were after and, AND, we used out writer's notebooks (ala Ralph Fletcher) to accomplish this.

I'm so lucky to have such texts to teach with. My students benefit from their wisdom, and I get to simply conduct. I love it!