Memo #4

          Unfortunately, I have not held an interview yet so my post will be a little strange.  I did schedule a meeting with an English teacher for the end of this week so I will edit/update this post (or make a new post) to explain the process and address these questions better.

           I have, however, started sending out emails with my survey attached to random High School English teachers across the U.S.  So far, I have received three responses (two from Alaska and one from Florida).

          Here are the results from my survey:

How do you encourage students to take risks in your classroom?

-I used to require a 15-min journal entry a day, I also require students to write about half a page before any class discussion (as it greatly enhances the quality of discussion)

-I run writing workshops with 3-5 selected papers that are nameless (names are removed) the students all take the papers home, read them and write feedback to the writers.  Then we sit in a circle and read each paper and discuss how to improve them. Also we write 3 days a week, after testing we get to poetry which encourages more risk taking.  Students are required to submit a piece of writing for publication or to a writing contest once per semester.  

-Students write every day with different parameters, once a week they write in creative writing notebooks, three times a week they respond to prompts with opinions or analysis of a passage.

Have you ever put limitations on student's writing? (If yes, what?)

- If students need to swear to be authentic or realistic to the situation in which they are writing about, they can swear.  Depending on the assignment, I remind students to be aware of the audience and look at tone, word choice and style accordingly. Also word limits, either over 500 words, or under 500 words.  

-With research papers yes, I will blacklist certain topics that really can no longer provide solid balanced, researched arguments (ex. gun control, abortion - media sensitive topics).  Much less limitation with creative writing.  Remind students of what audience they are writing for.  I encourage students to write about "hard things" those topics that people are afraid to write about.  I get some very good writing from those topics, but it does take courage sometimes.

-I won't accept racism, sexism, or homophobia in student writing or speaking.  Certainly we can talk about these issues, but not in ways that insult or disparage others.

Has a parent/administrator had a problem with student work?  If yes, what happened?

-A student wrote about a teacher that had been fired and jailed for inappropriate behavior with students and how it impacted her.  She wanted to submit the essay to a writing contest so the principal read it and asked her to make it more anonymous and the paper was given to the legal department of the district. 

These answers were great and exactly what I wanted to know about.  I found the last story very important and I am glad that the student wasn't held back but rather legally bound to remove all names.  It would have been easy for the teacher and principal to say "no, this is not appropriate", but they all stood behind the student!