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| Read this!!! |
Reid, Joy, Ed. Writing Myths:
Applying Second Language Research to Classroom Teaching. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press, 2008. Print.
Overview
In
this collection of articles edited by Joy Reid, each author tackles a myth related
to teaching writing, especially teaching writing to multilingual (or L2)
students. The myths deconstructed in this book are the following:
- Myth 1 - Teaching vocabulary is not the
writing teacher’s job.
- Myth 2 – Teaching citation is someone else’s job
- Myth 3 – Where grammar is concerned, one size
fits all.
- Myth 4 – Make your academic writing assertive
and certain.
- Myth 5 – Students must learn to correct all
their writing errors.
- Myth 6 – Corpus-based research is too
complicated to be useful for writing teachers.
- Myth 7 – Academic writing courses should
focus on paragraph and essay development.
- Myth 8 – International and US resident ESL
writers cannot be taught in the same class.
- Myth 9 – Students’ myths about academic
writing and teaching
Each chapter, except the last, is organized
into three parts. The first
section, entitled “In the Real World,” is where the authors introduce the myth
and explain or illustrate the problems with it. Then, in “What the Research Says and Shows,” the authors
discuss empirical research that supports why the myth is a myth. Finally, in the last section, “What We
Can Do,” the authors give concrete, practical advice about how to work with the
issue in the classroom.
Here’s
one example of how a chapter plays out. In Chapter One, Keith Folse addresses
the myth that writing teachers shouldn’t
have to teach vocabulary. He
begins with describing his own students’ struggles with researched writing and
suggests that this often is more related to vocabulary than to issues of
plagiarism (intended or unintended).
He then brings in research to show how vocabulary “plays a critical role
in successful writing” (4) including both studies that look at what qualities
of an essay influence how a rater assesses it as well as what qualities are
emphasized on grading rubrics. He
then offers eight suggestions for teachers to consider as they attempt to
integrate vocabulary teaching into their classroom.
Brief response
There
are so many things I found helpful about this anthology. The first was that each article was so
clearly organized. Though I don’t
think a lockstep approach like this works for every scholarly anthology, it
makes sense here. We’re introduced
to the myth and the problems with it, we’re presented with an overview of the
research, and then the author or authors gives us a list of suggestions and/or
things to think about.
The
second thing that stood out to me was how concrete yet flexible the suggestions
in each chapter were. Though
the main audience for this text is teachers in L2 writing classrooms, many of
the ideas apply to any teacher who teaches writing to a diverse student
population. I found myself writing
notes about how the ideas presented might apply to my classroom, my writing
center, and/or my institution.
Personally,
I found every chapter helpful but if my colleagues in the English department
could only read a couple chapters, I would point them to these:
- Pat Byrd and John Bunting’s argument against a
one size fits all approach to grammar (Myth #3);
- Dana Ferris’s take down of the idea that students
should write error-free prose (Myth #5); and
- Joy Reid’s discussion of the myths that
students have about academic writing (and how teachers contribute to them)
(Myth #9)
As soon as I picked these three, I thought, “But
what about the chapter on vocabulary or the one about citation or the one on using
hedges in academic writing?” So,
really, I think anyone who teaches writing could benefit from reading this
whole darn book. And, when you’re
done, I want to talk with you about it.
