Isn't he dreamy?! He can spot a sentence fragment faster than a locomotive. He can leap split infinitives in a single bound. He is my writing Superman!
So, how does my unhealthy obsession with this man relate to the blog topic this week? I am glad you asked! I was first introduced to this bespectacled god's work during my first semester as an English Education student at USU, which happened to coincide with my daughter's first semester in her freshman Honors English class at THS. At the same time that I was learning about "Golden Lines," real world writing, and writing improvement through feedback (here's a link to see what makes Gallagher so great, if you want to share my man crush http://youtu.be/Km1dQjVNu00), my daughter was writing endless essays to a seemingly unpleasable--yes, I did just make up a word-- teacher. My daughter and I would sit at the computer agonizing over essays (her final essay was a 15-page analysis) until the tears flowed, mine and hers. After spending hours writing and rewriting, she would get her paper back with red slashes and "weak thesis" or "proof?" written in the margins and a grade, that in no way reflected the time and energy spent, circled at the top of the page. There was no rubric, no praise, no suggestions to help my daughter. There were NONE of the great ideas and techniques that Gallagher suggests. There was nothing but criticism that crushed my daughter and made her doubt herself as a writer.
I decided two things very quickly during my daughter's freshman year. First, I disliked her teacher very much! Second, I vowed to never be the type of teacher that left students feeling like they have nothing of value to share. Students are going to grow into adults who will have many opportunities and responsibilities to write. They need to be given not only the tools to be good writers, but also the confidence to be good writers. I have had a professor in college who is the best at making me feel good about my writing. He does this through specific and thought-provoking feedback that shows me he is really reading my papers and thinking about how I can improve them. His feedback never makes me feel like I have missed my mark...it just makes me see that I can get a little closer to my mark with a few tweaks. This is the way to effectively teach writing. Take the students where they are and help them improve. I am not saying that every student will be a Pulitzer Prize-winning author by the end of the year, but I am saying every student can be better than they were at the beginning of the year with a little effort and a lot of Gallagher.
