A Place to Write , livre ebook

NCTE Editorial Board
Steven Bickmore Catherine Compton-Lilly Deborah Dean Antero Garcia Bruce McComiskey Jennifer Ochoa Staci M. Perryman-Clark Anne Elrod Whitney Vivian Yenika-Agbaw Kurt Austin, Chair, ex officio Emily Kirkpatrick, ex officio

Staff Editor: Bonny Graham
Manuscript Editor: The Charlesworth Group
Interior Design: Jenny Jensen Greenleaf
Cover Design: Pat Mayer
Cover Images: Front: iStock.com/IrisImages, iStock.com/SrdjanPav, iStock.com/empire331, iStock.com/ shylendrahoode, iStock.com/michelmond, iStock.com/VistaVision, iStock.com/SeanPavonePhoto, iStock.com/Nate Hovee, iStock.com/ziggyl, iStock.com/BackyardProduction, iStock.com/m-image photography, iStock.com/Thi Soares; Back: iStock.com/kostsov, iStock.com/liujiachuan, iStock.com/ powerofforever, iStock.com/rclassenlayouts
NCTE Stock Number: 35457; eStock Number: 35464
ISBN 978-0-8141-3545-7; elSBN 978-0-8141-3546-4
©2021 by the National Council of Teachers of English.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Montgomery, Rob, 1973- author. I Montgomery, Amanda, 1987- author.
Title: A place to write : getting your students out of the classroom and into the world / Rob Montgomery, Kennesaw State University, Amanda Montgomery, Park Street Elementary School.
Description: Champaign, Illinois : National Council of Teachers of English, [2021] I Includes bibliographical references and index. I Summary: “Explores opportunities for writing in a different real-world setting (such as museums, public places, natural places, and virtual spaces) by providing a range of practical K-12 classroom activities in a variety of commonly taught genres”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020037793 (print) | LCCN 2020037794 (ebook) | ISBN 9780814135457 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780814135464 (adobe pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: English language—Composition and exercises—Study and teaching. | Creative writing—Study and teaching. | Language arts—Correlation with content subjects.
Classification: LCC LB1576 .M656 2021 (print) | LCC LB1576 (ebook) | DDC 428.0071—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037793
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020037794
Rob dedicates this book to his students — current, past, and future. But he owes a special debt of gratitude to five former student teachers from Kennesaw State University whom he's now proud to consider colleagues — Casey Black, Stephanie Coggins, Katie Ferguson, Melissa Oliver-Pridgen, and Emily Wynn. You were the first to say, “Hey! You should turn this place-based writing stuff into a book!”Thanks to all of you. You lit the fuse, and just look what happened.
Amanda would like to dedicate this book to her inquisitive students, who motivate her each day to find new and different ways of highlighting their voices in writing.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1    Foundations and Frameworks
The Current State of Writing Instruction: Where Are We — and Do We Want to Be There?
Authenticity: What Does Anything Mean, Anyway?
Place-Based Writing: The World as Classroom
The Potential of Place-Based Writing
CHAPTER 2    Place-Based Writing in Action
The Plan: A Carden as Research Project
Writing about the Past through Future Eyes
Conclusion and Next Steps
CHAPTER 3    Writing in School Places
But First, a Note about the Flexibility of Place-Based Writing
Writing in (or near) School Locations
Extended Lesson Idea: Ethnographic Thick Description
Writing about Literature and Other Texts
Writing Arguments
Writing Narratives, Poetry, and Scripts
Writing for Research and Inquiry
Writing for Change
Further Considerations
CHAPTER 4    Writing in Museums
Extended Lesson Idea: Exploring Local History
Writing about Literature and Other Texts
Writing Arguments
Writing Narratives, Poetry, and Scripts
Writing for Research and Inquiry
Writing for Change
CHAPTER 5    Writing in Public Places
Extended Lesson Idea: Rooting Narrative in Place
Writing about Literature and Other Texts
Writing Arguments
Writing Narratives, Poetry, and Scripts
Writing for Research and Inquiry
Writing for Change
CHAPTER 6    Writing in Natural Places
Extended Lesson Idea: Protecting Our Wild Places
Writing about Literature and Other Texts
Writing Arguments
Writing Narratives, Poetry, and Scripts
Writing for Research and Inquiry
Writing for Change
CHAPTER 7    Writing in Virtual Places
Extended Lesson Idea: Creating a Virtual Tour
Writing about Literature and Other Texts
Writing Arguments
Writing Narratives, Poetry, and Scripts
Writing for Research and Inquiry
Writing for Change
FINAL THOUGHTS
APPENDIX:    Garden and Composting Research Project
NOTES
WORKS CITED
INDEX
AUTHORS
Acknowledgments
A manda and Rob want to thank Kurt Austin, Bonny Graham, and the books team at NCTE for helping shepherd us through this process, patiently answering many questions rookies probably should have known better than to ask. We also want to specifically acknowledge the inspiration we have received from National Writing Project teachers near and far. Many of the activities described in this book saw their genesis in the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project Summer Institute during our time as codirectors, and we appreciate our colleagues’ generosity in allowing us to fumble through their early stages. Both of us consider the National Writing Project to be our home (philosophically and pedagogically speaking), and it is in the company of other Writing Project teachers that we feel most comfortable. Thanks for the vital work you do every day, and we hope you find A Place to Write to be at least partial recompense for all your efforts in helping students become more confident and sophisticated writers.
Introduction
“W e're taking a tour of the school,” Mr. Schaffer said. “Grab your notebook and a writing utensil. Leave everything else behind. You are not to talk. You're simply to observe. Use your senses. Look, listen, smell, touch. And taste, if you're brave. Take notes of what you experience, but do not talk. When we get back to the classroom, I'll tell you why we're doing this.”
This was 1989, when Rob was in tenth grade. Mr. Schaffer—his otherwise formula- and grammar-driven English teacher—surprised everyone by beginning class this way, and, without another word, heading out the door. Twenty-five 15- and 16-year-old students, surprised into silence, hesitantly followed him on a guided tour of the building.
They traveled down early-morning hallways that smelled faintly of ammonia, into the cafeteria already pungent with cut-rate tomato sauce, and through the gymnasium where a class was playing basketball, the squeaking of tennis shoes on hardwood competing with the full-bodied bouquet of sweat and leather suffusing the sticky air. Pine shavings in woodshop. Formaldehyde in the biology classroom. A riot of neon on paint-spattered canvases in the art room. Crying and laughing children in the day care annex located at the rear of the building. The click-clacking of electric typewriters in the main office. And, underneath it all, the faint buzz of lecture and discussion that would rise in volume as the students approached each classroom and then Doppler into silence as they continued down the hall.
When they returned to the classroom, Mr. Schaffer instructed his class to conceive a story that incorporated as many different details as possible from the notes they took during their tour. “Be creative. Don't feel like it has to be set in a school. But think about how you can take those sensory images and use them to bring life to an original story.”
Rob, struck by the dual inspirations of a talking Teddy Ruxpin doll he'd seen cast aside in the day care center and the faint but unmistakable odor of cigar smoke as the class passed the custodian's office, concocted a story about a cigar-chomping teddy bear who came to life in an effort to be like the students he saw passing the day care center each day.
It was not a great story.
But it was the one time Rob remembered feeling engaged and inspired in a school year that was otherwise saturated with five-paragraph essays, rigidly formatted explications of dusty canonical texts, and hastily constructed “research” papers about literary figures that were mainly exercises in plugging the required number of direct quotes into paragraphs of summary. It's not that Rob disliked English. He was an avid reader and writer from an early age.