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丽莹妈咪+2006-03-10 17:30-->引用:丽莹妈咪 @ 2006-03-10 17:30 Writing Without Tears
by Andrew Pudewa
Teaching writing can perhaps be one of the greatest challenges in education. Because of the bleakness of "grammar workbooks" or the lack of structure provided in a "creative writing idea book," teachers can inadvertently put English composition on the "back burner," only to find that their finish the year with little actual writing experience. Perhaps "reports" have been done--you know, the kind we did in fifth grade--in which the student copies sentences from the encyclopedia, trying to change a word here and there so as to avoid plagiarism, until he has enough to fill the page. Often a child will happily write stories but balk at dealing with facts. Other children intensely dislike writing stories, as they do not know any stories to write. An extremely rare child will keep a journal. Most would rather wash the dishes than write an essay. Unfortunately, many teachers do not even feel confident in their ability to teach writing and feel some "canned" program is necessary.
Fortunately, teachers are usually strong in what is most important -- common sense. Realizing that in order to teach anything effectively it should be broken down into simple and manageable chunks, successful teachers quickly see the wisdom in separating the problems of "thinking of what to write" and "learning how to write." Much the same as we would not expect a child to pick up a violin and make up a beautiful melody without years of technique practice and memorization, it is against common sense to ask a child to sit at a blank piece of paper and expect him to "put down his thoughts" without any practice in the mechanics of writing. For many kids, the task is overwhelming and brings struggle, frustration and tears. This need not be. Using a common sense approach, a wise teacher will allow the child to learn to write using available information which he does not have to remember or imagine.
Let him rewrite a fable or story he has read or heard many times. Let him read or hear the story and then tell it back in his own words before writing it. Let him use information from a book or encyclopedia for a report, but instead of allowing him to copy sentences, have him copy three or four "key words" from each sentence and then reconstruct the idea as a complete sentence himself. Sometimes his will be better than the original. Remarkably, this is the very method that Benjamin Franklin used to teach himself to write, as is recorded in his autobiography:
<blockquote>"About this time I met with an odd volume of the Spectator. It was the third. I had never before seen any of them. I bought it, read it over and was much delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it. With that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words, that should come to hand."
</blockquote>We can use this "Ben Franklin" approach for ourselves and our students. As the method is simple, keep the content simple at first. Find an Aesop's Fable or a short chunk of text from a content book.
Here is an excerpt from a 2nd grade book, My America:
<blockquote>"In God We Trust" is written on every United States coin. The word "Liberty" is also on each coin. It tells each person that this is a free country. Our country was founded by men who believed those words. It is because they trusted in God that we have our liberty now.
</blockquote>To make a "key word outline," simply choose the two or three most helpful "key" words from each sentence. Use a title to help. With your child, you might create an outline that looks something like this:
"In God We Trust"
<blockquote>1. written, U.S., coin
2. "Liberty", also
3. tells, free, country
4. country, founded, believe
5. trusted God, liberty
</blockquote>Then, have the child verbally tell back each idea using just the key word outline. If the concept is unclear, feel free to reread the original. This is not a test. After the child can verbalize the idea for each set of key words, have him rewrite the information in his own sentences. It might come out something like this:
<blockquote>"In God We Trust" are words written on U.S. coins. "Liberty" is also printed on each piece of money. Our money tells all the world that we live in a free country. Our country was founded by men that believed in God. Because they trusted God, we have liberty today.
</blockquote>The goal is not to reproduce the original exactly, it is simply to have facts and ideas to use for the purpose of practicing writing sentences. For older children, use a higher level of reading material and make writing a part of the study of all subjects. Not only will this make the activity of writing much less painful, it will strengthen their understanding of the content being read and studied. It is a highly effective and common sense approach to learning something: read it, tell it back, write it in your own words.
Summary:
By using existing "source texts" to rewrite and practice basic skills, children can increase their confidence and competence, gradually building their writing stamina and fluency. Then, when it comes time to put their own thoughts into written words, the needed skills are there. By separating "what to write" and "how to write," you can teach writing without tears.
露怯的事本是不该揽来做的，但既已答应JJHS，虽然明知当初学的那点儿英译汉无法让自己较好地驾驭这篇文章。词是按词典意思、句子按字面意思，但有的连自己都有点稀里糊涂。如果大家看到有错误，或有更好的译法，请不吝赐教。
不用哭泣的写作
写作教学也许是教育中最大的挑战之一。由于语法练习册”或者“创意写作书”中缺少提供结构这一环节，老师不可避免地把英文写作放到了“次要位置”，一年下来却只发现自己并没有什么实际的写作经验。也许“报告”已经完成了——你也知道的。我们在五年级时写的那些——学生从百科全书里抄过来，试图改变这里或那里的一个词，以避免剽窃，直到他足以填满那些页面。孩子通常喜欢写故事但却回避处理事实有的孩子非常不喜欢写故事，因为他们不知道写什么故事。甚少有孩子会写日记。大多数孩子宁可洗碗而不是写一篇文章。不幸的是，许多教师甚至对自己有能力教好写作缺乏信心，并且觉得一些“录音”节目是必要的。幸运的是，教师通常在常识性方面很强，这也是最重要的。当认识到为了有效进行教学，所学内容应该分解为简单和易于管理的块，成功的教师会迅速地明白到分解问题的智慧在于“考虑写什么”以及“学习如何写，正如我们不能指望孩子不用经过数年的技巧练习和记忆，拿起小提琴就演奏出一曲优美的旋律一样，来要求孩子坐在一张白纸前，并期望他能“写下他的想法”而不经过任何写作技巧的训练，这也是有违常理的。对许多小朋友来说，这个任务是不可战胜的，并带来了斗争、挫折和泪水。其实这是不必要的。用常识性的方法，一个明智的教师会使孩子学会利用现有资料，而不需刻意记忆或想象，让他改写一个他已看过或听过很多次的寓言或故事，让他先听或阅读这个故事，然后用他自己的话复述再写下来，让他学会从书本或百科全书里使用信息来完成报告，但不是让他拷贝句子，而是让他自己从每个句子中用三到四个关键字，重组意思来完成一个完整句子。有时他的句子会比原句的好。本杰明富兰克林也是使用这个方法自学写作，正如在他的自传中记载到：我有次见到其中的一卷，那是第三卷，我一直没有见过其他卷，我买了它，并非常高兴地反复阅读了它，我觉得它写得很好，并想如果可能的话，就模仿着它，以这个观点我摘取了一些文章并在每个句子作出简短的观点提示，然后放下了几天没看。然后不看书本，试图尽可能用各个适合的词汇，根据有提示的观点写出原句，这应该是很简单的。
我们可以把这个本富兰克林方法用到我们自己和我们的学生身上。因为方法很简单，所以首先保持内容简单，找一个“伊索寓言”或者书本里一篇文章的一部分。这里是二年级课本的一个摘抄，我的美国，我们相信上帝，写在了每一个美国钱币，自由这个字也在每个硬币上，它告诉每一个人，这是一个自由的国家，我们的国家是由相信这些话的人建立的，正是因为他们相信上帝，我们现在拥有自由了。写下一个关键词大纲，只需简单地从每个句子中选出两到三个最有用的关键字。再用一个题目来辅助，陪着你的孩子，你可能会写出一个类似下面这样的大纲，我们相信上帝，1、写着、美国、钱币；2、自由、也；3、告诉、自由、国家；4国家、相信；5相信上帝，自由。然后让孩子只用关键字来复述每个想法，如果概念不清楚，不妨又重读一次原句，这毕竟不是一个考试，当孩子能用每组关键字复述出想法后，就让他用自己的话改写这些信息。也许写出来会像这样：我们相信上帝，这些字写在美国钱币上，自由同样也印在每一个钱币上，这些钱币告诉全世界，我们生活在一个自由的国家，我们国家创立人相信上帝，因为他们相信上帝，我们有今天的自由。
这个做法的目标并非精确重写原句，它只是为了用来练习写句子，对较大的孩子，用更高层次的读物，并写出所有科目的部分学习经历，这不但使写作活动不那么痛苦，它将加强孩子们对他们阅读和学习的内容的理解。
这是一个非常有效和常识性的学习方法：阅读、复述，用自己的话重写，总结。通过利用现有文本资源，重写和练习基本技能，才能增强孩子的信心和能力，逐步建立他们的写作耐力和流利程度，然后当他们到了需要把想法转化为书面文字时，就需要技巧了。
通过区分开写什么和怎么写，你可以教导“不 |
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狗仔卡
发表于 2006-3-13 12:21:07
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