重新考虑它

Thousands of students have sat in my high school English classes the past 20 years. 所有的成绩, 9-12, and ages perhaps from 14 to 20 have helped me shape how I encourage the young and intimidated student to write not with proficiency, but write with clarity and description—where writing with proficiency eventually becomes mastery–but not without years and years of practice, 而且远远超出了学生的高中生涯. This later point I continuously make clear to students throughout their writing experiences.

When I ask a newly arriving freshman class of students to write creatively at the beginning of the term so that I can gauge their writing levels, I pretty much allow them full-reign on what they want to say (write) and how long they want to write. 但是我喜欢, provide the students with topics to discuss such as: Describe your scariest moment; Tell of a time you were dishonest or lied and how you eventually felt about the deception; or, 如果我是百万富翁, 我将....

设置
Typically, 我将 have up to five options for students to consider. 然而, I do allow the more creative students to offer an alternative topic to me for approval. The rules in doing the expository descriptive piece is simple: The work is done in MS Word, 12号字体, 倍新罗马字体，双倍行距. (This is sort of a preparation for the next four years of high school and college readiness). The writing piece must be submitted through the Google classroom portal, 最后, the piece is due at the end of the class period…finished of not!

第一阶段，现在是有趣的部分
I will peruse all the submissions and make marginal comments. I’m not looking for perfection, but rather creativity and fluidity of the work. 换句话说, 故事是否以简洁的方式展开, 与年表密切相关的, 我也在寻找各种形式的描述性词汇. After giving myself a couple of days to review and comment on all the submissions, I ask students to review my comments and make necessary corrections. 当学生们完成了这一步, 通常在一节课或更短的时间内, 我开始了他们创作之旅的第二阶段.

第二阶段——方法
“It,几乎所有作家都这么说, 包括我自己, 主格是否被过度使用, 描述某物的所有格或客观词. 因此, in order to assist my students with being more descriptive and concise in their writing, 并鼓励他们更有创造性地写作, I have the students highlight all the “it” words in their paper by using the Control F function and write “it” into the subject-line to locate all the “it” words. 一次强调, students are instructed to replace those “it” words with more descriptive language/sentences. For example, the simple sentence: It was too cold today to play outside. Now replaced with: The clouds were dark and the weather was too cold to play outside. 通过去掉“it”这个名词, 用更具描述性的文字代替单词, the student has successfully showed more creativity and just as important, 写作方法中的认知能力. Thus, greater capacity to create and explore new imaginative words, phrases, and sentences.

这个例子对于大多数高级作家来说都很简单, 给一个年轻的新生, who is highly impressionable and pretty much traumatized by entering the new culture of high school, many students will struggle building the capacity and descriptive thoughts or phrases or this assignment. A gentle approach with many examples may have to be front-loaded (scaffolded) by the instructor. 进一步, most of the original papers submitted will be laced with many “it” words for students to test themselves. 一开始这可能会有点令人沮丧, 尤其是对那些有写作困难的人, 比如iep学生, 或者是第二语言学习者. 然而, since the process of eliminating the word “it” is a rule I use in all my writing assignments with all my classes, 到学期结束的时候, most students will have successfully and consciously abolished using “it” unnecessarily and or too frequently.

把“它”包起来
Descriptive writing has always been a stumbling block for students who have never been challenged to write with more description in their primary years of education. 在我的高中时代，作为一个学生, 好朋友, 汤姆Hoffarth, (currently a freelance writer/contributor to OC Register; Los Angeles Daily 新闻; and The Daily Breeze), 是我们校报的编辑吗, 美洲狮. I spoke to Tom at an alumni function years ago and asked him how he became such a good and creative writer so early in his high school days. 他只是简单地回答说:“先生. 艾伦. Mr. 理查德·艾伦是我们的英语老师, our school’s journalism teacher and my freshman baseball coach. I now wonder if I subconsciously acquired the “it” strategy from Mr. 艾伦?

As a final note, I do not tell students to eliminate the word “it” from their vocabulary. 而不是, I offer to them an option that pays dividends with their writing processes, 写作生涯, 巨大的红利, 当他们写其他主题，比如科学, 或者社会科学, they become subconsciously aware of the “it” phenomenon and may chose to colorfully write their other course work with more descriptive flare.

Michael P. 柯林斯出生并成长在英格尔伍德的一个路德教家庭, 加州, 有两个姐姐和两个弟弟. 他已婚，有两个已成年的子女. 迈克尔上的是霍桑高中, 埃尔卡米诺学院, 犯罪现场调查组，多明格斯·希尔斯, 科罗拉多州立大学北岭分校和欧文康考迪亚大学. He has been an English teacher, ESL teacher, AVID teacher and school administrator.

Mr. Collins’ educational degrees include a BA in English Literature (CSUDH), MA in School Administration (CSUN) and MA in Curriculum and Instruction, and a Doctorate in Educational Leadership—both from 欧文康考迪亚大学. He is currently working seeking a new and adventurous career in higher education, where he can work within teacher education programs to better the craft of teaching.