The Blog

Always Working Towards Creating a Classroom Where Students Lead

Twenty-two years ago, I started advising The Communicator.  At the time it was a 4-page, 8.5x14 sheets of paper, stapled and distributed every Friday.  Then, it moved to a 24-page tabloid on newsprint, then a 32-page, then a glossy magazine, and now it is at a 64-page glossy magazine that comes out six times per year.  We also have a website that includes news, features, opinion, arts, etc., We are always operating on a deadline. Always working to get articles out, pages designed, sharing big articles on social media and then watching our analytics in real time.  We have watched articles spread during the course of a 95 minute class period - going from no readers on the story to thousands. Cheering every time someone in a different country clicks on it and then watching it spread in that country. In those moments, we see the power of the internet, we are literally watching stories spread in ways that we can’t document how physical copies of stories are read and shared.  

I spent many years advising in some of my class periods, and then teaching traditional English classes in other periods.  There was always a disconnect in my student’s work, and I was always trying to bring some of that excitement, some of the power of publishing, the reality of the true deadline, the collaboration, the teamwork, the problem solving, into my traditional courses.  But, it was always contrived. An essay about whether or not George should have killed Lennie or about the role of women in Of Mice and Men couldn’t hold a candle to the stories that my journalism students were writing about immigration, deportation, mental health, etc.,  There wasn’t that buy-in and there wasn’t that excitement - even if students were sharing their work with each other. I couldn’t bridge the gap.  And, in some ways, I still can’t. 

I want to bridge the gap, so I am challenging myself to do a radical restructuring of my  classroom. For example, in Creative Writing, I have always been the teacher in charge. Even though I am a fairly progressive English teacher, bringing in professional writers, writing groups, etc., I knew that I wasn’t doing enough.  I have always avoided lecturing in front of the classroom, not because I don’t see the value of lecturing, but because I don’t like talking in front of people. I didn’t realize that when I became a teacher, that this was part of the deal.  So, I have avoided doing this as much as I could during the past 23 years. For the first 15 years of teaching, I sat in a student desk. I wrote with my students. I tried, but failed, to do all of the assignments I was asking my students to do.  But, I still held control.  

What I am talking about doing in our classrooms is working with students and helping them develop as leaders.  Instead of me presenting all of the grammar lessons, why not have students become experts in different areas? Why not have them find published examples of grammar in context?  Why not have them develop their skills as leaders and teachers?  

I keep returning to the Montessori vision.  When I talk to people about Montessori, I’ve always said that I learned the most about teaching high school from my summer working with 2 ½ - 5 year olds at the Law Montessori school in Ann Arbor.  The adults were there to keep the structure in place, but inside of that structure there was so much learning and leading that was done by the students. If 2 ½ - 5 year olds can do this, then why not work towards a radical restructuring of my classroom to give my high school students who are on the verge of adulthood that same opportunity to lead and create?

Three Things to Think About When Lesson Planning: Process, Purpose and Product

In 1979, I was seven:  white trimmed athletic shorts, knee socks with three rainbow stripes at the top, a tank top, and two pigtails.  Every room in our house was wallpapered. Where there was wallpaper, there were always wallpaper scraps. My teacher, Ms. Coker, put out a call for parents to send the scraps in.  We kept ours in the basement on a shelf.  

I have memories of letter people in kindergarten.  I got to present the letter “A” to the class. The blow-up letter and I sat next to each other all day.  Our class practiced tracing big A’s and little A’s on wide lined horizontal paper with blue dashes marking the half-way point for the letters.  

It wasn’t until second grade that I had my first memory of feeling like a writer was in Ms. Coker’s class.  One day when we walked in there was a box filled with wallpaper scraps. She told us that we were each going to make a book, and she let us go through the possibilities.  I remember picking up sheet after sheet of wallpaper: blue stripes, little flowers with pink and green, orange circles. And then I found a yellow paper with thick textured lines.  Mrs. Coker showed us how to make it into a book using sheets of cardboard and painting on Elmer’s glue. Once we had our covers, she had us fold sheets of paper and then she stapled them in with long-arm stapler that could reach the centerfold. That day we all left with blank books where we could write our own stories.  We worked on story ideas in class, and then we would spend time writing. We practiced reading our stories to each other and then we would talk to each other about questions we had or ideas about where it could become better.  

I remember writing that story in the classroom and working on my final draft at home.  I was lying on the shag carpeting in front of our sliding glass doors. The above ground pool, which my grandpa had painted a deep rust color, had an oak tree at each corner.  Beyond the metal linked fence, there was the schoolyard - an endless place of possibility. It is where we would go to find balls that had been left over from recess, and also where we would find cigarettes that older kids hid in the big round tires that were perfect for hiding places.  The Sunday afternoon that I wrote my final draft into my book it was raining. My book, “The Rainy Day,” wasn’t a ground-breaking book for the world, but it was for me. It was the first time that I felt like a writer. After I finished writing it and illustrating it, I practiced reading it.  I sat on the fireplace ledge, placed my dog in front of me and read it to her. After that, I read it to my mom and my dad. My little sister was 6 months old, so she also got to hear it. I was preparing for our book reading in class, and by the time I got in front of my peers, I was ready. When I read “by Tracy Anderson” there was something there that happened.  I had become a writer in that moment.  

It was the late 70s and Mrs. Coker was teaching us the writing process that is still foundational today.  Most of all, she instilled in me the power of creating a tangible book, having an authentic audience, and the power of that has stayed with me — both as a struggle that I am always working towards and as an inspirational joy for those moments that my students and I get to that place.  

Sometimes, probably too often, I will have students share their essay or story with each other and I will confuse that for an authentic audience.  What is missing is the product. Being able to hold “The Rainy Day” in my hands, to read my name as an author, there was something critical in that moment.  I had created a book that could exist in the world. I wanted to create that book, and Mrs. Coker tapped into that intrinsic motivation.  

From Mrs. Coker, I take so many things.  She showed me that all of my hard work practicing my letters and developing my story amounted to a tangible book that I could hold in my hands and keep.  As I look into this new school year, I am going to focus on bringing three things from Mrs. Coker into my classroom: process, purpose, product. When process, purpose, and product are a central core of our lesson planning, the way that education happens in our classroom can truly transform into meaningful, student-centered work.

Move Away From “Talking to the Text” and Start Dissecting, Observing and Analyzing

When I would give a “talking to the text” assignment, students would often complain that they didn’t know what to say.  The language “talking to the text” kept my students from engaging with the text in a meaningful way that they could then carry into their own writing.  I could relate.

I remember the first time I learned about “talking to the text.”  It was somewhere around 2005, and I was in a summer workshop in the basement of a building with cinder block walls, sitting alongside 25 or so teachers.  We were given a three-page text and told to “talk to it.” It faintly echoed back to when I started teaching in the ‘90s and the buzzwords were “text-to-self, text-to-world, text-to-text.”  “Talking to the text” encouraged me as a learner to stay with comments that were predominantly in the “text-to-self” category. Most of the comments that I made on the text were about making some sort of personal connection with the text, usually noted with a star or a smiley face...maybe an underline that I couldn’t make sense of when I returned to the piece.  

Advising journalism has pushed me to think about how I teach journalists and how I teach my traditional English classes.  When I was doing my M.A. in Curriculum, I heavily focused on authentic writing and how to create a student-centered classroom.  My journalism classroom can run without me and the writing we produce has a real, and sometimes vocal, audience; however in my Creative Writing and 20th Century Literature course, I am always pushing myself to make it more authentic writing and more student-centered.  It is a challenge that I am still working on.  

On the other hand, everything that we do in journalism has a purpose, and there is always a meaningful product — and there is always the pressure of time weighing on me.  We have an online and print audience of over 67,000 readers a year; we need to stay on top of our writing. Because of this pressure, my thinking about “talking to the text” has drastically changed.  I needed “talking to the text” to do more for my students.  

My students and I now practice dissecting and analyzing texts.  We try to get down the understanding how the work was built. We study the structure of sentences and paragraphs; we count up the number of words and study how the author varied sentence lengths.  We study sentence structure and punctuation. We look at the placement of subordinate clauses, dependent and independent clauses, subjects, verbs, etc.,  

Student journalists are lucky because they have professional, real-world models to study and to serve as a source of inspiration.  Students study, analyze, dissect, and then apply their observations to their own writing. Student writing improves when they apply what they have observed to their own work.  

Our goal is to improve student writing, and to do so we need to provide students with the essentials: writing models; a community where they can dissect, analyze and discuss texts;  writing assignments that allow students to apply and practice what they have learned; and a space for their work to exist in the real world. I have been teaching for 23 years and doing these things is always a challenge.  And, it’s always a challenge that is well worth it. 

Five Ways to Build Community Any Time of the Year

Here are five different examples that you can bring into your classroom whenever you want to build community. The beginning of the year is where we typically pack all of these types of activities, but honestly, we should integrate these activities into our classrooms throughout the year.

ONE: I met with students for a little picnic before school started.  We ate pizza, fruit, cookies and brownies while sitting on three picnic blankets.  We played basketball, Strawberry Ball, and capture the flag. You probably haven’t heard of Strawberry Ball, and that was the best game of the night.  Here is why: no one knew how to play it. The game is a lot like baseball except you play with a tennis racquet and a tennis ball. You hit with your non-dominant hand, and you run the bases backwards.  I kept mixing up the teams throughout the evening so kids would all get to know each other. The rule during basketball was it was 5 v. 5, but if you were on the sidelines, you had to be cheering by name for your teammates.  Playing with my students, before we got down to the hard work, was a great way to start the year. I want to remember to continue to play during the year.

TWO: I did the narrative lesson that I described on an earlier post.  Students went home with audio recordings of themselves telling their story.  At home, they transcribed their words. I heard rumblings of kids who thought of more things that they wished they had talked about in their interviews.  So, I started class the next day by asking students how many of them thought of more information to add or that they wished they would have talked about. Almost all of their hands went up.  I gave them 15 more minutes to get back into their groups and do more interviewing, but before I sent them on their way I showed them a few video clips from Brandon Stanton. Ava Butzu, adviser extraordinaire, shared a couple of these to a journalism group, and I think they are a great way to talk about interviewing and storytelling. 

I also share a video with select pictures from HONY and Alicia Keys singing in the background.  After students watch this video, I have them talk with a partner about what photos they remember.  We follow that up with a discussion about what an honor it is to photograph and interview people...we all have stories. (Links are below.) Before I send students away to do the follow-up interview, we talk about getting to the heart of the story, inspired by Stanton in the sit-down interview that he did. The big take-away from this lesson though is that students understand firsthand how important it is to do that follow-up interview. I don’t think that there is any other lesson that I have done that has so clearly taught them this before.   

THREE: I’ve been trying to be at the door to great my students, and it is working — for the most part.  I can so easily fall into going to the teacher workroom to use the bathroom only to end up in a conversation with my friends.  A fun conversation, but one that takes me away from my goal of being at the door to meet my students. 

FOUR: The letters that I got from students are definitely the way for me to start the year.  They are taking me time to get through, because I can’t resist commenting back to them.  This year I gave students the choice to turn in their article through Google Classroom or to handwrite it.  I am finding that I have a hard time writing on a students handwritten letter, but I have no problem making comments on Google Docs, so next time, I will have them all come in online.  I can comment faster, and there isn’t the shuffling of paper and time it takes to get the work back. If you haven’t done the letters yet, I highly encourage you to. The assignment is waiting for you on my site. Copy and use it!

FIVE: I teach four different preps and five different classes!   One of the preps that I have is Creative Writing. I had students make a list of all of the things that they know.  They started their writing with “I know…” I had no idea that these lists would be so amazing. Before they started writing I shared with them things that I know about.  I used it as a way for them to get to know me too. Here is my list…

I know what it is like...

• to be a mom to two daughters

• to drive a truck and deliver water all over south-east Michigan

• to work at a Burger King for two years 

• to play tennis

• to be a barista and coffee shop manager

• to lose

• to win

• to get divorced and remarried

• to be a security guard in the dorm

• to be a night DJ on Sundays from 2 a.m. - 6 a.m. when no one is listening

• to be a teacher

• to move to Paris alone when I was 19 years old

• to travel with students

• to speak another language

• to ride a bicycle around Lake Superior

• to adopt a dog

I encourage students to write as long of a list as they can, and they wrote long, meaningful lists. I want them to know that they are coming into this class with so many life experiences that they can write about. 

Next, we sat in a circle. I asked them to look at their list and consider sharing some of their items. I told them that there would be a somewhat awkward silence and then someone would say something from their list, and then another person would follow, and another person after that.  We would go until everyone who wanted to speak had a turn. I didn't want to be the person who is in charge of who speaks and when. Setting up sharing this way also gives students the choice of when to speak.

A few times I had to hold myself back from wrapping up the sharing when there was a long silence, because just as I was about to stop it someone shared.  I loved having my students sitting in the circle and sharing parts of their lives with our class. Just in case you have this problem, I will say that sometimes I have to remind my students that being in a circle means that there is no one in front of you and no one behind you. It takes time to get the shape down. Kids sometimes want to hide behind others, but it is important that we give them the space and encouragement to be seen and part of the circle.

Giving Students the Revision Tools They Need

Our first narratives came in for group editing this past week, so it was a perfect time to introduce revision.  Last year, my student teacher, Sarah Wiest and I were talking about how to help students improve their sentence structure.  We chose five different techniques to focus on: adding participles; adding absolutes; adding appositives; shifting adjectives out of order; replacing “to be” verbs.  The attached document has an explanation of each, a sentence in need of revision, and a professional model sentence.  

After I went over the “Surface Revision Techniques” document, students went into their own writing and choose between three to five lines/sections that they wanted to revise.  On a new document, they shared with me their original sentence, their revision, and then a few lines reflecting on what they did to make their writing better. The reflection part is essential, but unfortunately it is also the part that I don’t always naturally include.  

When my students engage in metacognition, students thinking about their own thinking, their work improves and they become aware of their own learning process. They start to have control over the new skills in a way that they don’t when they aren't given time to process the learning they have done. 

My goal this year is to build reflection and metacognition opportunities into more of my assignments. As an added bonus, it always makes me a better teacher when I can understand the process that a student went through to get to the writing that is in front of me.

Surface Revision Techniques by Sarah Wiest

Add Participles

Participle: an ing or ed verb placed at the beginning or end of a sentence

Before: The diamondhead snake attacked its prey.

After: Hissing, slithering, and coiling, the diamondhead snake attacked its prey.

From literature: “Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully, he washed his hand in the ocean, submerged, and held it there for more than a minute, watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved. (Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea)

Add Absolutes

Absolute: combining a noun with an ing participle

Before: The mountain climber edged along the cliff.

After: Feet trembling on the snow-covered rocks, the mountain climber edged along the cliff.

From literature: “The mummy was moving. The mummy’s right arm was outstretched, the torn wrappage hanging from it, as the being stepped out of its gilded box! The scream froze in her throat. The thing was coming toward her — towards Henry, who stood with his back to it — moving with a weak, shuffling gait, that arm outstretched before it, the dust rising from the rotting linen that covered it, a great smell of dust and decay filling the room.” (Anne Rice, The Mummy)

Add Appositives

Appositive: a noun or noun phrase that adds a second image to a preceding noun

Before: The racoon enjoys eating turtle eggs.

After: The racoon, a midnight scavenger who roams lake shorelines in search of food, enjoys eating turtle eggs.

From literature: “My father, a fat, funny man with beautiful eyes and a subversive wit, is trying to decide which of his eight children he will take with him to the county fair.” (Alice Walker, Beauty: When the Other Dancer is the Self)

Adjectives Shifted Out of Order

*Used primarily in fiction/narrative writing

Before: The large, red-eyed, angry bull moose charged the intruder.

After: The large bull moose, red-eyed and angry, charged the intruder.

From literature: And then, suddenly, in the very dead of the night, there came a sound to my ears, clear, resonant, and unmistakable. (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hounds of the Baskervilles)

Replacing “To Be” Verbs

*Forms of “to be” (e.g. is, was, were, are, etc.) often mean you are writing sentences that “tell” the reader what is happening rather than “showing” the reader. Replace “to be” verbs with clear action verbs to show your reader what happens in the story.

Before: Rockwell was a beautiful lake. Canada geese could be heard across the water bugling like tuneless trumpets. Neat the shore, two children were hidden behind a massive maple tree. Watching quietly, they hoped to see the first gosling begin to hatch. Tiny giggles escaped their whispers of excitement.

After: Rockwell Lake echoed with the sounds of Canada geese. Their honking bugled across the water like tuneless trumpets. Two children hid behind a massive maple tree. They silently watched, hoping to see the first gosling hatch. Tiny giggles escaped their whispers of excitement.

How Including Families Builds Community and Understanding

Here are two assignments that will help you get to know your students better, and they will give families the opportunity to be part of our classroom.  The first is simple and it can be done throughout the year.  The second assignment is an interview that takes more time, but it is worth every minute. 

Three Quick Questions to Help You Know Your Students Better                                                                                    I have over 150 students, which translates to a lot of adults who love and care for them.  At our curriculum night in the fall, I use this as an opportunity to get some information about my students from the adults in their lives who know them in a way that I simply cannot.  I didn’t always do this, but now that I have, it's definitely one of those things I wish I had done all along. The simple questions that I ask gives me a quick way to deepen my understanding of each student. The questions that I ask sometimes change from year to year.  This year, I gave three prompts: :

1. Tell me something about your child that will help me know him/her better. It can be anything!

2. What is something that you want for your child? This year? Next year? Is there something that I can do to help make that happen?

3. Do you have any questions or comments?

From these three prompts, I learn things about my students that I never would have known.  In addition to the letters that students write to me, this gave me another perspective on the kids in my room.  Although I typically do this at the beginning of the year, there is value in doing it whenever it works into your schedule.  It could be sent home to parents as a paper copy, an email, or as a google form. As a bonus, the Google  form would allow a quick and easy way to collect parent’s best contact information.  

Interviewing a Parent or Adult Family Member

I love this assignment.  I first thought of it while reading “Her Last Mountain” in the New York Times.  As I was reading, the following quote made me pause: “As they rested in their cramped, musty tent, their only refuge from the elements, Isabella told her daughter she wanted her children to have all the things she did not have growing up. ‘A knowledge of the outdoors is one of them,’ she said.” 

I thought about the things that I wanted for my own daughters, and I also thought about whether or not they knew what those were.  Sometimes, in the busyness of life, those moments to be articulate and clear about bigger purposes and wishes in life fall by the wayside to laundry, dinner, and driving.  

At the same time, my students were at the point of needing to practice interviewing and working their way towards feature writing.  

We started the lesson with analyzing the article “Her Last Mountain.” Students read the article and made a list of 10 observations. I asked students to copy quotes and lines to support your observations.  This is a routine that I often follow: Read an article, make a list of observations, support the observations with the text. I find that it helps students to better understand how articles are constructed, and ultimately, it makes writing stronger.  

Here is the assignment that I shared with students: 

For homework, interview a parent/guardian. You are interviewing from the idea in this paragraph:  “As they rested in their cramped, musty tent, their only refuge from the elements, Isabella told her daughter she wanted her children to have all the things she did not have growing up. ‘A knowledge of the outdoors is one of them,’ she said.” 

As you are interviewing a parent, guardian or adult family member keep in mind the following questions:  What did/do they want for you? Why?  Try to get details about their life and where their experiences have influenced what they want for you.  Aim for a conversation that lasts between 10-30 minutes.  Remember to focus on details, asking questions that stem from active listening, and trying to get to the root of why they raise you as they do.   

Record your interview. Transcribe at least three, powerful, direct quotes from it.  Pick direct quotes that are strong enough that you could use them for an article. If you can rephrase the quote, it probably isn’t your best direct quote.  I always think of direct quotes as capturing the subject’s voice and saying something as only they can say it. Be ready to discuss your interview experience and your quotes in class.  In Google Classroom, turn in your three direct quotes for this assignment. You don't have to attach the audio recording, but you can if you want to. 

I always give students a few days to do this assignment.  It is helpful for them to have time over the weekend to actually have time to sit down when there is more time.  When students return to discuss the experience, they overwhelmingly report back that they had a meaningful conversation...in ways that they don’t usually.  This assignment gives students the chance to be the one who is asking all of the questions, and it also puts them in the role of an active listener. I will never forget the day that one of my students came to class elated and crying.  In the interview, she learned that her mom was widowed at a young age. Her mom later went on to marry again, which resulted in the young woman who I had in front of me in my classroom.  Not everyone learns that their parent was married before, but many students share that they come out of the interviews having a deeper understanding and appreciation for their parents and guardians.  For that reason alone, this assignment is worth it. 

Why High School Journalism is Essential

Cammi Tirico explains why high school journalism is important today. Her work has made an impact in her community, and she is a role model for other student journalists around the country. This inspirational speech is a reminder for everyone — students, teachers, and administrators — about what is at stake.

Use Narratives to Teach Interviewing and Writing Techniques

College essays freak kids out...and they put them in a place where they often don’t do their best writing.  And, on top of that, the idea of college essays is already freaking freshman, sophomores and juniors out…they know it is coming. So, let’s give them practice before they write the essay they will hit the submit button on. Here is an approach using journalism and narrative skills that gets students to a place where they are actually a person on the page.   

I recommend starting the year with narrative, because it lets you know who you students are — as writers and as people.  But, in all honesty, you can — and should — write narratives throughout the year. There is no better way to start than to let kids know that you care about knowing them. In addition, it is a bonus essay for seniors who are working on their college applications.  I want to emphasize thought that this assignment works every year for all ages. Narrative is always a relevant and wise place to start any class.  

Fred A. Hargadon has read over 200,000 applications for college admission.  In his essay, “Advice from the Inside,” Hargadon, former Dean of Admission at Princeton, Swarthmore, and Stanford, offers five pieces of advice: 

1. Write it for anyone other than the admissions person. Write it for yourself, a relative, a friend, etc.,

2. When you write your essay, consider simply telling a story. I long ago figured out that some of the best essays I’ve ever read are simply stories well told.

3. Invest some time in reading some good writing. Observe how they tell the story. Observe how they make a point. Observe how they draw the reader in, often from the first sentence.

4. Make sure that your essay reflects you. Applicants are constantly advised to “put their best foot forward.” But I must confess that I always liked the ones who put both feet forward.

5. Don’t use the essay to drop names, rationalize a low grade, etc., Just give the essay question or topic itself your best shot.

In 100 Successful College Application Essays, which is where Hargadon’s chapter is also published, Brendan Lee Barr wrote the chapter, “You Will Like Me.” Barr writes about how the admissions essay shakes up the formulaic storytelling approach that many students are familiar with.  She argues that the writer must capture the reader from the first sentence. Openers “hold the common promise of knowing more about the flesh behind the grades and the test scores. A successful essay employs all five senses...the reader is thrust into the story.”  

I explain to my journalists that they are writing a story with clarity and concision.  The only difference is that this time, they are writing about themselves. My journalists know that articles are simply stories.  Journalism has a history is cutting every word that you can, which stems from the fact that every word printed on a page costs money.  My students know to cut every word that they can and to make every word on your page count.  

Here is the process to get to a great narrative essay: 

1. Read the three narratives by Sandra Cisneros, Amy Tan, and Tim O’Brien. Have students analyze the content, make observations, and discuss. As a class, make a list about the qualities of these narratives. This will be a good starting place for their own narrative writing.

2. Complete the idea sheet about possible topics. Students should do this for homework and come into class ready to share their sheet with a partner.

3. Have students partner up and interview each other about one of their topics. Students will record the interviews. As students interview each other, remember to use as many sensory details as they can. Remember, students are telling stories to each other.

4. Students will have an audio recording of their own interview. For homework, they will transcribe their own voice. OTranscribe is a site that is helpful for slowing down audio tracks so students can type at the rate of their voice.

5. Students will highlight their strongest direct quotes and indirect quotes. (Direct quotes in green; indirect quotes in blue.)

6. Students will pick a moment to start their story in. Write from there. Write as fast as they can. Finish your story for homework.

7. When you have a full draft of your story, read your story aloud. Record yourself reading it. When students do this, they will often hear where they can cut and where they should add. Cut out any unnecessary words or sections.

8. Bring a solid final draft into class and have it ready to share. This is our first exercise in revision. Students have a room full of brilliant minds to love and help them.

Sidenote: We use google docs to share our work with each other.  The easiest way that I have found to do this quickly is to have students add their name and shareable link into a document or spreadsheet.  Often, I will have a space for three students to initial they have edited the work. More on revision, Google Docs, etc., later.  

If you teach journalism, this lesson teaches so much about interviewing and transcribing.  If you don’t teach journalism, I recommend that you still do the interviewing and transcribing.  Stories are meant to be told, so give students a chance to be storytellers without worrying about putting the pen to the page.  Before Steinbeck wrote Grapes of Wrath, he spent years working as a journalist and interviewing people.  No wonder he was so good at dialogue. If we want our kids to improve their writing and dialogue, transcribing gives them a place to truly study how people speak.  

I hope that this assignment accomplishes the following: 

1. Helps you get to know your students and their writing.

2. Encourages your students create an essay that captures them — and helps them get into the school of their choice if that is the direction they are heading.

3. Fosters a community of writers.

The part about this assignment that I love the most is that you will know your students better, and your students will know each other.  As a big bonus, you are helping students develop their interviewing, transcribing, writing, and storytelling skills. Those are essential skills that we come back to again and again throughout the semester.