UNCCWP SI - Day 5 Reflection

Today began with some "Ranting" about things that really "grinds our gears" about education right now.  I learned about the "Ranting" activity earlier this year at another UNCCWP event in which Youth Roots, a group of young writers from Oakland, presented about writing as a vehicle for self identification, social advocacy, and reframing. I enjoyed the rant because it allowed me to hear the different perspectives of my peers as they shared some of their issues with public education.  It is amazing that we had different issues that pissed us off but we also had some issues in common.  That got the descriptive language juices flowing for the group and was a great transition into Aileen's demon on "Image Grammar".  I enjoyed looking at how we can use the "5 Brush Strokes" that Harry Noden suggests as a way to make our writing more descriptive and "popping".  The activity of using a topic and then thinking of verbs and noouns associated with that topic would be a great way of having students brainstorm before they write to help them have some descriptive ways to write about a topic.  I also enjoyed Tara's demo about writing circles as a way to have students come to a consensus about a topic and attack it from different categories and perspectives.  The discussion we had today about grading and evaluating student writing still has left me with some gray area in regards to how do I allow students to be creative while pursuing mastery using rubrics.  I wonder if the use of rubrics is constraining and limiting and leading students down a road to what I want them to write?  Well it is time to leave for the day and time for me to finish working on my demo presentation for tomorrow.  I playing with the title of "Revolution: What is the Tipping Point?"  Tune in tomorrow for a reflection of day 6!