Parental Involvement
An area
of interest to me in studying motivation in my writing club members has
been parental involvement. Most of my highly motivated and
successful students have parents who are involved in their lives actively
and who are supportive of their academic goals. It is, of course,
important for students to know that someone at home is interested in what
they are doing in school. As William Glasser states "...when they
show and tell what they did to someone they respect and who cares for them"
students are able to see that the work they do in school has value beyond
just getting a grade or satisfying a requirement (209). Glasser also
suggests that "schools should provide a group of volunteers who will listen"
to students share what they have been doing in school. I like this
idea, for I know of many students (even some of the motivated students)
who go home to an empty house and have no one to tell about their successes
or failures, or even just to share the mundane events of the day.
If they had someone at the school to give them that one-on-one support,
perhaps it would help them to have greater motivation. Part of the
enjoyment of success is having someone with whom to share it.
When
it comes to creative writing, it is important for the students to be able
to share what they have done with a parent. Some of my students are
so excited about a story or a poem, they want to take it home right away
to show to a parent. I love it when the parent takes the time to
comment directly on the child's work. I often find comments from
parents written on the rough drafts my students turn in.
Keeping
the importance of parental involvement in mind, I have tried to come up
with ways to help parents to have more opportunities to be a part of my
writing club. One way I try to connect to them is through a "walking
family journal" which one student takes home each night to let a family
member write comments, questions, stories or poems in it to share with
our club. I then write a letter back to the family member or club
members write a letter to them, depending on what was said in the family
members' message. I have not yet had great success with this
journal, mainly because it often comes back to me without any comments
in it. I have found that many of the parents are reluctant to write
because they are either too busy, or possibly because they are uncomfortable
sharing their writing. I plan to keep trying because other teachers
have had success with using a walking journal. This is an idea
that has been working well for teacher Carolyn Berge, an elementary teacher
in Ann Arbor, MI. In her article "Advocating for Change: A
New Education for New Teachers", Cathy Fleischer explains that Berge uses
the journal to "model and encourage written communication" (90).
I think this is a great idea, and I can see other ways it could be used.
I think an online "journal"
or chatboard could be useful,
in which parents are able to post questions and the teachers or students
can answer them.
I would
like to find more ways to get parents involved. I see great possibilities
for using the internet in a creative writing club to link parents to what
is going on. The students could e-mail their rough drafts to their
parents for comments or just to share. I think it could also be interesting
to try a collaborative writing project in which the student writes a play,
story or poem with his or her parent as a partner. The parents usually
are reluctant to come in during the writing club, mainly because they are
tied to the home with smaller children. I think it would be really
interesting to use e-mail or even a chat room format to let the students
and their parents link-up online to write together.
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