Entry 5: Putting Aside the Notebook and Bringing Forth the Hands-On Thinking Tools

I would place a "gold star sticker" next to the Card Strategy Lesson (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986)! I found myself having a lot of fun, I even had a smile on my face and kept uttering "Wow, this is tricky". It felt a lot like becoming a detective and trying to solve the puzzle of which piece to order next, to create the overall sequence of events and topic that I felt the cards represented. Maddie and I worked together, sequencing each others cards. It was really interesting because for her cards I took the approach of trying to order them in an informational manner (as hers was about testing) and with mine she took the approach of ordering them in a narrative format (as mine was about amusement park entertainment). Our results proved that our thinking was not wrong (or "correct"), but rather that it reflected our understanding of the genre we felt that type of information would be best delivered in. It was really interesting to hear Maddie talk through how she interrupted my cards (with my intention being entertainment as the topic and with her picking excitement as the main topic). 

When I have brainstormed before, it has often been jotting notes and staring in space hoping a grand idea or thought strikes me. Sometimes this works and other times I am left waiting for the magic to come. Yet, I like how the Card Strategy Lesson (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986) put a multimodal effect to my learning, forcing me to think of multiple subtopics and grouping them together, finding similarities and differences, and ordering them in a logical manner. I intend to use this strategy again, and hope to teach it to my future students, in a manner that fits their learning development. I do have to question myself about why I never tried using index cards to fuel my thinking for writing? Why are we often taught to go straight to a notebook for brainstorming or a graphic organizer? Why not use hands on materials (ones that could become erasable) to represent how we learn/build our ideas as we progress forward and become in charge of our thinking as readers and writers? Perhaps a big factor and especially for the "older" writer is the simple fact that "the older the writer, the more difficult the idea is to convey because editing issues {i.e., spelling, punctuation, capitalization) always 'count'" (Sandmann, 2006, p. 20). I have been very guilty of trying to make my brainstorming look organized and neat, but now I see how I often rush the process, to get to the end product. 

In my mind this brainstorming approach with cards is not meant for the reader/writer in charge "to find the 'right' answer. When students construct textual sequences different from that of the author, it is because meanings may be arranged in a variety of ways... [through] generating and structuring" ideas (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986, p 192). These ideas can be ones students transform from their own or ones they could even experiment from an authors. When we have the ability to pull apart the main topic and subtopics, along with recognizing how to order such concepts to make sense, we are demonstrating our understanding of what type of language is needed for various writing styles or situations. 

Tompkins (2012) strategy of generating, in which "writers collect words, sentences, and ideas for writing, often using their background knowledge information they've collected through research, or other classroom resources" really stood out to me (p. 34). This is exactly what we are being encouraged to do in class, and some of these aspects of this strategy are ones I have always tried to do when I am drafting a writing piece. I often brainstorm words that correlate with my ideas. Rereading books and talking with classmates listed as activities for this strategy are ones that I feel I have come to see how powerful and important they are to my own learning process, when writing for specific audiences and purposes (Tompkins, 2012, p. 34). It is always good to build on our thinking when we have the chance to go over ideas and talk out our understandings. Hence why, I really liked that I was able to talk with a partner for the card strategy activity during class, because I realized I will be using this method moving forward and that some of my subcategories may become main topics for my writing pieces. 

References

Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986). Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language. The Reading Teacher, 40(2), 186-193. 

Sandmann, A. (2006). Nurturing thoughtful revision using the focused question card strategy. Journal of Adult and Adolescent Literacy, 50(1), 20-28.