PhyreBards

After observing today, I am now officially declaring the act of modeling as my new best friend. My cooperating teacher always assigns short writing assignments that require students to "thoroughly answer a question" regarding the novel they're reading using "examples from the novel or movie to develop/support their answer." This type of assignment/classwork is frequently implemented, but students are equally confused each time - asking questions such as how long it should be and what do you expect? She says about a paragraph long and still receives only three, undeveloped sentences. If my teacher spent twenty minutes one day writing and modeling a quality response to these types of questions, perhaps this would reduce the amount of questions and wasted time the next time this assessment is used and improve the quality of work the students turn in. Also interesting to note is that students panic when they need to write 5 sentences (which the teachers define as a paragraph). I am surprised that seniors in high school still can't or won't write developed paragraphs that fully answer the question. What's the deal, and why so much writing anxiety? I wish the teacher would address this.