Chapter 1 (Carol Jago)

The most illuminating part of this chapter was in the advice Jago gave on getting reluctant writers to get through the writing process. Most notably, the idea to incorporate free-writing into the equation as a pre-draft was interesting to me. Not only would this, as Jago points out, foreboding requirements (like 1,000 word essays), but it would also allow the writer to go back and see where they are getting stuck. If students see consistencies in where they begin to repeat words, they can see where they begin to loose momentum and ideas. This will allow them to further understand where their weaknesses are as writers and where they need to go back to do more. Also, free-writing allows students to be able to see how much they know already and thus, they may feel less intimidated.

Since poetry can also be very daunting for some students, it is good for Jago to address this component of the average English class as well. The Question papers are a great idea because they allow students to formulate their questions into a visual part of the equation where they do not have to organize purely within their own mind. This would be great for students who are not sure in which direction to even start attempting to decipher the meaning of a certain poem.

Constructing useful prompts is also very important to helping students work their way through writing. Often times students can be intimidated by a messy or convoluted question. So it is the role of the teacher to ensure they are enabling the student to feel secure in answering the question presented to them. Setting up prompts like the ones shown in the chapter allow the students to go in many different directions with their answers while they are still informed as to what is expected of them. This is characteristic of a good question as well as good teaching.