Authentic Writing

Is That Writing--Or Are Those Marks Just a Figment of Your Curriculum? by Carole Edelsky and Karen Smith

            The delightful title gives humor to the subject of this article: authentic versus inauthentic writing in the classroom. Ms. Edelsky and Ms. Smith relate the ineffectiveness of inauthentic writing in the classroom contrasted with the effectiveness of authentic writing.

            The authors posit that authentic writing must engage four interacting systems (working definitions from the dictionary and my interpretations):

            -graphophonic (sound and symbol relationship)

            -syntactic (words arranged well (grammar))

            -semantic (makes sense)

            -pragmatic (useful--has purpose)

            What fascinated me about the article was the amount of work a student will do based on its perceived value to the student. Edelsky and Smith mentioned examples of students writing lies or discarding pieces prepared for inauthentic purposes. On the other hand, the authors mentioned science notes that students took with them to make observations (on their own) and referred back to (also on their own), tracking their own learning. Detailed notes regarding story illustrations were another example of authentic writing (p. 29).

            Student perception of the pragmatics of a writing assignment drives the other three systems utilized to create authentic writing. A student convinced that his or her work has value will put real effort into an assignment.

            Thinking back on my own classroom, many of my students were most motivated when their writing would be read by others.  When my fifth graders entered a story writing contest, several of them became quite serious about making revisions to improve their stories. 

            Another idea that concerned me was inauthentic informative writing. How often do we assign "expository writing about scientific topics..<that> have an informing style...<yet> inform no one"? (p 27) This made me think of the importance of audience for children's expository writing. Student-driven research writing could be presented to a child's peers or another classroom. A presentation on different people or places could be prepared to share with younger children, who did not already learn that information. How-to writing could also be prepared and taught to younger children at school or home (or technological demonstrations could be given to help grandparents--or parents learn something new).

            This is not a new idea. I have attempted it in my classroom--if not by those words, and I appreciate the fresh perspective and research from this article. Authentic writing situations for students will be steeping in my classroom chai for a long time to come.