It’s interesting to use home “cafeteria”, murderer in a play and a non-native speaker speaks the target language as examples to introduce inauthentic and authentic writing styles. While I read this article and so excited seeing the word, authentic, which showed up in my mind everyday as I worked on my thesis of Master Degree. At the time, I planned to use authentic materials instead of traditional English listening learning textbook in class. However, I have never distinguished from this way. In this article the author mentions that in authentic writing has to embrace four interacting systems of written language to produce a meaningful text including graphophonic, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic, which have to be operating interactively and interdependently (pp. 24). Most of time, my writing in school is inauthentic, then now in my mind, I am still thinking if there is any writing article I have read could be called “authentic writing”. How about my thesis? Or teaching portfolio which including lesson plan, teaching process, teaching video, recorded performance, final report etc?
The sample in this article is super ideal and if student and teacher can work in this way then I think students would enjoy writing so much; however, it would be a huge challenge for both teacher and student in an EFL classroom, for instance, if no grammar or spelling exercise for EFL students, all the writing may become nonsense or simply translate from Chinese. Meanwhile, I am thinking about Chinese writing which I learned writing format and style in school also then it’s inauthentic, too.
I think authentic writing is a kind of method pushing students to enjoy writing, for instant when they write their reflection on observation and make the links to what they’ve read, explain what they’ve seen or set up their future goal then they share with family, friends and classmates, all of those build their confidence and become meaningful text. At the same time, I still think as the teacher, I will teach them there is another kind of writing, academic writing, they need to learn. 
Shiao-wei,
ReplyDeletei resonate with your final sentence "I will teach there is another kind of wriitng, academic writing, they need to learn." I think this is the realistic aspect this article did not address. There is academic writing to be accomplished--just think of all of the article responses we have posted this week. I doubt many of us would have chosen them on our own, and most of these were not written to inform someone else. On the other hand, they are useful in our learning as teachers. Students, too, have things to write about that they may not enjoy yet help reinforce their learning and grow in their writing tools.
Thanks for your realistic response,
Susan
Hi Shiao-Wei! It is interesing to hear your unique point of view. While I read this article, I thought mostly of my classroom and how I present learning and writing opportunities for my kids. But you thought about your own experience writing for grades--and that made me reflect more on my own experiences.
ReplyDeleteI HAVE experienced moments of authentic writing as a student. When the topic allowed me to explore something I was really interested in, I wrote better, more expressively, more importantly. Most of those opportunities in the graduate program have come when the professor says, "Choose a topic that meets the criteria for this class" (very broad!). Pretty much every other response or paper has been to "comply and be evaluated." I just wanted the professor to know I understood what they hoped I would understand. Your comment about these blog posts made me laugh. ;)
Shiaowei, My son has struggled for years to answer prompts given by the teacher, some of which I thought would be easy because they were personal, but most of the time it isn't easy for him. I had our water checked for lead, which is a sarcastic way of saying that perhaps my son is an idiot, but then he will write something that is just phenomenal. He is a natural writer, an incredibly deep feeling writer, especially when it's about a girl. So this tells me he can write when the writing is authentic to him. On the flip side, what I tell him is, it's great that he can write when it suits him, but he will have to learn how to write for someone else (school or work). Geri
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