Idaho Teachers Find Novel Ways to Engage Students in Writing

Publication: Idaho Statesman
Date: September 16, 2008

Summary: Jeffrey Wilhelm, former director of the Maine Writing Project, and other writing project fellows have contributed to an award-winning educational series called "The 10," which promotes deep analysis and constructive argument rather than passive consumption.

Excerpts from Article

"Kids are fed information and are not being asked, how do scientists think? How do mathematicians think? How do entomologists think?" Wilhelm said. "The whole point of the books is to present some things the kids will recognize and provoke disagreement. We want them to think about the authors behind the texts, to be active readers and exert some muscle in resisting."

"The 10" template's innovation springs from a collaborative study done by Jeffrey Wilhelm and another professor, Michael Smith, while Wilhelm was at the University of Maine and Smith at Rutgers University. Working with about 50 adolescent boys over five years, they observed literacy patterns in and out of the classroom and how they play into individual interests and goals. They looked for material and conceptual triggers that caused the boys to engage and checked similar pre-study data about young women against Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's findings in 40 years of studying "flow" or focused experiential involvement.

Smith and Wilhelm found that students learn better and more eagerly when content is active, social, visual and, most of all, presented in a framework of inquiry. Simple memorization is not as effective as asking kids to relate things to their own lives.

"You have to make it personal," Maerke said. "Facts, maps, numbers—they'll forget all of that."