The 9 Rights of Every Writer: A Guide for Teachers by Vicki Spandel

[Nadyne Burra]

In The 9 Rights by Spandel talks about how important writing is for all students. In her book she goes into greater detail about the rights of writers, and how we as teachers can insure that we are allowing our students to grow as writers in the everyday world.  Spandel talks about the most , "worthwhile goals of writing: writing to think, to move another person, ...to be wholly comfortable with the act and process of writing" (p. xii). And each if the 9 rights touch on her beliefs of what creates writers, they include: The Right to Be Reflective, The Right to Choose a Personally Important Topic, The Right to Go "Off Topic", The Right to Personalize Writing Process, The Right to Write Badly,  The Right to See Others Write, The Rights to Be Assessed Well, The Right to Go Beyond Formula, and the Right to Find Your Own Voice.

All of the 9 rights are self explanatory, as evident by their titles. In Spandel's book, she goes into each topic with tremendous detail and suggestions on how to make it approachable in your own classroom.  If I were to decide what right was most important, I would have an unsure answer. All of the rights hold their own. The overall theme that Spandel is trying to convey is that students writers need to have their voice heard; whether is in the form of writing badly or going off topic, students have the right to write and need to write in order to become better writers. As well as  teachers needing to know how to assess students well, every student comes to us with different abilities. We need to know how to assess them and what we are assessing them for. We cannot be assessing for conventions and mark them down on voice. There are so many things that can be done to  help our students become writers with voice and using Spandel's 9 Rights will help  you  make your students strong writers. The 9 rights is like the writing process, it can be switched around to meet the needs of our students.

 

How do we go about in creating a writing enriched environment that addresses the 9 rights of writer?

How can we as teachers assure that we are assessing our students well?

[Jennifer Reynolds]

1. Allowing Choice (or perceived choice in some instances.)

2. I think that we can narrow down what we are assessing. I liked in our writing workshops this summer how we were able to write questions about our writing for feedback. I think that the same concept can be applied to some assessments- students should often decide what they are being assessed on based on individual needs. One thing that has helped me with assessment is to start backwards. I begin lesson planning by deciding my end product and then decide how I will get there. It doesn't always work, but it has helped me many times to align curriculum and assessment. Also, one of the things that I started doing last year was to step back from the role as assesser and allow students to define what is important. I think this is a trait that all good writers must possess.

[Stephen B. Duncan]

I think we can create an enriched writing environment by using these rights as a guideline with the focus of "Do no harm" as our compass. Keep it positive and constructive in the responses.

I think our students also have the right to be assessed. They have the right to know if their writing can be improved. Assessment can be based on any number of criteria, but maybe if we focus on only one or two at a time, our students will feel as if they are learning each step with the purpose of polishing what they already know and hopefully will not see it as something that crushes their spirits.

[Nicole Marvin]

How do we go about in creating a writing enriched environment that addresses the 9 rights of writer?

I agree with Jenny, choice, choice, choice! Incorporating writing into note taking and other daily activities helps too. After writing notes about a certain time-period or person, have students write a couple sentences about their opinions on the topic.

How can we as teachers assure that we are assessing our students well?

Changing and adapting to out students needs.

And no more vague commenting! "This works great, nice job, great description"

Taking the time to discuss important pieces with our students individually. I really want to try and talk to my students this year as they are creating drafts. I don't want to collect their drafts and ask them to tell me something they want me to look at because I might not understand what they are asking me to do. Then they might not understand my comments or advice. This is hard to do with full classes and those kids who won't stay on task but I really want to try and make it work.

[Christy]

Hi Nadyne,
I too read this book and agreee with you that teachers should demonstarte all nine rights in their classroom to studnet's as writers. The Right to Be Reflective, The Right to Choose a Personally Important Topic, The Right to Go "Off Topic", The Right to Personalize Writing Process, The Right to Write Badly, The Right to See Others Write, The Rights to Be Assessed Well, The Right to Go Beyond Formula, and the Right to Find Your Own Voice. These are all ways we can encourage student's to provide us with quality writing. We need to let them know that they have rights as writers and there is room for growth and that mistakes in writing only encourage us to become better writers. I Feel that assessment of writing needs to be inspiring for students and should guide them into self motivating good writing. As you saw in my demonstration key things we need to work on I do through motivation. Of course I don't assess all writing this way. I think having a writer's workshop and teaching the students tools to use to assess and evaluate their own writing is key. Perhaps through the writers toool box that Jen demonstrated. This is a great book to help teachers become aware of that process we put students through when we teach writing!
Christy