✏️ Teach Writing Reactively (James Moffett’s Action-Response Model)
Why mistakes are friends and actions should precede explanations.
The learner simply plunges into the assignment, uses all his resources, makes errors where he must, and heeds the feedback. In this action-response learning, errors are valuable; they are the essential learning instrument. They are not despised or penalized. (199)
If he learns everything the hard way, doesn't he get discouraged by his mistakes? For one thing, trial-and-error makes for more success in the long run because it is accurate, specific, individual, and timely. For another, if the teacher in some way sequences the trials so that learning is transferred from one to the next, the student writer accumulates a more effective guiding experience than if one tried to guide him by preteaching. (200)
In June I’ll present a talk called “How to Teach with Student Writing,” which blends previous posts about integrating technology. If those posts are the how, this post is the why. James Moffett’s action-response model places student action before explicit teaching. This allows students to create the context for instruction, meaning the reactionary becomes relevant.
What if we over-plan teaching writing? What if we plan for the wrong problems? What if lengthy lessons or time teaching deprives students of valuable experience? What if action should precede explanations? And what if all learning start with dialogue?
How It Works. In his chapter “Learn to Write by Writing,” James Moffett presents the action-response model of writing. Action-response flips the script for most: Students write and then teachers teach. He lists three “implications” to the model:
1. Begin with “trial and error” by “[p]lunging into an act” (198).
2. Do not “pre-teach problems and solutions” (199) to new tasks. Just act.
3. “[R]eject all prepared materials” (201). He then refutes writing textbooks.
The Big Picture. Action-response places actions before explanations. To Moffett, errors are "valuable" and "essential" (199). From this, experience creates context. Teaching becomes a response to demonstrated need. Students never have to ask why. Being reactionary creates relevance. Errors without reproof "define what is good" (200). “The difference,” he explains, “is between looking over your shoulder and looking where you are going” (199).
By contrast, error avoidance relies on negative motivation—of fearing mistakes. Teachers spend time pre-teaching mistakes and students begin with "good and bad ways." Even without a "system of rewards and punishments," errors become "enemies" (199). Textbooks aim the "mythical average student" rather than living, breathing students (202). Thus, reliance on prescribed materials means ignoring actual students.
Moffett presents three general applications for the model:
1. Whole class. Project papers on the board to discuss without judgments (196-197).
2. Small groups. Read and annotate papers with feedback (197).
3. Chain tasks together, allowing feedback to carry and build (200).
Yes, but. "Good teaching requires planning. Define your objectives. Make your directions clear. Do you seriously believe expectations are bad? Just tell the kids what you want. Besides, being reactive sounds like an excuse for being ill-prepared. Let alone being random and time-consuming. And you just don't teach without curriculum maps this century!"
💎 Instead. Moffett defends trial-and-error feedback as "accurate, specific, individual, and timely" (200). Consider which builds the most relevance: (a) Talking about writing without writing or (b) Reflecting on writing after writing. Pre-teaching solutions to problems students haven’t faced wastes time and squanders the experiences which create relevance.
Furthermore, Moffett suggests accumulating feedback through "meaningful trials... in a meaningful order... to arrange for a feedback that insures the maximum exploitation of error" (199). He suggests "chain-reaction assignments" like transforming one paper into another (200). If tasks do not connect, feedback cannot accumulate.
Aside. So does Moffett reject all explanations? Sort of. In practice I never explain where actions first generate context. But with falling literacy rates, some explanations are needed.
My Experiences. Action-response drives individual improvements in ways we can’t predict. Note this relies on feedback and chaining tasks. I’ll give two examples.
In August, a simple progression (chaining) grounds writing in speech and transforms dialogue across mediums. The experiences accumulate feedback quickly:
Encoding. Students listen and transcribe dialogue in script form. We discuss what makes a sentence as we ground writing in speech.
Transforming. Students rewrite the script into regular prose form. We discuss how to punctuate speech, how to integrate action, and so on.
Quotations. Students practice locating important quotations. We discuss how to introduce, explain, and cite them. Note: Checklists work well here! (See below.)
Summarizing. Students practice using quotations in summaries. We discuss how text structures support composition and comprehension.
In May, I’m always shocked when student self-report improvement in spelling without formal lesson plans. How is this? Action-response explains it:
Daily Journals. During weekly writing conferences, I annotate and discuss spelling mistakes without deducting points. This feedback accumulates.
Group Feedback. After many assignments, I collect misspellings and project them on my board for discussion. This reenforces individual conferences.
Periodic Reflection. While my students end each grading period with reflection letters, some journal prompts have students reread and proofread old responses.
On Feedback. “How is it possible for every member of a class of thirty to get an adequate amount of response?” he wonders. “Classmates are a natural audience” (193). As a preface, Moffett explains how writing represents a social, not solitary, activity. Live audiences provide timely, tangible benefits.
Students write better for their peers than for teachers. Even if students lack technical explanations, discussions help “establish a consensus” (194).
Student responses are more “candid” and in their “own terms” while teachers worry about “wound[ing]” students (194).
Teachers help by “clarifying problems after students have encountered or raised them” (195). Without solutions, students resort to a “faultfinding sprit” (196).
Moffett explains, “The role of the teacher, then, is to teach the students to teach each other. This also makes possible a lot more writing and a lot more response to the writing than a teacher could otherwise sponsor” (196). Thus, frequency of feedback leads to more frequent writing.
On Textbooks. Moffett's third implication rejects writing textbooks because they rely on error avoidance.
He lists six issues: rejecting prescriptive or irrelevant advice (201), taxonomies of error (203), textbook exercises (204), professional models (207), writing stimulants (208), and the directions themselves (209).
He observes textbooks exist for teachers, not students. They mask poor training and a general lack of knowledge.
The Bottom Line. The longer I teach, the more I connect, revisit, and revise tasks, shifting purpose and medium. This organic, student-created model rejects the overly prescribed and often irrelevant standards-driven model. Rather than plan around linear paths, we move around hub-like tasks across the year.
If I haven’t screamed it yet, academic standards undermine teaching writing. Period. They fail to account for the complexity of thinking and individuality in the writing process. As policy and pedagogy, they sit on rest on rhetorical mode—a category error. Furthermore, textbooks fail thanks to current traditional rhetoric. If we emphasized the “Art” in ELA, maintaining basic whole-part relationships, we could simplify and strengthen writing instruction.
References
Moffett, James. Teaching the Universe of Discourse. 2nd ed., Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982.
Further Reading. In the next month I'll hopefully blend this post with the following for my talk. If you would be interested in reading the full remarks, let me know in the comment section!
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✏️ Teach Writing Tomorrow.
📓 Other Writing Tricks
This is another example of how we can use mistakes and errors to enhance student learning.
Our system is built on false beliefs about teaching and learning