Crafting Authentic Voice... So what now?

At this point in time, a couple of my classmates and I have now completed a teacher in-service regarding Tom Romano's book, Crafting Authentic Voice. The book is all about how to bring out our students' voices in their own writing. One of the biggest over-arching ideas that I kept coming back grade all of this. In an ideal world, we could just have our students continuously work on creating voice in writing and never worry about rating their work on a scale, but unfortunately, that's not how it works.

A lot of us teach students that voice is crucial and that voice is meaningful, but that doesn't always seem to come out in our grading habits. So, how do we create a rubric that grades voice? That grades something so undeniably unique to every single student? I think the answer to that lies in creating a rubric that includes a lot of room with which to work. 

** I think it's also time for a side note to you, my reader. I totally understand that you probably haven't read Crafting Authentic Voice (I did link you to its listing on Amazon at the top of this post and I suggest reading it when you have the chance). It's therefore pretty hard for me to ask you, "Hey, what would YOU put on your 'Voice Rubric'?" So, instead, I'll give you a short overview of things that Romano cites as being a big part of voice, and then create my own Voice Rubric. I then encourage you to read Crafting Authentic Voice and thinking about creating your own Voice Rubric, or you can, of course, always use mine :-) 

Romano's Idea of Voice

Here's just a short overview of what Tom Romano sees as contributing to authentic voice:

• A unique lead or hook
• Perception aka Sensibility aka Style
• Mind pictures
• Appeals to the senses
• Evidence of surprise (both the author experiencing surprise during the writing process and things that might surprise the reader)
• Humor when possible and appropriate
• Breaking the confines of the old five-paragraph-essay
• Sometimes breaking the traditional rules (like using fragments, lists, double voice, etc.)
• The writer understanding who he or she is as a person
• A rhythm or cadence to the sound of the writing
• Metaphors and other figurative language
• Unique word choice (including words that aren't well known, invented words, verbs with muscle, etc.) and words that make an impact
• Uses strategies like key words or a counter-punching key word to make an impact
• Varying sentence length

Grading Voice

First of all, YES -- I know. That's a lot of bullet points. There's no way we can grade on all of those things, nor can we expect students to just take all of this in and regurgitate it back onto their paper. On the flip side, though, we can absolutely pick out some of these important concepts and also combine a few of them.
So if I had to create a rubric to grade voice, here's what it would probably look like...

 


Now, it's so important to keep in mind that every student's voice is different. For some students, it might seem weird and awkward to use humor. For another student, it might seem awkward for them to use invented words. This is what makes it so hard to grade voice. What really matters is monitoring progress and teaching students various methods to express their own voice.

Another great idea is to create assignments that work on one "Voice Tool" at a time. That way, students are able to develop and improve these ways of expressing voice over time.

 

A Word About Grammar ... Scratch That, Grammars*!

I know, you might be thinking, "GrammarS?! Is she crazy?! Just saying that is breaking the rules of grammar!" However, in the article "The Grammar of Context: Breakfast, Bumper Stickers, and Beyond" by Cheryl Almeda and Jonathan Bush, the idea of multiple types of grammar is discussed in depth. 

This is such an interesting idea to me, personally, because I'm what you may call a "stickler" about grammar. Some may consider this an annoying quality, but whatever. I'm proud of the skills regarding grammar that I've refined over the years, and I jump at any opportunity to improve my own skills or help someone else with theirs. (Although I've got to admit, sometimes it's hard to refrain from "helping" someone who just doesn't want help with grammar.) This article, "The Grammar of Context" introduces the idea of grammar as being contextual. Almeda and Bush write, "The context creates the grammar...there is no single correct grammar -- there are thousands of variations on grammar, each dependent upon the elements of context that affect it."

Some of the contexts which Almeda and Bush talk about are grocery lists, cereal boxes, formal papers, bumper stickers, Facebook posts, and text messages. It's funny because it seriously drives me nuts when I see bad grammar in any of these contexts, but I guess sometimes I need to take a step back. I need to ask myself, "For this context or situation, is the grammar really inappropriate? Or is it perfectly fine for the message it's trying to convey?"

It Doesn't Have to be Painful!

One thing I do want to say is that grammar doesn't have to be a painful experience. Because grammar is contextual, some people tend to only write in certain contexts. However, I think it's important to be aware of various contexts. Sure, you might not write formal research papers every day, but you should be aware of how to write in that way, in my opinion. Communication should be an enjoyable experience, and grammar is an essential part of communication. I love grammar and all the inner workings of it, but I know everyone doesn't. However, learning a little bit of grammar here and there never hurt anyone. ;-)

Grammar as a Decision

I've got to say, I seriously love the way Almeda and Bush discuss grammar as a conscious decision. They say, "The grammar of a text message is different for that of a professional memo. Even within academic contexts, the grammar used in a biology class differs from that in history or English or math. In doing so, we are able to help them see grammar as a rhetorical act and enhance our students' abilities to consider language use as rich, complex, and full of decisions -- beyond that of simply trying to avoid error." It brings about the idea that some errors are not really errors. They're simply contextual decisions that we must make when writing.

#Grammar

One last thing I'd like to discuss is hashtags. They've pretty much become a staple in our modern culture, but for some reason, it still drives me up the wall when I see them in sentences in public, whether it's on billboards or flyers. So, is it appropriate? Is it grammatically correct? Once again, I come back to the idea of context. It's certainly not appropriate in a formal paper or really anything school-related. However, hashtags are certainly a decision, made by the writer or creator. It's the same sort of idea as using "I love u" or "Where r u?" in a text. Sure, it's not technically correct, but it's contextually appropriate. Hashtags are the same; they're correct for what they are.