Comparing Reggio Emilia Approach to Teaching Writing Virtually
Recently, I was reminded of the Reggio Emilia Approach to education that combines student-centered teaching with constructivist pedagogy. The approach was founded by a man named Loris Malaguizzi, an Italian early educator, in the years following the end of World War II. While this theory was put to use for early childhood education, such as preschool and primary schools, it can be applicable to the college classroom. I bring this up is because of the possible parallels that can be made from when the early education theory was put into practice to now, with classrooms forced to go online.
The approach was used in a time of social and political change in Reggio Emilia, Italy. Malaguzzi along with other Italian educators needed to rebuild their communities. Malaguzzi noticed people building up a school, brick by brick in a town called Villa Cella, near Reggio Emilia. Malaguzzi saw this as an opportunity to build a school that offered more than just a building for students to learn in but one that gave students freedom over their learning experience. After World War II, communities had to come together to salvage the best parts of their society and start fresh. They were influenced by constructivist theorists, but the main value of the theory that led to an overall change in the function of the classroom was the idea that students are people with rights. They are individuals with personal cognitive abilities that need to be given the freedom to flourish. The theory views students as people curious about the world with the potential for creative and critical thinking abilities (Stoudt, n.d., para 1). It is the role of the teacher to guide students to find their voice through creativity. Students find their voices because of the precedents the instructor sets along with a viable environment that sets up productive learning.
Like Malaguzzi, teachers today are realizing that learning happens beyond a building. It is about the perspective we are approaching education with and the one we allow our students to inherit as well. What environment are we establishing for our student-learner approaches? How are we reinforcing the authority of our students over their education? Malaguzzi believed it is important for students to explore what interests them and other learning will follow. The same idea can be applied to the writing classroom. Clark ( as cited in Geiger & Rickard, 2000) has yielded good results when using pop culture in his classroom because students can be the authority on the subject, share their own experiences, and act as both student and teacher when writing what they know. I think in this time of teaching writing online, it is important to give our students permission and to remind them to write what they know and write from their perspective.
I have to remind my students to utilize the first person in the final research paper even though it doesn’t feel formal enough for them and is something they aren’t used to. The topic I chose for my students’ research paper for 104 is one that allows them to be the authority. I’ve mentioned this before in previous blogs, but my students are completing what I’ve named their “14-day Immersion Experience on a Healthy Habit.” They have constructed what they are to be writing about based on their own experiences in the past augmenting them with the results they observed in their implementation of a healthy habit in the designated 14-day window.
In prepping for teaching ENG 103 in the fall, I want to brainstorm more topics that allow students to be the authority over what they are writing about, giving them space to take on the student-centered mentality that they can get what they make out of their 103 experience. What are some topics you’ve found that allow students to be the authority? What assignments have your mentors used that have worked well to do this?
References
Geiger, B. & Rickard, K. (2000). Relinquishing authority: Tapping into students’ cognitive skills through familiar content and virtual worlds. In T. Lavonne Good & L.B. Warshauer (Eds.), In our own voice: Graduate students teach writing (pp. 105-118). Allyn & Bacon.
Stoudt, A. (n.d.). The Reggio Emilia approach. Scholastic. https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/articles/teaching-content/reggio-emilia-approach/
I've definitely had my best engagement from students when using pop culture as a focus. A conversation after the Super Bowl halftime show with my class was unplanned, but yielded probably the best discussion of audience that we had all semester. Not only is it something that they have some knowledge of, I think it helps that it's something they don't consider "important." They might be worried about being "wrong" about some really important social issue or complicated theoretical idea, but when it's "just" J-Lo and Shakira singing and dancing then there's room to relax.
ReplyDeleteEncouraging students to do research on something beyond your knowledge base might work towards students feeling like they have authority. yes, they're going to do research and find experts who know way more, but if you present yourself as someone who doesn't know anything about a certain topic, then they can be assured that there's at least one person they can educate. Problems of student authority could come from them being worried about giving the answer the instructor wants, so if there is no expected answer, that could free them up to take control of their research.
McKenzie,
ReplyDeleteIn my experience with composition classes and teaching 103 classes, I’ve found that the most effective way to have them take ownership is to give them as much freedom as possible in choosing their own topics. Though some of them are resistant to this because they just want to be told what to write about, it forces them to choose something that is relevant to them outside of the confines of this class, to reinforce that idea that “learning happens beyond a building.” Even when I did choose a broad topic, like encouraging them to find a current topic in their major field, I always added the stipulation that if they had an idea outside of that realm, if they could bring that idea to me and explain their reasoning behind wanting to write about that topic, I would give them permission to do so. I think it’s much more valuable for a student to write about something they are passionate about than meeting a teacher’s often arbitrary assignments. Having students choose their own topics isn’t necessarily a revolutionary idea, and students are often frustrated by the vague nature of the approach, but it does seem to help them take ownership. That being said, it’s hard to construct a course theme with this approach, and I’m looking for ways to narrow down the focus in my classes in the future.
103 often feels arbitrary in a lot of ways, with the specific assignments we are required to teach. I really enjoyed how my mentor approached an emphasis on public writing through the rhetorical analysis assignment, where she had them choose a current political candidate running for office, pick out several campaign items, and rhetorically analyze them. It was a great way to approach getting students out of the classroom and introducing political involvement in a way that wasn’t pushing them towards any particular agenda. The element of choice was critical here as well, even within the constraints of a specific topic, as they got to choose the candidate they wanted to examine.
-Jessie
I like that you brought up his point about how students should be allowed to study what interests them and the other learning will follow. This is basically the approach that was employed in my education before I came to college. That being said, I think that it can be somewhat hard in a composition class. Yes, we can make it easier for students if we allow them to write about things that interest them. But the very act of writing can be so detestable to some that they don’t even care if they are allowed to write about something that interests them. There is no motivation. Maybe this is where that multimodal composition needs to come in? Let students realize that composition can take place in many forms and that writing is just one of them? Perhaps it would give us a chance to ease them in to the actual written text that they should at least become aware of and familiar with even if they abandon it later?
ReplyDeleteConcerning your idea about letting your students write from their own authority: I think this is a great idea and should be done, but I also think you have to be sure to balance that out with encouraging (forcing?) students to see other perspectives. If we only write from our own understanding and perspective, then what are we really gaining out of the experience? And I think this is really important for a research-based course as well. To use the example you mentioned, of allowing students to write about something from pop culture that interests them, this could be taken a step further. Have them also research and write about a corresponding situation within counterculture. Try to show them that it’s not all about one way of seeing the world and that issues are far more complex than they realize (perhaps even destabilizing their own perceived authority on something they thought they previously understood).