Thanks for getting your papers in on time. I'm looking forward to reading them. This week we opened with a writing exercise to build confidence in writers and create a positive experience. As our textbooks says, writing is much more complicated than reading and it is important to make all writers feel successful and energized in order to go through the different stages of writing. We also added more activities to our tool kit, this time around teaching writing. Lastly, we had time in groups. The Lesson Presentations start next week. There will be time in between groups to set up any materials and/or arrange the room. Can't wait to see them!
Week 8
ReplyDeleteWOW!!! We are getting close to the end, I am excited that I am done with work and can really focus on the courses that I am taking. Last class we started with the writing activity and shared our writing with others. I found this interesting as I was having trouble thinking of what to write about. I can really understand why the students we work with have a hard time thinking of things to write. I think that it is a great idea to provide students with prompt. Someone in class said that they had their students have ideas in an envelope and use them when they could not think of what to write about. This is a great way assist those students that struggle to think of a topic to write about. Another idea that Sarah mentioned was that her teacher use to have flash cards that she would put out for students to pick a topic to write about. Having prompts and gradually having student self select topics is a great idea to help them become more comfortable with writing. As I have mentioned in class before, at the school I work at we have students do a writing sample starting in Kindergarten. They do one each month and add to the book each month of each grade. They book are passed along to teachers each year and then in grade 7 the students have a book of all sorts of writing that they have done. For those students that are unable to do writing they often will draw a picture. It is a great way for students to see their growth. I was happy that to have time to work on the presentations as our group is presenting next week and it was helpful to be able to ask questions as we were working. I look forward to seeing all of the upcoming reading lessons.
I really appreciate the discussions and activities we had regarding writing and the types of prompts students need to be successful. Many students (even I to be perfectly honest) have a heard time thinking of something to write and an instruction such as “write about anything you want for 5 minutes” can be daunting and leave students feeling frustrated. However, in order to encourage and nurture creative thinking, it is important that writing prompts be structured enough to guide students but at the same time remain open ended. I think the most important aspect of teaching writing is to have students regularly engage in the process. Like any other skill or talent, the more students write the more comfortable, confident, and capable writers they will become. Chap. 8 stressed that getting students to take ownership of their writing is crucial in the beginning stages and therefore the focus must be on the students’ ideas and not the technique.
ReplyDeleteAnother part of Chap. 8 that I found very useful was the discussion of the stages of writing (brainstorm, first draft, editing). Students do not know how to do this on their own, they must be taught through modelling and discussion. Each stage must be explored, so that students can easily see the benefits and how they can apply it to their lives. Some students my struggle with one or all of the stages therefore it is important to support and encourage them in any way possible. Without basic writing techniques, students will have great difficulties in their adult lives, from writing CV to reports. The “Teaching Writing” table we filled out in class was extremely useful, and I especially liked the section of the different writing genres. Once again, I strongly believe that students do not know how to write in the different genres without first seeing examples and then being shown/modelled the process of writing in a particular genre. Writing does not just been essays and creative writing – it goes beyond to writing instructions, emails, letters, etc. I think a good way to hook in male students would be to get them to write a “how to” for a particular sport or a newspaper article on a particular sports team
I look forward to seeing all the presentations for our lesson plans – good luck everyone!
Writing
ReplyDeleteTo start the class we engaged in the writing process even before we knew what it was that was being asked of us. It was a very gentle and kind approach that didn’t seem to cause panic and put up blockers about writing. As I feel so many times the writing process often causes students to freeze up and panic thinking they can’t write. When often it is just fear that stands in the way of writing.
1) Brainstorm - Jotting down in point form about a time in our lives when we had a feeling of success (I thought this was a great way for everyone to feel comfortable.)
2) Sharing our stories orally with someone
3) Write down the words we used to describe the story – the embellishments and all.
4) Edit
This made the writing process so comfortable and easy to relate too. This shows how important it is to engage the students first so they are comfortable and open to learning.
I like the quote, “ Writing is the “overlearning” for reading”, p 248 CMCM I love to read but often do not like to write. I set up mental blocks and fears that hinder me from freely feeling confident to write. Yet when reading I often take it for granted the wonderful writing that I am enjoying. Someone told me once that to engage students to make connections between good writing and reading have them notice the good writing. Something as little as pause at a period or comma, not to just plough through them can make students aware of good writing. I guess this goes with the point of the text that stresses that god writing and grammar should not be taught in isolation.
I know a struggle for me will be to pass on the love of writing. It is something I must work on so my students don’t pick up on the negative vibes that I may give off. I guess in my class I must tackle writing daily in a variety of genres even things such as informal writing like notes, letters, and messages is maybe where I’ll start.
I really liked the discussion on writing and how to get students to start writing at a young age. Through the discussion I really liked the idea of incorporating other writing assignments. In my practicum, my students learned how to write a thank you letter. I first demonstrated how to write a thank you letter which gave them the structure and the overall presentation of a letter format. The students and my SA thought it was funny that I wrote a letter to my SA. First of all, I had my students do a rough draft of the letter. Many of the students learned how valuable is to proof read their work. I liked the saying that my SA told them, I should not be the first one to read your work. I thought that was a great tool for them and me. After the students corrected their work they were able to do a good copy. It was great to see them engaged in their writing as it was more personal. I played mail man and delivered the letters, which to no evail had some of the teachers in tears. I think it is important to have real life learning experiences in learning to write. Students become more engaged and excited to write. In my 405 practicum, I plan to do recipes with the students using computers.
ReplyDeleteThe second aspect of the class that I liked was the dicussion around the prompts that we can give students to start their writing. I really liked the idea of creating a envelope of ideas for writing in thier journals. I think this is a good idea because many of the students don't know what to write. If students don't know what to write, they are not going to be able to become better writers. Furthermore, if we give students some choice in their writing, I believe that they wll become strong writers as they are enjoying what they are writing. There are certain times that we need to guide their writing, but we should be flexible. I know in my practicum class, that if I used these prompts for introduction to writing they might have been more willing to write. Now I have learned the importance of finding creative ways to ge the students involved in their writing.
Last class we discussed using prompts for writing to help the students engage and center their ideas for writing. I connected with this idea as when I was in grade two and three my teacher used to place index cards on the chalk ledge with a topic and a picture on it. We were given the opportunity to choose a card (usually based on the picture) and write our story based on the topic sentence. I have very fond memories of the excitement of choosing a topic and beginning a new story! Looking back on these memories and learning what we have learned in class about reading and writing I see that this creative writing process did an amazing job at making writing enjoyable and engaging for myself and most likely the other children in the classroom! The pictures on the cards made the topics more enticing and for those who are visual learners or reluctant readers gave them visual stimulation, and allowed them to still partake in the writing process without feeling inadequate or frustrated by the reading involved. This also enhanced and allowed the development of our reading and writing skills by allowing us to experiment with our spelling, grammar and sentence/story structure.
ReplyDeleteI also appreciated the time to work in our groups as we needed the time to concrete our plans for our presentation for next class.
June 29, 2009
ReplyDeletePositive writing experiences are a good start to energize students to write. I feel that students need to get this positive experience to become good writers. Like many things in life when students have a tough time with a task, they tend to shy away from the task going forward. On the other side, children who have a great experience in a task will keep going back to the task. This is a complete generalization however, it seems to reason a positive experience will foster potential experiences. A teacher needs to make writing a good experience for students, and some of the skills learnt this week in class will be a great addition to my repertoire of classroom activities. Everything I am learning I am using to make my teaching that much better for my students. To agree with chapter 8 I want my students to take ownership of their writing, to be able to write on task about a subject they are motivated to write about. I want them to learn the love of writing it is not all about the process. Writing helps to foster the ideas and creativity of children. This links with inventive spelling at the younger grades. Instead of the students being focused on the spelling they can focus on the ideas and turning those ideas into something.
Chapter eight also talks about eliminating the fears that are associated with writing. Creating stories as a class in one example that can eliminate the fear of writing. (it is not really a fear of writing as it is a writing block) Brainstorming is a way I have used in the past to give students some ideas about writing. Once a topic is chosen students can make suggestions on how to add additional information. For example if the class is writing about their recent field trip to the zoo then students suggest items that will help recall their memory. Maybe they suggest that one of them had a jam sandwich and it got all sticky. It was a real funny moment on the trip, but most students focused their attention on the actual zoo. This idea has given the class the idea that writing about the trip can and does include the beginning, the middle and end of the trip. Some students may not have thought outside the box and think to write about the lunch portion. They thought only to write about the Lions, the tigers and bears. This brainstorming gives students a chance to hear what their class mates are thinking about the assignment. I suppose this is considered activating the student’s prior knowledge. It is a strategy I try to use in my practicum.
Sue modeled a great way to gently approach us and to engage us in the writing process. The promt was interesting and the one that everybody could relate to and proudly write about. As a student, I always had a hard time choosing a topic for writing especially because I was always so dependent on my teacher to supply a topic. However, often, the teacher would give a topic that I knew little about or had no interest in. It was these topics that made me think that writing is difficult and boring and that I was not good at it. I believe that it is important for teachers to start a writing exercise with an interesting prompt so students can’t wait to start writing. As we discussed, everyone is a natural writer, at times, we just need a “push” to develop confidence and start writing about our ideas. Giving students a prompt or letting them choose their own topic does not mean that teachers should never give specific writing assignments. However, in doing so, they should be there to model, provide specific guidelines or specify a writing form, for instance.
ReplyDeleteAnother part I liked from our reading was the paragraph about our writing audience. “Writers must understand and be able to relate to their audiences”. When children write, their audiences usually include their classmates or parents. When they share their writing, they can communicate with their audience, who can in turn, respond to their writing in meaningful ways. Sharing one’s writing can also cause students to develop sensitivity to audiences and to increase their confidence in writing. As chapter 8 says, these shared writings also become models for other children and their writing process. One thing that I would add to this is the importance of our jobs as teachers. We need to teach our students how to positively respond to their classmates writing in order to create a safe classroom environment where everybody feels like a good author.
I thought the idea in our textbook that teachers should avoid independent grammar lessons and instead incorporate the rules of grammar into the children’s writing lessons using a writing scale was really interesting. I’ve never seen writing taught this way and yet I think it sounds like a fairly sensible way to teach grammar. I remember my Grade 9 teacher spent week after week making us do grammar worksheets and it was boring. I also remember it didn’t help me master things that I was confused about, such as what order to put commas, periods and quotation marks in when writing dialogue. I later mastered these skills when I was majoring in creative writing at UBC and I had lots of practice writing stories that contained dialogue. I also think that the idea of using the scale, where rules are introduced one at a time, would be less daunting to children who are learning grammar rules for the first time. As well teaching grammar in the context of children’s writing will be more motivating for students. When grammar rules are applied to their own writing they can see that following these rules will help others to understand what they’ve written. Students will certainly be more invested in having their own work understood than in fixing the grammar errors in a bunch of random sentences on a worksheet.
ReplyDeleteOne topic the text hasn’t been covered yet that I’m curious about is how the use of technology affects the way we write and edit. This process of writing a rough draft, editing it, and then writing a good copy is really only something we do in the absence of a word processor. When writing on a computer most people adopt an edit-as-you-go approach. As I’m typing this I stop and reread my work every couple of sentences, correct mistakes, and sometimes add or delete information, then continue writing. If I decide that two of my paragraphs should be in a different order I just use the cut and paste function to move them. Consider how hard it is to make the same change when you’re writing a pen and paper copy. The word processor also prompts me by putting a green line under grammar mistakes and red lines under spelling mistakes. When I see one of these lines appear I assess whether a change needs to be made or if they computer’s editing tool is wrong. The point is that when you’re using a word processor your rough copy eventually becomes your good copy, you don’t start retyping the page from scratch to make a good copy. I encountered many students in the intermediate grades that wanted to do all their writing at home because then they would only need to make one copy. When I asked them how they make this “one copy”, almost all of them described editing as they wrote, reading and editing the whole thing after they’d finished typing it, or having an adult read it to help them edit. None of them were just typing and then hitting “print” without doing some editing.
I can’t help sympathizing with these kids because they’ve already figured out that in real-world contexts people don’t write separate rough copies and good copies. I worked in journalism for seven years, a career that is based on writing, and I know from experience that professional writers don’t work that way. That’s not to say that self-editing and peer editing aren’t important. Editing is a crucial part of writing. I just question whether the process of making a child recopy a piece of text from beginning to end twice is teaching the child anything. Instead maybe we should be teaching writing and editing in a way that better reflects the way it is done when you have access to a word processor. I remember my grade 4 teacher actually told us that computers were going to change the way we teach people to write. It’s been more than twenty years since then and we’re still teaching writing the same way. Are we doing this because beginning writers need this three step process or are we just doing it because it’s the way it’s always been done? (Or because we don’t have the funding to put a computer in front of every child?)
Week 8: Wednesday, July 1, 2009
ReplyDeleteThe “moment of success” writing exercise that we began with was both interesting and informative. At first, I couldn’t think of anything to write, even with the prompt! I could totally relate to students and their “blank” faces and corresponding blank pages when asked to write. Honestly, I suffer the same blank feeling every time I sit down in front of my computer and see the cursor flashing, flashing, almost laughing, at me!! But this only reinforces the importance of providing students with a writing prompt as no direction for students’ writing usually results in no writing, for most students anyway. Giving students flexibility and choice with their writing is especially important to foster both creative and relevant writing. Chapter 8 also suggests that in order to create confident and competent writers, writing activities need to occur regularly and to focus on process not product.
I also see a parallel between reading and writing in that engagement seems to be the “energizer” for both. Just like with reading, if students are not excited about the topic, they are less likely to be actively engaged. Allowing students to choose their topics according to their own interests will go a long way in helping students create interesting pieces of writing. It is equally important to make writing activities relevant to students and to make the purpose of the writing activities known. Writing can be viewed as some “mysterious” thing that only published authors can do, so being up front with the goals of different forms of writing will help de-mystify the process.
Shanie
Writing is obviously a huge part of the literacy process. I was happy that we had a class devoted exclusively to writing last class. I remember in my early elementary years being able to do self-selected writing and become totally engrossed in it. When we were allowed to write about anything we wanted, my imagination (and thus motivation) soared! I remember creating these super long stories that would continue on and on, with chapters, and continuations from previous writings. I wish my mom kept them because I’d love to go back and read them today. Usually, they were about visiting other planets and going into unknown worlds (maybe I watched a lot of ‘star trek’ as a kid, I don’t know!). The text elaborates on this stating, it increases and maintains students’ engagement in writing. I couldn’t agree more.
ReplyDeleteThe text also elaborates on the four step of establishing a self-selected writing program. It mentions implementing ‘writer’s workshop’ in the classroom. In my first practicum, I was in a grade 5 class and the teacher (just like the textbook recommended) encouraged students to engage in self-selected writing, put the writing rules on the wall, and he also did a series of ‘mini lessons’ to teach specific things about what makes good writers, such as using ‘skinny or fat’ words to describe something. That day the students then edited the piece they were working on for that specific thing. Therefore the students were learning about writing and applying it immediately to their own work. It seemed to settle in well, as after each mini lesson, the students’ work improved dramatically in that particular area. Also, what I noticed (and what Sue talked about last class) was that he didn’t mark it until later in the ‘editing’ stage. That way, the students weren’t stifled by trying to write according to a set of criteria, and thus losing creativity along the way. During the brainstorming and drafting stage, the teacher didn’t even look at the work. It didn’t get formally marked until it was actually edited several times and then published. I remember talking about this last class and thinking that I now understand what my SA was doing when I was there observing. It’s refreshing to now think back and understand the ‘why we do it’ behind the things that occurred during my practicum.
June 25
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the book, and attending the class, Self-Selected writing idea struck to me. I think Self-Selected writing promotes engagement because students are expressing their own knowledge about the topic, and also, they are making deep connections to the writing piece. I believe that students who self-select topics for writing are more likely to spend more time on research for the topic as opposed to being told to write on the posed topic. Furthermore, Self-Selected topics are intrinsic motivators for students. To support my opinion, I can give the example of my own essay for the language arts course which was selected by me. I did so much research on the topic because I was interested in the topic and wanted to learn more about the topic.
The other great idea that stood out to me while I was reading the chapter on Assessment was preparing a Showcase Portfolios. Showcase Portfolios are students’ work chosen by them, and captioned by them. In these portfolios they put their best piece of work and they share with the class at the end of the year or a month. They give reasons why they chose a particular work to put into the portfolio. They proudly demonstrate the ownership of their work to the peers or to their parents. I strongly believe that preparing this kind of portfolio is an intrinsic motivator. Moreover, this makes the students accountable to the piece of work. Furthermore, they learn to make decisions about their thinking, which is a great skill to learn through this process. I also believe that when students are internally motivated to do any work, then chances of the outcomes of the work in the class increase beyond the imaginations. I have seen students, who were doing an art work, and concerned about the out come of the art piece because they were going to keep this work in the Showcase Portfolio. The teacher does not choose this portfolio to give them a grade, and it is just to celebrate. As a teacher, I will keep half day open to share the Portfolios, and I will invite the parents on that day to be a part of the celebration of their children’s work.
I enjoyed this section on teaching writing, as it can often be quite daunting and stressful, instead of fun and empowering. A sentence that immediately struck me as I began reading Chapter 8 was, “Contemporary society increasingly communicates through writing.” What a true statement (i.e. texting, email, fax), which makes learning how to write effectively all the more important. I also liked the idea of having children self-select topics for writing as this will increase their interest and learning. Some teachers just pick a topic or book for the students without taking their individual interests into consideration. While self selection is valuable I think it is also important to keep in mind our class discussion of how sometimes students need guidance when choosing a writing topic. Pressure to perform can cause students to panic and “forget” their interests.
ReplyDeleteSomeone in class mentioned teaching how to write thank you cards, what a brilliant idea! Thankfully I had a mother who taught me how, but I know many kids don’t have that. I think that teaching writing skills for everyday situations is very important. So many times in school I used to think (and still do sometimes), “how will this help me in the real world?” I think informing students of the purpose of why they are learning something will really help them see the value of the activity.
I think the single most important thing we as teachers can do to get our students writing is absolutely to give them an interesting topic they can all engage with. I found this worked really well at the start of last class, as I found Sue’s prompt to be very effective in getting me thinking about times in my life I have felt successful. From there, it wasn’t hard to recall what my feelings were at these times and other such details. What I did find interestingly challenging was recalling what specifically I had said after sharing my thoughts with a partner. This certainly illustrates Sue’s point that we retain what we write far more than we retain what we hear/say. This is also good to keep in mind when helping students prepare for tests. A great deal of students, myself included, struggle with study skills and note taking in particular. I was always the kid in school who practically wrote a novel when we were asked to “summarize” our text. In hindsight, I realize this may not have been effective note taking. But, what I was actually doing was trying to remember as much as I could from the chapter so that I could apply it on my upcoming test. Even then, I realized I learn best when I have written something down, although my ability to summarize may have been lacking. I think giving children the tools to be effective studiers and note takers are important skills in relation to this week’s writing topic.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated the review of the writing process, as I did both my short and extended practicums in primary classrooms and thus didn’t get to work much with it. But, looking back, I realize I should have emphasized a similar process even for the younger grades, as having the children go back and edit their work in particular is an important strategy that is useful as young as Kindergarten and can be thought of as another piece of the writing puzzle.
I enjoyed the emphasis on creative writing, as this has always been something I love to do but seem never to have time for. With so much curriculum to cover, I think it served as an important reminder that kids need time to use their imaginations and create written works that are reflections of who they are.
I really enjoyed the writing activity we did at the beginning of class. Writing down your thoughts vs. how you would say them to a friend is quite different. It gave me an opportunity to reflect how much more difficult it is write about something because you have to think about how you are going to write it using all of the conventions and rules, even though it should be a “free write.” I liked the idea that there should be sentence starters or a plan if a child keeps getting writer’s block. When I taught a grade 3 class, the students were writing a story. I noticed that those who planned ahead and used their story map outline rather than just writing the story, were more organized and knew where their story was heading, how it would develop, or what the outcome would be. Don’t get me wrong, but from my observations, I found that putting down key ideas in point form or making an outline helped a lot more.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have noticed that students who do journal writing on Mondays, typically after a weekend, would often sit and stare into space, thinking they did “nothing” on the weekend. To get around this, they could use topic cards that they had previously written at the beginning of the year and choose one of the cards to write about (someone had mentioned this in class.) I think it was a great idea to do as a prompt in getting students to think about what they wanted to write about.
I agree with what Amber says referring to how technology affects the way students write. One thing I wanted to point out is that if students use more technology/computers in writing their drafts, won’t they start becoming lazy with their grammar? The word processor sometimes fixes mistakes and we may become more dependent on it. While using technology is a good thing, I still think we should use our brains while editing. The textbook suggests ways to edit drafts. I agree and strongly believe that getting your peers to edit your work or even going back to the beginning on another day after writing a piece will help you self-correct your mistakes. However, it is very important that students are given the necessary skills for correcting grammar. There are even books that have humorous outlooks on punctuation and how a different placement can have a different meaning on the sentence. (Example: “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” by Lynne Truss.)
This class was one of the least/most enjoyable for me. I must admit that writing was never a strong suit, nor is it something that I have ever really enjoyed doing. I am amazed by some students I have had that are completely intrigued and energized by writing. One grade 3 student I had would come to school on a regular basis with “books” she had written at home. She would light up at the opportunity to share these with the class and we would always add them to a reading basket where her fellow students could read her book during silent, self-selected reading. I agree with the concept of self-selected writing and promoting it in the classroom. Children are able to foster a love and appreciation for writing when able to own the responsibility of deciding what topics they will write about and how they will approach them.
ReplyDeleteThere were some great suggestions brought up in class for struggling writers, such as myself. I find that even with such prompts as “A successful event”, I struggle with where to begin. Something that has worked well in classes I have been in is modeling the kind of writing you are expecting. Modeling has always helped me generate my own ideas and be able to gauge expectations. Otherwise, I often feel overwhelmed with the task and have expectations of myself that are unattainable. Modeling is also a great way of introducing students to certain types of writing such as journal entries, dialogue, persuasive and so on. Especially in the early grades I frequently support writing with reading. Writing is often tied to something we have read and discussed as a class. Such writing activities as summarizing a book by using a beginning, middle and end film strip allow struggling writers to also engage in drawing and visual depictions to enhance and promote their writing. Such prompts as compare and contrast yourself to a character in the story have been popular ones I have used. A Venn diagram is a good way to brainstorm before such an activity. In short, I have used my love of reading to help jump start a fondness for writing. I really believe the two support one another as well as encouraging students to write in all subject areas. This gives confidence and promotes writers who are more academically inclined and may not be so naturally creative. I look forward to learning more ways to engage our writers.
Unfortunately I missed this class. Based on reading chapter 8, I’ve been thinking about the connection between writing and reading. I thought it was significant that the authors noted how imperative it is for students to write what they know. I think most of my experience with writing in elementary school was more prescribed. I do remember how exciting it was to be able to write stories about anything we wanted. I remember teachers being surprised and writing comments about how wild my imagination was (in more subtle terms I’m sure) and this inspired me to write more. I’ve noticed a contrast among teachers I’ve worked with on the issue of freedom of choice in writing. Personally, I think it’s logical to have students write their ideas or experience rather than cater to my specific ideas. I say this now, but I wonder how this will play out in my practice. I hope I give them more artistic license, for lack of a better term.
ReplyDeleteThe authors seemed to be writing a lot about the difference between writing instruction pre and post 1970’s. Once I got to university I realised how weak my grammar was. A few Profs commented on how the majority of us really lacked proper grammar. Even now, I’m certain that this log is filled with tonnes of errors. I don’t clearly remember learning the meaning of ‘subject of the sentence’ or what a participle or gerund were. This list goes on. Somehow my generation (or maybe just my school district) was caught between the old and new school method of writing instruction. I would like to be able to give my students a strong grammatical foundation as well as a passion to express their thoughts in writing, and realize the power of the pen.
Esanju
The writing activity at the beginning of last class had me thinking. I remember loving to write as a child. I wrote stories all the time. One of my favourite subjects in Elementary School was ‘Writer’s Workshop’. It’s funny, but I’m not sure when all that changed, but at this point I dislike writing. Whereas I used to write for pleasure and could get wrapped up in creating a story, I now can’t seem to get started and just write when I have to. If I had to guess, I would say that my dislike for writing probably started in High School to some degree when creative writing was reduced and where having perfect grammar and punctuation was critical to getting a good grade. It is also when I was required to write about specific texts or subjects and was given little personal choice. The same seemed to continue throughout College/University in English classes. I started off wanting a major in English but after two years, I was sick of it. This saddens me and I would never want this for my own students. To this point, I think that self-selected writing is very important. Mini-lessons, student sharing and writing in other subjects can be built from there.
ReplyDeleteI can’t believe how close we are to the end of the semester! Last class we discussed the importance of creating positive writing experience for young students. While free writing may be a chance for some students to be truly creative, it may cause frustration and anxiety for many other students. Each week in my designs for Language Arts course we are encouraged to finish one piece of creative writing based on a topic of our choice. Every week the freedom of choosing the topic causes several students extreme stress. These are university students! If it is frustrating for us, imagine how frustrating it could be for a young student. I think giving a selection of options to the students could be very beneficial. It takes away the frustration of choosing a topic, and it still allows room for the students who are engaged in the self-selected writing and want to choose their own topic.
ReplyDeleteChapter eight mentions the importance of teaching the writing process from start to finish – brainstorming to finished draft. I remember learning this process in one of my elementary school classes. The teachers first had us brainstorm our idea, then write a rough draft, followed by a peer edit and finally a teacher edit. Once our story had passed these stages and been edited, we were able to create the good copy. This included drawing pictures on each page, creating a title page, and writing with our neatest printing (maybe today the good copy would be done on the computer?). Then we were given the option of engaging in the “author’s chair.” Where we were able to read the story to the class. Finished stories were always put on display for other students to look at and read. It was a great experience.
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ReplyDeleteWhew. Paper for this class is done! Presentatiosn to go! Anyway, I appreciate the idea of prompting students by usign the idea jar as a start. I have seen a SA who discuss some of the things about a certain topic so that students who have no idea what they are going to writing about has a chance to see what others are thinking. One of the things I can start is having multiple writing topics so that when I am doing the writing workshop, I can give students several options. I like the idea where finished products are shared with other students so the writer can feel their accomplishment.
ReplyDeleteAs for the writer's workshop. I remember seeing it during my volunteer days but never really understood it enough to do it in the classroom. It is something I will try in my next practicum. I will make sure I come up with several topics and give explicit instruction on expectations and model the ideal writing behavior when I do the workshop.
I have come to realize after last class that the use of prompts can be very helpful for those students that have no idea what to write about. Sue had mentioned that even at the beginning of the school year, when the students have been off school for two months, it can be a challenging task to think about what to write after having very little practice. I liked the idea of giving the students the prompt of “what was the best part of your summer break?” It helps students to get back into the habit of writing and creates something fun to write about. I believe it’s so important to get students excited about what they want to write about. It was said last class that “so much of writing can be about values and positive experiences.” This can therefore set a positive tone and help students to feel success in their writing experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhen students feel success and excited about their writing, most students will want to share what they have written. Last class after we wrote about our prompt of “when was a time that we felt most successful,” Sue then asked us to share our thoughts with a partner. Sometimes certain writing is private, however much of writing is meant to be shared. Chapter 8 explains that one of the main motivators for learning is communication; therefore a writer must have a supportive audience who can read or listen to what was written to help improve writing.
Another side note of something that really stuck out to me last class was when Sue said, “Everyone is a natural writer, because everyone is a natural storyteller.” I loved how she presented that we even include “hooks” into our stories such as, “You will never believe what happened to me today.” Everyone likes to tell a good story therefore everyone can be a good writer.
I really enjoyed reading chapter 8. I think that writing and reading are the most vital subjects that students learn in school. When you can read and write, and enjoy doing it, you have power. Being able to write down your thinking, opinions, and views gives you a voice. I think that self selected writing is so vital to a student’s educational development and should be encouraged everyday in school. I think that the same importance should be put on self selected writing as is put on reading. I think that in general self selected writing is more important to have students participate in than focused writing. Although, I do believe that focused writing in necessary, I believe that self selected writing offers more benefits. I have never written a haiku, and it has not affected my life in any way; however, if I could not write my opinions I would be extremely negatively affected. I think that when doing focused writing, it needs to have a strong purpose. Students are not oblivious to the fact when they are working on something that seems meaningless. When doing focused writing students need to be aware not only of the purpose, but why it is important. I think that everyone has a story to tell, and students should be given the opportunity to write in down daily.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the text in that it said on page 237 that self selected writing should not be graded. I think that this is the best type of work to be assessed. I do not think that students should get a grade on every piece of writing that they do, but that they should assemble their self selected writing in a portfolio which could help determine their grade.
I found this weeks opening activity extremely useful, it is a great way to engage students in what can often be a terrifying experience. Often times, when left to their own devices students can spend an incredible amount of time on just choosing a topic. In fact, this is not true of just children, on many occasions even as an adult I find myself struggling to narrow my thoughts and ideas down to one specific topic to write about. Therefore, providing students with prompts to encourage writing can definitely be a useful tool. Similarly, I feel SSW is a great writing strategy to help students develop uninhibited and fearless writing habits. It is an effective method to help students learn to write willingly and enjoy themselves while they are doing it. Additionally, because teachers encourage students to use phonics spelling during SSW, students are less hesitant and reluctant to write. Also, further extension activities such as sharing and book publishing can make SSW an even more enjoyable activity for students.
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