There is a lot packed into this third section of the book, read and comment on what was most relevant to you. :-)
ASSIGNMENT FIVE: WRITTEN REFLECTION-Section Three- The Essential Writing Day Chapters 7-10
Chapter 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills
• How might we integrate skill work into student writing rather than teaching it in isolation?
• Daily Oral Language exercises – THEY DON’T WORK!!!
• The importance of focusing on meaning and quality first
• All writing needs both a PURPOSE and an AUDIENCE
• How thinking aloud can make your teaching more explicit
• Teaching WRITING – not just the language of writing (process, process, process)
• What about writing standards? In your District and State?
• Key writing minilessons
• Revision – how to get students to care about it
• Letting kids in on the secret that – Yes! – Conventions do matter!
• How can we effectively use word walls?
In Chapter 7, suitably titled “Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills,” Regie gets to the heart of what so many teachers struggle with: “Fitting it all in!!!” Many of the elementary teachers that we work with are beginning to feel as though their personal motto is: “Jack of all trades; master of none.” We just don’t have the time to teach well what has to be taught. The only answer to this problem is to modify our instruction so it agrees with Regie’s stance that isolated skill work (such as Friday spelling tests, DOL, grammar worksheets…) will not help our students grow into writers (or readers.) On page 144, Regie shares four components for an integrated Writing Workshop:
1. Identify writing genres that would interest students (and meet district requirements)
2. Decide who the audience would be for each piece of writing.*
3. Model your own writing process and show students how you struggle.
4. Have students share writing regularly (for both celebration and great teaching moments.)
*This created the biggest change in my own class’s writing - once my students began to write with an audience in mind, the quality of writing shot right up!
Regie also gets to the heart of what writing with “voice” really is and addresses how to teach children to write with an honest voice in their own writing. She describes voice as “the writer’s unique personality on paper, his own melody in words, her ‘mark’ as an individual. To write with voice, the writer has to be interested in the writing.” We think that many teachers and students are unclear as to how to add true voice to their writing. Regie suggests, “Voice is in the details – but details that show the real person and story behind the words, not just details for the sake of adding more words…”
Integrating those isolated editing skills such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling into our writing will increase the efficiency of our instruction. Bottom line – if the students care about their writing, are writing for a specific audience, and understand that “the importance of editing (and spelling conventionally) is to make their message clear and easy to read for their audience – or reader, they take this job seriously and work hard at making their writing clear.”
Chapter 8: Organize for Daily Writing
• What is our definition of Writing Workshop? What does Regie say?
• How can we have student choice within a structure?
• The importance of writing talk (teachers and students)
• The ultimate nightmare for all of us…scheduling…finding the time to write everyday
• The importance of routines, organization and modeling expected behavior
• Genre study – why it’s important to have both school-wide and district-wide conversations
• The possibilities within genres
Figuring out a way to “fit it all in” is usually one of the most frustrating things many of us face. It starts at the beginning of the year as we first plan our daily schedule and continues throughout the remainder of the year. Considering how you will create your schedule to include a solid chunk of time for both reading and writing will probably be the most stressful piece to the start of your year.
Create a Comprehensive Literacy Framework: Play with your time and consider what changes you might make in your daily literacy framework for next year. Take a look at the samples that Regie provides on pages 185-187 for some possibilities. You do not have to post your schedule, but we believe this is a worthwhile activity to complete on your own.
Chapter 9: Conference with Students
• What is the purpose of a Writing Conference?
• What are the different types of Writing Conferences?
• How can Share be used effectively?
• How to conduct a productive conference
• What about management and routines?
We are so glad that this chapter talks about Share during Writer’s Workshop. Too often this component is skipped by teachers who feel there isn’t enough time in the day to “fit it all in.” However, it’s a vital piece of the workshop and beneficial to all the students. Share sessions are an additional time to teach. The teachers in my school are quite comfortable using Share as their mini-lesson if the need arises. Given the reality of daily schedules they were finding that they couldn’t have a mini-lesson, confer and share everyday. They then realized that their Shares sometimes were the minilessons. For more information about Share we recommend looking at Leah Mermelstein’s Don’t Forget To Share: The Crucial Last Step in the Writing Workshop. In this slim book, Leah explains in detail four types of Share: Content Share, Craft Share, Process Share and Progress Share.
The “Tips for Successful Whole-Class Shares and Conferences” on page 215 are excellent ones to keep in mind. The bottom line for Conferences and Shares is that students should feel successful and want to continue to write. Make sure what you say to the child encourages them to keep on writing. “The conference is secondary; the student as writer and confident learner is primary.”
Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count
• Understanding how rubrics work
• What about Test Prep? THE BEST TEST PREP IS EXCELLENT TEACHING!
• How can we collect reliable data on students’ writing throughout the day?
• Guidelines for grading and providing evidence for parents, administrators and the public
“There is lots of writing assessment going on these days, but little of it actually improves the quality of students’ writing.” As Regie continues she points out that this ‘assessment’ “is seldom used to improve daily instruction.” This chapter is about becoming more knowledgeable about assessments. Regie notes, that unless teachers know how to teach writing well, it can be a waste of time to examine students’ writing and place students on a writing continuum. She encourages you, as a staff to “write together, study together, converse together, gather school-wide data, analyze these data and set goals for improving writing instruction. There is no shortcut to helping students become effective writers and there is no program you can buy that will do it for you.”
Remember to use rubrics judiciously and not overdo it. They should be “used as an evaluation tool, not as the driving instructional force.” “Use professional common sense. It is not advisable to apply rubrics to ALL writing nor to score ALL writing. Just as our students need lots of practice reading many texts without the expectation that they will be assessed on everything they read, they need lots of practice writing without being assessed on everything they write.” (Page 243)
Have your students do a lot of writing! “Extensive writing across the curriculum as part of an excellent writing program is the best preparation for doing well on (standardized) tests. Readers have to read avidly to become readers and the same holds true for writers. Kids who write a lot develop higher-order thinking and understanding that translates to higher achievement on all types of tests.” Be sure to check out “Try It Apply It” on page 246 and throughout the chapter for ideas to incorporate into your program.
As Regie points out in this chapter, “The joy has gone out of writing.” We need to “concentrate on developing kids as learners rather than kids as test takers.”
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The reading for this section was a bit overwhelming...standards, voice and conventions, writing workshop, scheduling time to write, conferencing with students, rubrics and assessment. All that with the theme of being efficient and organized. The reading makes it all sound feasible but I know how writing time can pass so quickly. This year, my students did most of their writing in the afternoons and it wasn’t necessarily their most productive time. I could have used some of Routman’s advice.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated seeing the list of sample mini-lessons in chapter 7. I include a bunch of them in my writing curriculum already but there are some new ideas and ways I might alter my current methods. I focus a lot on conventions even though I wonder if the time put into those details is worth the small gains my students seem to make. This chapter reassures me of the importance of conventions and offers some tips that may help me see better results. It was interesting that Routman emphasizes voice in student writing while my district and school do not. I believe it can drive their entire piece and inspire them to develop their skill.
The important concept I learned from chapter 8 is the whole “organization” piece. It is helpful to see a couple examples of teacher’s schedules and how they incorporate writing into their day. Since I am a fourth-grade teacher, it was especially helpful to see a fourth-grade example included. One thing I tell myself to work on every year is to work writing into math, science, and social studies. I do more than I used to but there are so many opportunities there to get students more writing time and to practice many different kinds of writing and I can take better advantage of that.
This chapter also states the importance of students needing to know just what is expected of them. It would help if I had a clearer picture of what is expected of them, too...and of what is expected of me. Writing has been and continues to be the subject I feel less prepared to teach and the one least supported by the district.
Student Writing Conferences, the main subject of chapter 9, are very new to me. I tried to work some in last year but I used up way too much time on them and they felt less than useful to me. I will be reading this chapter again and focusing on the mistakes I made and how I can better incorporate formal and roving conferences into my writing instruction. I already see it will take some major changes to my usual methods but I can also see how valuable that one-on-one meeting would be especially for my struggling writers.
Assessment has been a work-in-progress for me over the years. Time is always such a factor and I rarely feel I give enough time to the assessment of my students’ writing. There’s a peak whenever the state writing assessments approach, but it isn’t consistent throughout the year. The “child-friendly rubrics” are a great idea because I’ve seen how effective they can be when I focus on them during state assessment time...I just don’t use them throughout the year. I can change that practice, though, and having students improve in assessing their own work is a huge step in helping them deliver their best work every time. It seems to come down to criteria...students understanding what’s expected from them as well as my understanding of what’s expected of me.
Chuck Fall
ReplyDeleteAssignment 5
Chapter 7: Be Efficient…Reflection
To start my reflection, I took the prompt from the assignment sheet and reviewed the passage on 144. The juxtaposition of the “before” and “after” the “four major changes” reveals one class focused on the details with another class focused on conducting a meaningful writing workshop. When teaching writing, Regie writes, “teach from the whole to the parts…teach concept first and label later…learning then becomes easier.” I am persuaded that building efficiencies and creating “meaningful” activities is absolutely critical. As I mentioned earlier, I have to get my hands around this Optimal Learning Method because it is the central structure used in the Discipline…text I am reading by Sprink. Back to “can’t see the forest for the trees…” I love grammatical structures, trees in our forest of text. I love the way Steinbeck and many journalists use the prepositional phrases to describe or use complex sentences to create variety and inform. Now I know I have to put this passion on the back burner and focus on getting the students writing a lot and then assigning them, individually, or in pairs, to build in complex and varied sentence structures where appropriate and possible. Writing meaningful stuff should motivate students to revise (“build a revision consciousness”) and make more interesting and informative.
Regie emphasizes again the need to be explicit about “why” a lesson is important and valuable. I think framing all of our work in the context of state standards is fine to do, but I also agree with Regie that prior to asserting the virtue of the standard, it is better to create a routine in the classroom around meaningful and authentic work. She does elevate “voice” as one of the writing traits. In Oregon, readers of state tests are not assigning any value (point wise) to “voice” in writing because it is too subjective. Nevertheless, elevating voice provides the student the individual expression in writing and it provides a great context for teaching word choice, sentence fluency and even use of conventions to express that nuanced “voice.” Perhaps asking students to select a sentence or two that reveals their unique voice could be a way to “celebrate” and quickly cover half the class one day and the other half the next.
Again, Regie says “include audience…” at the start of a writing assignment; use the optimal learning model to model revising a draft; create word walls, demonstrate word mapping; do a lot of writing aloud; use short texts for demos and guided practice; use free verse poetry writing; integrate a daily sustained timed writing (to build fluency); write for a purpose and audience; all of these recommendations appeal to me.
Chuck Fall Chapter 8 reflection:
ReplyDeleteI like Regie’s definition of a writing workshop: the place where all phases of the writing process occurs, from free writing to conferencing. However, she is also emphasizing the need for kids to know exactly what is expected of them for each phase whether it be receiving direct instruction (demo) or co-constructing text in a guided practice. Regie hammers on the point about each writer “communicating a message to an intended reader…” In a successful learning environment the teacher is supportive, provides room for negotiation, explicitly instructs writing and explains the value of the lesson. She emphasizes modeling brainstorming topics and recommends teaching how to choose a topic so the writer feels passion and is motivated to complete the assignment. Talking about topics and the process of thinking about writing is what makes writing workshop a social process and effective. At my school, I have seen a big push to use the graphic organizer as a way to structure topic sentence with evidence from the text and a “so what” commentary for analysis writing. But the exercise was hollow, meaningless, because many fail to really connect with the original assignment (which is often assigned and without much choice).
Building trust is a priority for me next year. Regie suggests an OLM writing workshop structure should facilitate and cultivate trust, something I look forward to fostering. I really appreciate the need for regular routines and a predictable structure around what goes on in class. I want the structures I see a workshop classroom provides. I am thinking of starting the year with “writing about snapshots” as a way for students to get to know one another; I also like the “heart” poems exercise. This chapter is filled with great ideas. I will be digesting this information intensely as I organize my daily schedule for the next year.
Chapter 9 Reflection:
I see we will practice doing a student conference in Assignment 7, so I will not reflect much on this chapter, expect to say that they work best when they are conducted while students are silently writing. I conference with students but not enough during the smaller projects. I am hopeful that I could foster by directly teaching how to do “peer conferencing.” I will be using more little assignments, letting students choose their favorite to “take to the next level’ and make it better. Using conferencing (as a guided practice) of student work should go a long way for teaching the difference between revising and editing.
Chuck Fall Chapter 10 reflection on assessment:
ReplyDeleteI appreciate Regie’s remark about not grading all the writing that students do. And all her counsel about putting rubrics into perspective is important. In getting ready for this September, I will be revising how I grade. But again, Regie puts meaningful teaching, doing a lot of writing for a reason with an audience, first. So I am going to define what I want a basic day to look like, define the essential learning goals for each class, determine the thematic units I will offer/ the novels we will read, and then decide how I will assess whether or not the students have learned the defined goals. I agree that doing “daily assessment” in the course of conducting writing workshop is probably one of the more important “assessment” practices a teacher can do; at any given moment they can see whether a student is getting it, or not.
My English department at Benson Polytechnic has been working to “vertically align” around strategies for each grade. And throughout the whole school, the administration is trying to get all the disciplines to vertically align around doing summary writing, for example. So I will be taking into consideration departmental objectives.
I do want students to write a quarterly and an end of the year portfolio reflection of their writing. I like the idea of starting the year with a writing prompt that establishes the “baseline” for the student to measure progress. Expecting students to stay organized is something else I will try to foster by connecting “order in the folder” with the Portfolio grade, or perhaps I will connect it to participation points. I am still thinking about the percentages of values of quizzes, daily writing, polished pieces, major writing assignments, etc. I will be using the daily traits as the rubric for scoring the final pieces. I realize I need to get some examples of “excellent” student writing to give them an idea of a 5 and a 6 in ideas and content, and organization, for example.
S. Ortega
ReplyDeleteCh. 7 There was lots of good information that I found very interesting: conventions, spelling, revision process, teaching explicitly(why we do …..) and focusing on quality first. I can see how teaching each skill in isolation takes the fun out of writing and turns it into work. One of my goals for this next year is to implement the four key changes that are listed on page 144 of the book. I believe that when we are writing about something that is important to us, the writing is easier and it flows, and the voice of the writer shines through.
Ch. 8 I am not too worried about finding the time in my class schedule to do writing; I already have had that scheduled. What I am excited about is how I can make changes so that the time we use is more productive for my students. I plan to use the optimal learning model regularly. Another idea I will take from the book is the whole-class share.
My other “ aha” moment was seeing that I can integrate writing into my other subjects. Although I do have a set writing time each day, there are times that writing would get shortened or bumped due to assemblies or other activities that would get squeezed into our day. Now I can see that I can add the writing to my science or social studies.
Ch. 9 After reading this chapter I think that my writing conferences will be more productive. In the past I have met with students one on one and had conferences with them. I always start with what I like about the piece and then move onto what I want them to work on. Most of my comments had to do with conventions and spelling. I think now I can ask them questions that will make them think about their content too. I like the idea of having a conference just about the content first and then doing the conference for conventions. I think this will help me train myself to first take care of purpose and content before moving onto spelling and conventions.
I also learned that there are many types of conferences and that I don’t need to feel the pressure to meet with each student individually for all their writing. I plan to incorporate the five types listed in the book. I also like how through the conferencing the responsibility of the writing is placed on the student. The other piece to successful conferencing is to have the class well trained so that I can be focused on the student.
Ch. 10 This chapter on assessment was eye opening. I think this chapter explains what I have been doing and getting the same results on the state test that other teachers have had. I have tried teaching to the test, going over the score guides with the class, evaluating writing samples, teaching the writing traits in isolation, etc. My test scores still didn’t rise to my expectations.
I like the idea of having a writing portfolio with some writing samples from the student throughout the year to show student improvement from year to year.
I plan to continue to use rubrics, but ones that as a class we write so that it is in their language and they have put thought into it. Giving them the pre-made rubrics, even in student language, it seems they don’t apply them the way they would if they created their own.
When it comes to assessing it is a relief to hear that teachers do not need to grade each assignment. In the past I have tried to do this. I hadn’t thought about the fact that just giving them the practice without the grade is beneficial to the student too. The real teaching comes from the mini-lessons, conferencing and sharing not so much the grade on the paper.
My goal with assessment will be to teach the students to be effective at evaluating their own writing and a partners writing. I expect this to be a long and on-going process, but very valuable in moving them along as writers. In the past, I have often felt like I was the one getting all the practice at editing and revising. I plan to implement the “Don’t waste my time” theory, and give more responsibility to my students before I help them finish up their editing process.
In chapter 7 I loved the idea of just focusing on the writing and using the writing to create your mini-lessons. I get a little nervous about overloading the kids, so for me it would be beneficial to use her method of looking at the work and focusing my thoughts before the sharing period. What a powerful tool sharing can be. I also see I have become very focused on conventions. I loved the part on page 160 where she starts to address the editing. "Truly editing is the easy part, but it only matters if students have a piece of writing worth reading." Meaning content and revision are the most important part for the student. Also, keeping in mind that what I say as a teacher during this process will spur them on or set them back. I will be doing some retraining in this area, but I love the whole idea.
ReplyDeleteThe importance of spelling and word walls was another great section. I think I have the perfect place in my room for a word wall. I also liked how she spent time with the words she put up on the wall. Sticky tack will allow us to manipulate these words when needed.
Chapter 8 was a great review and had some additonal thoughts for me. I do run my writing in a workshop style. Our writing time is set but sometimes our schedule does not lend itself to 5 days of at least one hour. Adding writing to the content area would be helpful. I do some, but see that I can add more making it more meaningful for the kids. My style of mini-lesson will change and not be so independent from what they are working on. I try to integrate it as much as possible, but loved how she conducted her whole group share and did mini-lessons from students work. On page 198-199 I appreciated her list of short writing ideas. They were simple, but meaningful. They would not drag on and on.
Chapter 9 listed out the 5 ways to conference. I loved how simple, but effective they were. By doing these conferences you can then use that data when doing a whole class share to hit on items that need to be addressed. When it comes to conferencing, I agree that teaching students how to listen, what to look for, and so on is important. You can only expect to see what you teach. If you do not teach it, demonstrate it, practice it, you will not see it. The part about making a conference productive, whether it is for content, revision, or editing, will be very usful. I have tagged several pages that I know I will need to refer back on in the fall. Part of that is the language you use during conferences that seems critical.
My favorite part of chapter 10 was the personal rubric produced with the classes help. Making that rubric after you have done a shared writing giving the students a little more to help develop their ideas. I also appreciated the comments on state-wide tests verses looking at the student over the year and how they have grown and progressed as a writer. Basically have your students write everyday, using meaningful topics, meanwhile, as the teacher, I am constantly assessing and then using this data and information to form my lessons.
Grading writing is hard for me. I find it hard to put a letter grade on their work. I usually look at the student's ability and see what they have been doing and what they are now doing. I love the idea of using the rubrics to help guide this process. Maybe by focusing on the rubric (expectations) it will make it a little more clear when it comes to grading.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was very beneficial as it specifically addressed many questions I had about teaching writing. I loved how they compared the “before” and “after” plan for writing instruction from the teacher in Colorado. It made me feel more confident about my scope and sequence that I’ve created for my second graders. I’ve based mine on authentic, child-driven writing projects and cover additional details in mini-lessons. I really liked having a page of ideas on what topics are appropriate for mini-lessons and also the suggestion of keeping mini-lessons short. I believe that I need to start timing myself, because I have been known to talk too much. : ) The chapter was also great because it answered questions that I’ve had about spelling and word walls. There were interesting connections that were made between spelling and word walls. I look forward to implementing Regie’s ideas of making the word wall an active piece in classroom instruction. I have a great start on my word wall, but aside from telling kids the first week of school about the word wall, I haven’t touched it. With Regie’s tips, I now know more effective ways to integrate it into my literacy program.
Chapter 8
I fully agree with Regie that if you value something, time can be made for it. Although it can be a challenge, we teach writing for 45 minutes, every day of the week. Of course, we miss a day or two now and then, but we try and stick to the schedule. Like Regie states, it’s easier for kids to learn writing by doing a little bit of it every day. I liked how she gave some guidelines for the Writer’s workshop, but then let the teachers modify it slightly to fit their needs and time constraints. I loved the quote from the child who said that it was easy for him to write about something he chose and he liked. A simple, obvious concept, and yet it proved to be a good reminder for me. Another section that was valuable was how to teach students to choose worthwhile topics. I’d like to remember her guidelines for topics: Do you care about the topic? Can you tell a lot about it? Can you include appropriate and interesting details? Regie also recommended having students pair up and tell their partner about what they are planning on writing about. It’s so clear- but I’ve never tried this in writing. I use think-pair-share a lot in other areas, but it would be a great way to get the kids ideas flowing by sharing and asking questions. The “Peer Talk” or “Turn and Talk” that Regie mentions is great and I’ll be sure to incorporate this in my teaching.
By far, my favorite idea of the book was to Use Writing Perform Acts of Kindness on page 202. Very very cool! I will be trying these with my children without a doubt. In today’s society of email and online networking, a handwritten note is worth a lot!
Chapter 9
I’m also really glad that Regie included a chapter about Conferencing. Often times, I feel like I fall into a rut during my conference and say the same routine things. Her chapter gave me a lot of great ideas about how to vary my conferences and keep them short, but meaningful. I liked the part about group conferencing too, and I had never heard about that. One idea that I’m going to make sure to include in next year’s writers workshop is the conference note-taking sheet as seen on page 217. I’d like to use this with my class and meet with each student at least once during the week. The note sheets could then be kept in a binder, which would help during parent teacher conferences and report cards. I also gained the idea of not writing on the child’s paper. I’m sorry to say that I’ve always done this and it does not show the right level of respect for their work. The teaching tips and checklists for content and editing conferences were great too. It was a nice way to synthesize the chapter.
Chapter 10
ReplyDeleteWriting assessment has always been a struggle for me. I tend to think about the child and grade higher than I should. We’ve had many meetings based on how to grade our writing assessments and we all grade a little differently. I know that this is to be expected, but I liked reading the chapter about assessment. I’d like to re-create the writing rubric from page 241 and use it in my class. I prefer the kid friendly language of this rubric and I think that it could become an excellent self-check for students. I do appreciate Regie’s reminder to keep the focus on the child- not the rubric! One of the greatest things is that Regie says to not grade everything they write. I haven’t done this due to time constraints, but now I feel better about it! Plus I’ve always thought that it would affect my writing, if everything I did was scored! I would lose some of the joy of the process. Lastly I liked the Aim for Fluency section on page 246. It was a great way to wrap up the goals of this section. These guidelines will help me outline my writer’s workshop lessons.
It was a very long section, but I found it quite valuable!
Sorry again...I must have gotten wordy this week.
ReplyDeleteThe rubric is important for all students to understand and to have as a tool. We talk about the rubric all year so they know the components of a good piece of quality writing. I am also big on expressing and reviewing expectations. By the end of the year my students should know the rubric almost by heart. We use it with each formal piece of essay writing we do.
The best data I take is from their journal writing. I can clearly see if they have transferred the skills that have been taught because they are doing them without thought. I also keep a copy in their portfolios of a journal piece of writing each trimester and the pre-post writings to show parents at conference time so that, we, together can celebrate their child’s success as a writer and learner. It is a powerful piece to share.
Oh and to make things even worse the first part didn't post before the sencond. I'm on a roll.
ReplyDeleteHeather Farnsworth
Essentials of Writing
Assignment #5
July 26, 2010
I agree that DOL does not transfer. It took my first year of teaching to prove to myself that it just isn’t worth the time. Instead, I make a bracket around a small portion of the students piece and we, at first conference about conventions that can be improved, then, when I have conference with all students I turn those individual lessons into mini convention lessons. Since they see that I use their piece of writing to teach from they try more, and they are more engaged because they are more invested in the process of writing. My students also have a sense of their audience. I guess you could say they my students see the exercise meaningful.
When I think aloud, my students can hear the commentary of my thoughts. This transfers to their writing. Many times, my students chat to themselves while they are writing at their desks, or special spots. It also focuses me when I am teaching.
My district pays attention to the state standards. I have them posted behind my desk. I circle the standards that spiral through my curriculum. Then cross off the standards that I have covered, taken grades on and reported.
I do not use a word wall in my room. I have never figured out an efficient way to keep it ongoing and current. I have also found them a pain when doing spelling tests. My students use quick words. These are like a personal word book. I found this works best for my teaching and for my learners.
Writing workshop for me is a time during the day that students are activity working on a piece of writing that they are interested in going though the writing process with. During this time I ma conferencing, and doing individual and mini lessons. We are also working on word building skills and vocabulary. In addition to celebrating our writing through publishing and presenting. I like to keep the topic of the piece broad so my students have the opportunity to adapt and be creative within the broad parameters of the assignment.
Finding the time to write everyday has never been an issue for me. I place the writing curriculum within every content area whether it is social studies, health..etc. Students come in during the morning and have a choice of writing ideas, one includes a free write. I find that some of my students need to release their home baggage before school starts in order to focus for the day at school.
My schedule has not been issued to us yet for next school year and will definitely differ from my previous schedule due to my classroom design. I will be teaching a straight grade level so I will not have to work around my teaching partners schedule in order to switch for writing, reading, math and health groups. However I do include a think aloud at morning bell and after lunch recess to focus students. From there I like to include an hour for writer’s workshop and some time during the day to free write in journals.
Conferencing with students is a powerful tool for success. Students see their writing as important to read and you get to connect with the student on a personal level and teach. It is what you put into it and it is worth the time it takes. There are many different conferences. I do my critique individual. In public I have my students evaluate by expressing to their peer two stars and a wish. This way they are being reinforced for the great things, but also getting some feedback from their audience. When doing my individual conferencing I try to do 8 a day, so it will take me about five days to get to all students. Then I do mini-lessons with their pieces in between, as mentioned above.
Assignment #5: Chapter 7-10 Reflections
ReplyDeleteCh. 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Skills
There are so many standards, rubrics, procedures and skills that we have to cover in the realm of writing. In order to be efficient, you must integrate skills. Otherwise, you won’t be able to cover it all.
Routman talks about teaching whole- to part – to whole. I completely agree that this makes it easier for students to learn and understand the process. I enjoyed her analogy about the puzzle. It would be much harder to complete a puzzle without looking at the picture on the front of the box first. We can’t expect students to produce and perform if they don’t know the expectations and have the tools (from modeling, shared writing, etc.) to succeed. Teaching skills in isolation makes it difficult for the students to transfer and apply the skill.
I absolutely concur with Routman when she talks about how our lessons should arise from what we see the kids doing, or not doing, in their writing. Students’ writing should inform our instruction.
I think teaching explicitly and telling students the purpose of the task furthers their comprehension and development. In addition, integrate standards and don’t teach them in isolation.
During a busy school year it is important to be efficient and integrate skills and standards into lessons, while also adjusting mini lessons based on student need. Teaching writing is an integrative craft.
Ch. 8: Organize for Daily Writing
Reggie discusses how in order for writing workshop to be effective the teacher must be organized and have good classroom management skills. The students must know the requirements, expectations and routines.
I believe students need to focus on the fact that when they write they are communicating a message to an intended reader. I think this makes them more invested in their writing, knowing it has a purpose and an audience.
Reggie writes about how writing everyday is essential. Even if she quits writing for a day or two, it takes a while to get back into the swing of things. Writing everyday increases fluency, confidence and stamina. Teachers often claim there isn’t enough time to emphasize writing for that much time in the instructional day. She declares that there is time if you value it, and you will integrate it.
Providing more choice within a meaningful structure is imperative to student engagement. Regardless of content, students are always more engaged when given choice in the activity or project. The structure has to be broad enough so that students have the ability to personalize and write about what they know.
I like how Reggie expands on the definition of pre-write. Including reading, research, illustrating and observing allow students to develop a stronger schema for their writing.
Organizing student writing can be difficult. Since I work with over 70 students, each student has a journal. I keep those in tubs based on groups. Then I create a file portfolio of student work throughout the year to demonstrate growth.
Organization maximizes teaching and writing time.
Ch. 9: Conferencing
ReplyDeleteReggie discusses the number of purposes for conferences and the multiple venues. Conferences are important in order to validate, encourage, nudge, teach, assess and set goals. They can be long or short, public or private. The student work gets addressed. It is important to start with something positive. Encouragement will help students flourish as writers. Students enjoy positive feedback. During the conference you can listen to and affirm their writing. A whole class share can be highly effective. It is a chance to celebrate and help the writer move forward. Reggie points out that it is important to prepare to share. Giving the students a chance to read their writing silently or with a partner reduces their anxiety and increases fluency.
It is important to be generous with praise. This is something I need to work on with students. I need to be generous with specific praise on their writing.
Conferencing is such an integral part of writing. As Reggie says, it allows time for listening, affirming, reinforcing, assessing, teaching, scaffolding, and setting goals. I will utilize her language of helpful response this coming school year.
Ch. 10: Make Assessment Count
Standardized measures exist due to accountability. Reggie discusses how standardized test preparation hardly improves daily instruction. Just writing to the prompt and filling out a familiar graphic organizer will not suffice.
She emphasizes the author’s voice and the powerful language of the writer that makes the writing memorable, not correct grammar and punctuation. One of the most powerful stories I remember was when a student described the moment he boarded the plane to move from Mexico. He exemplified his fears and excitement in descriptive language. His grammar or syntax was not perfect, but his voice was strong and present.
It is important to reduce test anxiety. I remember the stress of the teacher and the 4th grade students this year as they geared for the state assessment. There was so much focus on performing that I think the students were nervous and anxious. Telling the students what to expect can limit anxiety.
Assessing everyday informally or formally is essential to adjusting and modifying instruction based on student need. Assessment can be done through whole class share, conversations, journals, summaries, etc.
Assessing allows us to push students and hold them to higher standards. Students are motivated when they know they will use writing throughout their lives to communicate. Purpose and high expectations help to set them up for success.
Amy Jensen
ReplyDeleteWriting Essentials
Assignment #5
Wow! There was a lot of information in these four chapters! I have many tabs sticking out of my book. There are so many try it lessons that are useful and will be easy to access throughout the year. I realize this book can't be shelved when finished but rather revisited throughout the school year, especially when planning and thinking about my writing lessons.
I will be using the lesson example in chapter 8 about the snapshots of each student. What a fun way to get to know your students. I love that you get them motivated first, set purpose and then demonstrate the thinking and writing. It will be a shift for me to go back and label what I taught after I modeled first. I tend to front load a lot of terms and labels before modeling it. I also love that you model the writing before you set the criteria.
I was inspired by the letter writing. We have done pen pals with other 4th graders in the past which is always exciting and fun. I like giving them choices though, writing to people they want to write to is a great idea. I think I will have my kids write an appreciation letter about each student in the class and make books for the kids at the end of the year. I loved the idea of having a gratitude board too! Great community builder!
What I am hearing over and over in this book is the importance of a lot of demonstrating, a lot of shared writing and a lot of writing practice. If good teaching is the key to getting kids to write better and pass that test, then I really need to reflect on my teaching practices and make sure I am using the OLM and inspiring true writers!
I am planning to have more conversations about writing. I loved her example of an on the spot conversation with a student to get her story started. Having that conversation out loud in front of everyone is so powerful! I also loved later in chapter 9 that she showed how to do a whole class share. Again, all that modeling and talking in front of the kids is valuable teaching time to get the message across.
The assessment in our district is already laid out for us. We give a prompt as a baseline at the beginning of the year and one at the end. These are cross scored and put in portfolios. All of our standards and expectations to teach and access are clearly laid out in a map for us. However, we are allowed to get them there anyway we want. (We do not have a writing program in place.) I am feeling much better about teaching the writing map next year after reading all of Regie's valuable tips and information!
Chapter Seven:
ReplyDeleteThe concept of integrating skill work into student writing works great for the high school levels, where students have put many grammar and mechanics into repeated practice. I give a diagnostic at the beginning of the year to focus on which areas need to be covered and choose where to review topics based on the other writing and reading curriculum. At the high school level, daily language exercises that are out of context often bores or alienates the students, since they have had the lessons many times before. They may still need instruction, but not in the same manner they have had before.
In Elizabethan England, primary students wrote the same message from the point of view of differing segments of society, which allowed them to write in specific voices. I have used this idea with a few assignments, but am eager to try writing FOR differing audiences, as well. I believe in situational appropriateness when it comes to grammar, voice, and mechanics, and believe focussing on audience in writing assignments will give the students the ability to write with more flexibility.
One thing I am concerned about is the new grading for state testing. If computers are used to grade writing, how will the students be able to focus on voice and avoid "stifled" writing. I have a feeling that we will find less creativity in our students' writing or lower skills if we allow more individual voice. If we are to follow the ideas put forth in this text, then English teachers will have to voice their own opinions about Oregon's approach to testing writing.
I liked the bit of teaching the importance of spelling and conventions by focussing on the act of communication and keeping things in context. Using curriculum from other classes has helped my students identify the importance of learning word parts, and have often had students respond as to where they found the word parts in use in other classes. This has helped build interest in these areas and has improved the spelling of words that use word parts. I am fascinated by the concept that the number of mis-spellings in a document directly affects the understanding of content and am going to use action research to test the theory. Altering a document to have differing numbers and types of mis-spellings and convention errors, and then having the students take comprehension tests to see if the theory holds will give me a little more evidence to show the students.
Chapter Eight:
ReplyDelete"...if we don't teach writing at least four days a week for at least forty-five minutes, we shouldn't bother to teach it at all." Sorry if I am belaboring this point, but this is one of my complaints about Routman's approach. My classes are 52 minutes a piece, so what proportion of my high school class should I devote to writing? Again, Routman's examples are great for the elementary level, but not so much for high school. I wish she would give at least one example for the high school teachers reading her text. The examples of schedules she gives are for first- and fourth grades and don't reflect the reality of other levels of teaching.
That being said, I do intend to use her approach in at least my creative writing course, where students must write every day to improve their creative skills. The idea of talking about writing and using constructive discussions will allow my students to discover more on their approach to creatively writing for different audiences, with different voices, and in different genres. In order for this to happen, the "climate of trust" and celebration will be paramount.
Our daily routine is constantly interupted by announcements and useless assemblies. I can count on at least two interuptions for every 52-minute class and there are at least five weeks of the year where the classes in the second half of the day are cancelled for non-educational activities. I feel I can work on this on two fronts: asking to change procedures on calling students out of class, and attempting to anticipate disturbances a little more. I hope one or both of these will be more of a success next year, so I can establish daily writing routines.
I liked the procedures of keeping writing records for my students; something I have always wanted to do but lacked the organization skills or time to implement the procedures. Routman gives many ideas that are applicable to all levels and will help assist with p-t conferences and evidence for administration.
The latter portion of this chapter is where I find the most applicable ideas to my level of teaching. The "Try It Apply It" lists on page 198, and the information on teaching genres was especially helpful.
The book "Raising Happiness" provides more evidence on the effects of performing acts of kindness for others. Not only will this help my students' writing, but will also give them a more rewarding life. Too many of the students at my school live in tough home situations and I hope giving them a way of focussing on helping others will allow them to improve their lives.
Chapter Nine:
The concept of whole-class share is a life saver. When I have forty papers of ten pages coming in to me, I find little time to give the students the attention I feel they deserve to improve their writing. I will use more whole-class sharing to get to the common challenges my students have. I also need to implement the reading of papers with peers more consistently. This will allow one more level of revision for students, both the readers and writers.
Routman's suggestions for one-on-one conferences is another life saver for me. I often spend hours making suggestions on simple grammar concepts, when I could be spending more time on message and audience. However, I will have to find a way to overcome the students' ideas that I am responsible for letting them know about every mistake made in the paper. I find that many of my students will only correct where I make suggestions and rarely fix other instances, even if it is the same mistake.
With so many students, papers, and pages, I often get bogged down and eventually negative about the editing experience, which makes me limit the number of writing assignments I give. With implementing better conference approaches, I am excited about having more time for my life and being the teacher I want to be: someone who puts the writer first and is "empathetic, nurturing, validating, gently nudging."
Chapter Ten:
ReplyDeleteWhile state rubrics have given me a way of discussing writing with my students, I have found that even the papers that score highly are not interesting to read. The joy of reading student papers has rarely been my experience. I am glad that Routman addresses this in this chapter. I am a bit concerned about the concept of "writing for a specific reader" for our state tests when that reader will be an inanimate computer. How will this change our teaching and the end product?
I loved the concept of writing FOR learning as opposed to the writing OF learning. This will be especially helpful with the research papers our seniors write. I don't want research REPORTS of ten pages, but research PAPERS, which reflect the students' answering questions and satisfying their own curiosity.