Welcome to Essentials of Writing! We look forward to working and learning with you. In order for everyone to get the most out of the course, please be sure to read and respond to each others comments. Please try to keep your responses within one allotted "comment" space to ensure that the blog remains manageable for all participants.
Also, you may want to type your comments in a Word Document and either copy from Word and paste onto the blog or save it in a folder on your computer and then post it to the blog. I have written a couple of lengthy comments that I lost before I was able to post it to the blog. This extra step may save you some frustration later on this term.
Last of all, we will write our comments to your posts on the blog, so you will need to check back to the corresponding week for feedback (and to make additional comments if you wish.)
Let us know if you have any questions. You can email us, but please put the words "Question for Essentials of Writing" in the subject line so that we can respond in a timely fashion.
ASSIGNMENT ONE: Post your Introduction to the course Blog.
Introduction Post- Tell us about yourself. Where do you teach? What grade do you teach? How long have you been teaching? How many students are there in your class? Do you have instructional support? What does your current literacy program look like? (If you aren’t currently teaching let us know.) What is your knowledge/training in the area of literacy (be specific about your experiences teaching writing?) Does your district provide training in literacy –especially writing? If so, what exactly have they offered? Has your district been bogged down with getting students to perform well on state writing assessments – prompts? How do you feel about teaching? Are you happy at work? Also, let us know a little about you outside of the classroom: Interests/ Hobbies/Family Life? What do you hope to get out of this course? Post your reflection to the blog.
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ReplyDeleteMy name is Mariah Seymour and I have been working in education for about 8 years. I received my teaching license 3 years ago (I am ECE/ELE certified). Currently, I don't have my own classroom, but I do substitute teach for the North Clackamas School District.
ReplyDeleteI love teaching. The energy of the students keeps things exciting and I have never seen my job as work. My dream grade to teach would be first, because first graders are still full of the awe of discovery, but old enough that they can voice their learning desires.
When I'm not teaching, I'm either avidly reading several books, going on an outdoor adventure, or experimenting in the kitchen (I love to cook and bake). I also like to spend time with my family and friends and have good conversation (especially over a yummy meal!).
My experiences teaching writing are few: during my student teaching experience, I taught a poetry unit to 5th graders, as well as a unit on editing narrative essays. I do, however, have a bit of experience grading state writing papers (which is something I really enjoy doing). I also lack sufficient formal writing training. During my teacher prep courses, my professors focused on reading instruction, and I have not had an opportunity since to take any writing training. My lack of experience with teaching writing coupled with my lack of formal training in writing are the reasons why I decided to take this course. I hope to become acquainted with the basic framework of teaching writing at the elementary level and start building my knowledge base from there.
Mariah - Welcome to our course. I think that with your reflection on Regie’s text, you will definitely start to fill up that void on professional development in writing. It definitely seems as though any group of first graders would be lucky to have you guiding them along their instructional journey :)
ReplyDeleteMy name is Allison Hunt. I currently teach 1st grade at North Marion Primary. I have been teaching for 8 years. My class size has ranged between 20 and 30 students. Next year I anticipate having about 29 students in my class. I do not feel that there is a lot of instruction support in writing or other areas. We currently use the SFA program for Reading. Many teachers use some of Lucy Calkin's books to guide their writing instruction. I use some of her ideas as well as ones I have read about or learned at workshops using the 6 traits. I learned some strategies from my mentor teacher when I was student teaching, too.We sometimes have SFA trainings but no writing trainings. I love teaching first graders. This year has been a particularly difficult and stressful one. I am looking forward to spending time with my daughter and learning more about how to teach writing. I have a 15 month old daughter, husband and 2 dogs. I enjoy stroller walks, farmers markets and hanging out with friends and family. I am hoping to learn some new strategies to not only teach my students the correct mechanics of writing but how to creatively write. I want them to be inspired!
ReplyDeleteWelcome Allison! WOW!!! 29 first graders is a really large group of first graders! I hope that this course and Regie’s text support your learning goals for your first grade writers. Let me know as we go how I can best support you!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy name is Leah Feller. I teach at first grade at North Marion Primary. I have been teaching for 29 years, hardly seems possible. This year I had between 24-26 first graders. I have had up to 29 students in my class. We use SFA (Success for All) for our reading program. We have had trainings for our components. This program also has literacy elements built into it. The district has not provided any training for writing. I use Lucy Calkins books throughout the year to give me a frame to help with my students writing. I love teaching, especially the little ones. My students this year were very enthusiastic writers. I want to bring out that enthusiasm with my ELL students and the students with very low skills.
ReplyDeleteWhen I am not teaching I like to visit with my friends and family. I have a 23 year old son I am very proud of. I enjoy working out and taking long walks. I love the beach.
Hi Leah! Whatever you did when posting this comment…it worked I’m curious as to what you did differently because every once in a while we get someone who has difficulty posting for some unknown reason. Anyway, welcome to the course. I think that Regie’s text will be a great resource for your grade 1 writing instruction and a great match for the work you’ve done with Lucy Calkins. 29 years of teaching is amazing…all first grade? It’s so wonderful (and encouraging) that you still love what you do!
ReplyDeleteMy name is Ashley Madison, and I have been teaching 7th grade Language Arts at Centennial Middle School (CMS) for seven years. Class size is between 30 to 35 students in each class. The district has been able to maintain instructional support for special education and ELL students—mostly a push in model, with specialized instruction pull out during PE and electives. Reading, writing, social studies, math, and science are all separate classes at CMS, and students receive equal instructional time in each subject area. There is a lot of literacy training in my district, but the focus at my school is mostly reading. There is usually resistance to making writing a focus—especially when it comes to the question, “How am I going to grade that?” This is a very valid question now, because we have shifted to standards based grading practices. However, the writing teachers do get to go to writing-specific trainings and conferences. CMS literacy program trainings have always been school-wide. The current school (and district) focus is the Reading Apprenticeship (RA) program. Writing teachers are last to be trained, since RA has a lot to do with comprehending information from textbooks, and we don’t really use textbooks. RA doesn’t seem too far off from any best practice or previous trainings like SOS or SIOP.
ReplyDeleteSince I have taught just 7th grade writing for the last seven years, I have administered the state writing test, which was moved from 8th to 7th grade eight years ago, every year. Yes, there has always been a lot of pressure on those scores, but that goes away this year since the 7th grade writing test is temporarily suspended. Our numbers on the writing test were always pretty low, and we (7th grade writing teachers) took a lot of heat for that…which didn’t seem fair since we only had the students for about four months before administering the test. Anyway, now we just have work samples to provide a snapshot of paper-writing ability as measured by the six traits, and that is fine with me.
My tenure in teaching started out at what seemed like the best of times. The last couple of years, however, have been a little rough. I love teaching, but the economy being what it is—morale is low. Teachers are being asked to do more with less, are torn apart in the media, and are losing their jobs by the hundreds. The last few years have been really difficult—my whole department turned over one year because of lay-offs and bumping. Also, wondering if your head is next on the chopping block every year is not a good feeling. Teaching is very demanding, and I love the demands—I thrive on them. I have learned to hold on to those special moments when you do get a little thanks, usually from a student, and to be very present and positive in my job. I could easily be waiting tables next year, and that kind of thinking brings me down.
Among all the changes happening as a result of a new school schedule and not administering the writing test next year, I am actually gaining a lot of instructional time. This class seems like the perfect place to pick up some tricks and be reminded of those basic skills that have been pushed to the side, but can now be brought back or taught more thoroughly. Outside of teaching, like most Portlanders, I enjoy the outdoors. I am an avid runner, and enjoy hiking, snowboarding, and spending time at the pool with my ten-year-old son.
Hi. My name is Phil Anderson and I am a 4/5 blend teacher at Willamette Primary in the West Linn/Wilsonville School District. I just finished my third year of teaching, all at the same grade level and classroom. Last year my classroom ended with 29 students. I do have instructional support, mostly from our teacher librarian and from specialists from the resource room (IEPs).
ReplyDeleteAs with many elementary teachers in the West Linn/Wilsonville school district, I am given the Lucy Calkins “Launch an Intermediate Writing Workshop” writing curriculum. I used this resource throughout my first year teaching, and it was a great guide to creating a foundation for a writing workshop. The curriculum itself is very cumbersome and overwhelming. Each writing unit has its own book, with each lesson being numerous pages. As you can probably guess, reading through all these pages each day is very time consuming, and it became more difficult to find the time to read these units as the year went on. After my first year, I rarely picked up the curriculum, but still use many of the units from my first year today. As with many other curriculums, there is more information then you can teach in a year, but I have a very difficult time with the layout and the amount of information in the Lucy Calkins’ books. Currently I team with my 4/5 team, and create lesson plans with them, as well as use new lesson plans that I have created and found during my last three years.
The 4th grade writing test is a point of focus in my school, but I don’t feel as though I am being pushed too hard to ensure my students perform. It is however still an expectation. I work in the West Linn/ Wilsonville school district, which is of high socio-economic status with a lot of parental assistance. I know many school don’t have that luxury. In the past, students typically performed well on state assessments, so it is not something that is pushed on teachers as much as it may be at other districts. Performing well on the tests is still an expectation, but our district is currently not in jeopardy of loosing funding as other districts may be. This year there will be no focus on the state writing test, because the test got suspended for 4th and 7th graders!
I am entering my 4th year of teaching, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. I really enjoy my school, and have a great principal and administration. I enjoy the teachers I work with as well. My class numbers have gone up, there is not as much support from TAs or special ed teachers, and my work load has gone up to make up for lose of personnel. This does create stress throughout the year, but I feel lucky to have a job and be teaching at a school that I feel values me. Being a fourth year teacher, my job has been in jeopardy each year, and the district has fought hard to to keep me. I am very appreciative of this.
Other than taking literacy classes through my MAT program at Lewis and Clark, the only literacy classes I have taken is the Authors, Authors, Authors class offered by TINT. My district does offer literacy classes from time to time, but I haven’t taken advantage of them yet. For example, they do offer to pay the entire tuition for the Oregon Writing Project, which I would like to take next summer. I do meet with my teaching team and discuss various literacy reading units and lessons with them.
I had shoulder surgery at the start of the summer, so I am going to cooped up during the start of summer hopefully getting better. When I am healthy, I enjoy surfing on the Oregon Coast, and skiing in Eastern Oregon during winter breaks. I am married and live in Canby. I have a dog named Maggie.
I hope to get lesson plans that I can use in the classroom, as well as new ways to teach units such as expository writing, narrative writing, fantasy writing and poetry. I would also like to see what other teachers are doing in their classrooms, and hopefully apply that to my curriculum. I am looking forward to reading through The Writing Essentials book.
Looking at the others, my post is a little long. Sorry!
Welcome Ashley and Phil!
ReplyDeleteAshley – I responded to your intro in the other course..and don't want to be repetitive. :)
Phil – Lucy Calkin’s books can tend to be very over whelming and filled with too much information for a teacher to be able to sift through on their own with all of the planning that needs to get done. You are very lucky that your school isn’t heavily focused on the results of state testing…and even luckier that you have the test suspended. However did you get so lucky? I love hearing that a teacher is enjoying their job, it seems as though I’ve been hearing that less and less lately! Best of luck as you heal from your shoulder surgery.
I think the state writing test in Oregon has been suspended for all schools. Here's a link that shows that:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2011/06/subcomittee_approves_oregon_de.html
My name is Regina Blevins and I teach for the Centennial School District. I took another class last year with you as my instructors and it was quite helpful! So here I am again. I teach 5th grade and usually I have between 28-30 students in my classroom. We are a Title school, so thankfully we do have a lot of support for literacy with coaches and there is extra funding to give extra support to those students who are lagging. My current literacy program is very focused on the reading aspect of the “To, with and by” Which consists of a mini- lesson, guided practice and independent student work. I tend to focus more heavily on reading and sometimes I neglect the writing aspect. Our district has offered training with the daily 5 which I found helpful and then some training with the 6 + 1 writing trait program. Both have been helpful it just is the problem that all teachers face, how to fit everything into the limited time of the school day.
ReplyDeleteTeaching… Thankfully I still love my job. This will be my tenth year and I still find it fascinating and challenging. I continually have to work at setting boundaries so that I don’t burn out. Outside of the classroom my interests are many. I love backpacking, running, yoga and my newest passion is travel. I know I'm on the late end of this course with just starting but I will catch up quickly! :)
Posting for Molly Frisch:
ReplyDeleteMy name is Molly Frisch and I am a first grade teacher at Roseway Heights School in Portland, Oregon. I have been teaching for 5 years and love my job. In September I will be greeting 26 new first graders.
I have used our district adopted Scott Foresman curriculum for much of my literacy program. I have used the books that come with this curriculum for my guided reading groups and have used the unit themes to teach new vocabulary each week. In addition to the curriculum I use our bookroom to get additional books for students to read in guided reading groups and I also have a big classroom library that students use daily. For writing I have used a Writing Notebook that exemplary teachers put together in our district that goes through different units of writing. There is an author’s study unit, a poetry unit, a personal narrative unit, etc. These have been helpful, but often I feel I am teaching just to the top of the class when I use the notebook and so that is one of the reasons I am taking this class. I want to be sure to be reaching all my students when I teach writing.
I was very fortunate to go to 2 writing trainings this year. Both trainings took place during the school day in a classroom with an exemplary teacher. We got to watch the teacher teach a writing lesson and then we got to interview the teacher to see how they set up their writing workshop and what strategies they use with their students to get them to be strong writers. It was very helpful to see a whole writing lesson in the same grade that I teach.
The district I work for, Portland Public Schools has really struggled to bring student writing scores up. I feel the pressure as a teacher to make sure my students are making the district benchmarks in writing. However, I think writing is the hardest subject to teach, and so I need more direction in how to be an effective writing teacher. I hope this class gives me the confidence and enthusiasm to be a better writing teacher. I want to learn more about how students learn to write well and how I can provide fun lessons where students feel success and enjoy writing.
A few things about me are I enjoy running around my neighborhood, (Piedmont in north Portland) I love to bake, (especially chocolate chip zucchini muffins!) and I am extremely excited to be an Aunt. My sister, Whitney gave birth to Nina on July 7th. I have loved getting to hold this beautiful baby.
Welcome Regina and Molly!
ReplyDeleteRegina – We’re glad you’re back for another course and that you find them supportive with your classroom instruction. You are very lucky that your district has provided you with such great professional development in both reading and writing (I love CAFÉ & 6 Traits), but as you mentioned, scheduling “IT ALL IN” is becoming one of the biggest stresses that teachers are having to face. Hope you are traveling to some exciting places this summer!
Molly – The best thing about a true writing workshop is that you are differentiating for all writers, no matter what their strengths and weaknesses are. Mini lessons teach needs that the majority of your writers have and then you can better individualize in both small group and individual conferences. It sounds as though your district/building has provided you with some great PD opportunities. The best training is being able to see one of your own colleagues in action. I hope that this course provides the support you are looking forward to move your writing instruction forward. Please let me know what I can help as we move through the course. Congrats on your new niece:)