ASSIGNMENT TWO: WRITTEN REFLECTION–Section One- The Essential Writing Life Chapters 1-3
Briefly reflect on the following comments written below from Chapters 1-3 and any additional thoughts that you have after reading these chapters.
Chapter 1: Simplify the Teaching of Writing• Simplify our teaching
• Becoming more knowledgeable about teaching writing
• Examine your beliefs
Regie gets to the heart of her book Writing Essentials with this quote on the final page of Chapter One: “By reducing the clutter in our teaching lives-the over-planning, the unnecessary activities, the paper load, all the ‘stuff’ that takes our time and energy and does little to improve teaching and learning-we bring joy back into our work and the world of our students.” Many of us work very hard and spend many hours complicating our teaching lives. In this book Regie will help you simplify your teaching life for your benefit and that of your students.
One of the frustrations that teachers encounter regularly is the ever changing “latest and best” writing programs that districts or states force on them and their students. With this revolving cycle of programs, teachers are spending too much time learning how to use the program rather than becoming better writing teachers. Regie explains that in the districts where students are the best writers, they are writing for real purposes and audiences and publishing their writing; teachers are not using prescribed writing programs.
Look at Appendix A (page A-2.) Examine your beliefs about writing by reading the statements about the writing process and marking true or false in your book. (Go ahead and write in your book, it’s OK! You can even use a pencil and mark very lightly if you want to.) We found this activity very enlightening. Let us know what you think after you complete the activity.
In your reflection for Section One, please include your thoughts about the following questions or statements:
• Regie demonstrates how to use the Optimal Learning Model (shown on the front cover and page 11) throughout the book. Consider how the Optimal Learning Model fits into your own instruction.
• As you think about how to teach writing so that all students can become successful, effective and joyful writers, reflect on how you presently teach the “12 Writing Essentials” (as described on pages 13-14 in the text) during your daily writing instruction. As we continue to read through Regie’s book, hopefully you will begin to see how you might make changes in your instruction to better incorporate these “12 Writing Essentials.”
Chapter 2: Start With Celebration
• Make sure writing is meaningful not just correct
• Use stories as springboards and ensure that ALL students hear stories
• Write in front of your students and connect home and school
The title of Chapter Two simply states, “Start with Celebration,” and that’s exactly what we need to do for our students. The celebration of all students’ writing needs to be put into the forefront and be made our first teaching goal. Celebrations should happen school-wide, within our classrooms and with students individually. As children begin to see themselves as successful writers, they will take more risks in their writing and in turn will become better writers who enjoy the writing process.
Another key point that Regie highlights in this chapter is to “make sure writing is meaningful, not just correct!” Students need to understand that writing is “enjoyable and for a real purpose and audience.” She also reminds us “that teaching skills in isolation does not make student writers; neither does teaching to the test. And breaking writing into bits and pieces robs children of the joy of writing.”
Regie suggests using stories as a springboard for teaching and learning. Hearing and telling stories builds our students’ oral language skills and these stories are “an entryway into reading and writing.” Only when students are reading and writing real stories can they connect the “skills” based learning to their reading and writing!
Please include your thoughts about the following questions or statements in your written reflection of Section One:
• Regie explains how important celebrating student writing is. How do you celebrate student writing in your classroom? How might you add more celebration of student writing to your day/year?
• Consider what changes you could make in your writing instruction to make writing more meaningful and purposeful for your students.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Our reading program, treasures, has a writing component and I have found it to be tedious. This year, our distircty is wanting us to focus on writing, in addition to reading and math! There is to much focus on making sure the writing is perfect rather than the celebration of what has been accomplished. I taught third grade for three years and it was a requirement that all third graders would be able to construct a three paragrah report. It didn't matter the content, but rather that they knoew a topic sentence, body, ending sentence, puncuation, etc. Now that I am teaching first grade, in the back of my mind I know that my students will need to have these skills and it is hard for me to "forget" this and try to encourage the love of writing. I already ama fan of getting rid of worksheets. Actually, in my classroom I have pretty much eliminated it.
ReplyDeleteCelebrating writing, I guess i could do more in my classroom. In my room, I have a showcase wall for my students writing. I tell them that the work needs to be their best work. I wonder if I should allow them to post any type of writing on the wall or if there should be some guidelines as to what should be put up on the wall. When students post their work in the hallway, I am very cautious to make sure there are no errors. I should make more time for students to share their writing with their peers.
I feel I do a grrat job at walking through expectations of writing. My students hear my thoughts as a write and watch me brainstorm ideas. I tried last week at letting the kids write whatever they wanted, stories, thoughts, letters, sentences of any kind. A lot of the kids wrote a sentence and then sat their staring at me, waiting for me to tell them they could be done. Some were excited to write stories. I created a share basket and if they wanted me to read what they wrote and comment back to them, to put it in the basket. I would say, 3/4 of the class got pretty excited about this idea.The only problem, this idea is pretty time consuming!
I would say the "requirement" that I would have for the wall in the class is anything that the students are proud of that they have written. I'd have a discussion with the students to remind them that they are "publishing" their writing on the brag wall/success wall/writing wall (whatever you want to call it) and it needs to be best effort and something that they are proud to share. I'd also say that because it's in the classroom, if there are some spelling errors or grammar errors that is ok. (I'd put a sign up on the board stating something to the effect that this is our writing board and students post pieces of writing that they are proud of, including drafts. There may be spelling or grammatical errors.) I'd also tell the students when they publish to the hall that the writing needs to be perfect and you will act as the final editor to make sure that what is published in the hall is worthy of the school reading.
ReplyDeleteMaking time to share writing is important for students. Remember, you do not have to have students read 5 pages (or paragraphs) to the whole class. You can invite them to share a creative lead or descriptive sentence. The shares can be quick. Students can look through their notebook or folder and flag with a sticky note the section they'd like you to read and comment on. There are many ways to work share into your day without taking too much time.
Do you have a document camera in your room? (They are wonderful tools for all subjects but really handy for modeling writing.) Or does your library have one you could use? If so, in the example that you shared above when the students wrote a sentence and then stopped, I'd have one or two students come up to the front and then I'd rewrite their sentence on another piece of paper. Then I'd start asking leading questions to add to their sentence to model how their sentence (or story) can be added to to make it more interesting. I'd do this with several students and then ask the students to go back to their writing and see what they could add to their piece to create a better picture in the audiences' mind. I say over and over that student need oral rehearsal in order to develop as writers. So demonstrate this as well with your students by helping them get the words they want to write down.
Looking at the “12 Writing Essentials” reminds me of all the mini lessons and activities that I have read about and taken classes on that I know are so beneficial, yet I get so busy using our adopted curriculum that I forget to use them daily. I feel that the Optimal Learning Model is a great method for leading students through each of these “12 Writing Essentials,” yet I’m only doing it once a week or so, instead of daily, like I know I should be doing. I think that my instruction has gotten bogged down focusing on specific skills that I think the students need to know and not focusing on the whole-to-part-to-whole method that Regie writes about in her first chapter.
ReplyDeleteMy students enjoy sharing their writing, but again I do not feel like I do this often enough. Time runs out and we’re rushing on to the next subject before I’ve given them the chance to share, or the chance for me to celebrate their writing.
While we have published a few pieces I don’t feel like I have showcased the products or celebrated them enough. I have a bulletin board in my classroom that would be perfect for showcasing my students’ writing and I intend to start doing a better job of that.
I really like the ideas for writing class publications, an idea that I used so much with younger students, but looking at these new topics and ideas has given me some great choices to use with my older students that I think will be really meaningful to them.
You're not alone with feeling bogged down by the curriculum. The first step in improving our practice is just having the time to reflect...now that you've brought the areas to the forefront that you want to work on you can focus attention there and include them in your planning. Slowing down and incorporating the OLM and creating more opportunities to celebrate students' writing should have positive effects on the quality of their work. Good luck.
ReplyDelete