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.
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I was fortunate to learn about Regie Routman while still in teaching school. Her ideas and practices were assumed to be the best practices by classmates, my mentor -teachers, professors and me - her practices were what all of us strove towards. Over the last ten years, I have embraced core ideas of Regie Routman and many like her: writing for a real audience, celebrating the authors, using excellent authors as mentors and creating an ongoing and evolving workshop.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the first section of this book, I have been reawakened to the importance of so many of the other ideas presented, and to the reality that while many of my initial foundations are intact, I have veered from what I know to be effective practices for teaching writing.
At the end of chapter one, she explained that as teachers we clutter up our lives with meaningless tasks, which are meant to make us feel productive. This statement really spoke to me. I have felt tempted to busy up our writing session with activities that take away from just writing. I think this temptation rises from feeling like they’re not using the time correctly, so I need to direct it with finite lessons. While reading I realized the reason the time is not being used effectively is because I do not give them enough scaffolding, not enough demonstrations and not enough time to share.
The explanation of the optimal learning model helped me reorient my teaching so I can spend my energy priming them for writing through sharing and modeling, rather than correcting spelling and punctuation. I’ve realized I’ve spent too much time reacting to writing rather than teaching writing.
After reviewing the 12 writing essentials I am reminded that many of these are ideas that I strive towards and feel successful with, such as crafting an authentic voice and reading widely and deeply. Seeing clear concise list also helps me organize my thinking around what I can emphasize more such as embracing interesting language and creating satisfying endings.
I have always like to tell/write stories for the students as a model for writing. This is a time when I feel bonded to the students, a time when we can all laugh with each other. I have just been given permission to this more. I have found this especially helpful during journal writing. Journals can be drudgery for all involved. My teaching partner and I have each told and written a fun story to model that journaling can be pleasant and real. The kids responded very well.
In our class we celebrate the students’ writing every term. These celebrations are big events. We invite parents and administration. The mood is always fun and festive. Everyone has a good time. I think we can do more informal celebration. When a student finally finds success with sticking with a topic, when another student uses interesting words in place of dull ones, or when a student uses punctuation to improve a piece of writing. Little celebrations, like stopping early to share that person’s writing or making a copy for the bulletin board. Celebrating the little moments along the way is as important as the big shindig at the end. I think it’s what will help sustain heir motivation.
What a great post! We're glad you are finding the readings beneficial and renewing. I (Mary) have read this text many, many times and each time I come away with new ideas or areas that I want to focus on. (I say this pretty much every term, but it's true! :D)
ReplyDeleteI love your comment "I realized I've spent too much time reacting to writing rather than teaching writing." Very powerful stuff!
I agree with you 100%! (And many students also comment about this as well...) Having more frequent, informal celebrations is very important to help encourage and motivate the writers...but the big celebrations are also of worth and fun to do as well!
I felt rejuvenated with my attitude toward writing instruction after reading this section. The word “enjoy” appeared again and again. I felt so much of the time I’m told to make sure all students are engaged and to grab their attention, but the idea of striving to have students genuinely like what they are being asked to do has a different feel.
ReplyDeleteI was trained to approach teaching with an “I do, we do, you do” mindset so that has always been the core of my instruction. The Optimal Learning Model is the same concept, but breaks it down a little further. I like the separation of guided practice and independent practice. I feel I sometimes merge those two.
I liked the idea of telling our stories before we write them. Reflecting, I feel I always had students write some then share, but reversing that could be more beneficial. I do think it is important to understand your end goal with a piece of writing because I feel it can work both ways to help the thinking process. For example, I felt writing before a discussion was a strong tool to help students have thoughts to contribute to the discussion. If the end goal is a solid piece of writing telling our stories and sharing our thoughts before sounds great.
“Examining Beliefs About Writing” was a great exercise for me to formulate my writing beliefs. I have found doing agree/disagree activities with students generates great ideas/discussions. Really having to pick one forces you to think through the statement further. The statement on A-2 that struck me the most was “peer conferences are a waste of time.” I disagreed with that as I see them as a time for students to share their writing, get positive feedback, and hear other ideas. With that said, I guess it depends of the expectations of a conference and what you hope the students gain out of them to determine if they are a waste of time.
The “12 Writing Essentials” cover the core of successful writing. I feel I have some great strategies to teach many of the points. Where I could improve is getting in the habit of stressing noting our audience for all pieces of writing we do, not just the bigger ones. This would help students to constantly be thinking about their reader.
Another statement from the section that struck me was when the teachers were doing a state writing prompt. They stated, not one person started making a graphic organizer to begin writing. This made me think about the different times I used graphic organizers when students were struggling with organizing their writing. Was I over complicating things and asking them to do a task unnatural to the writing process? Maybe.
Celebration of student writing is crucial. I feel I do well with the smaller, informal celebrations of writing. Those occurred frequently in my classroom, but adding an outside of the classroom/big event would be the next step to improving my celebrations.
I agree with Routman, seeing yourself as a writer makes you think about the whole process differently. This is the biggest change I could make to help my students. I have always been a teacher that shares their writing with their students. We read it, critique, talk about the choices I made in a piece and why I made them and how I could improve it, but I have never written a piece in front of them where they saw my thinking and struggle in the moment. I totally see the value in this and I’m excited to apply this technique at my next opportunity.
I like how clear Regie’s Optimal Learning Model is. In my classroom, my writing lessons look something like this: I teach the mini-lesson; I model writing while focusing on practicing the skill just taught in my writing; students think, pair, share; students head to their desks to work independently; I conference with students during the independent writing time. I like the reinforcement that the model I use is very similar to this.
ReplyDeleteI love the 12 Essentials for All Grade Levels, and I specifically love that this is for ALL grade levels. Again, it is nice to get reinforcement that the things I praise and talk about with our writers are included in this list. The two that I believe I could focus on more are : writing for a specific reader and a meaningful purpose, and reading with a writer’s perspective. I think often times, some of the more social students may write with more purpose if they know they get to read his or her writing to one of his or her buddies afterward. ☺
Each term, or at the end of each writing unit, our class celebrates by inviting parents, teachers, administrators, “special people,” etc. into our class to hear our writing pieces in small groups. It is a time that I love – a community that is here to just celebrate our students’ writing. I like that this is a part of our class culture; however, what I wish I did more of is celebrating writing on a daily basis. For example, at the end of writer’s workshop, have a volunteer come up and share their writing with the class. It is so powerful, and kids love to give appreciations. Plus, it’s a time when we all learn about each other in ways that we wouldn’t unless we were sharing writing. Of course, it always seems like “there is no time!” but I would like to carve out 3 minutes of shared writing at the end of each Writer’s Workshop.
The thoughts in chapter 1 really struck me because starting in September, I noticed how difficult it was for students to write complete sentences. I noticed that the items I was being told to teach the students and the materials I was given was incredibly boring and mundane. Worksheets, overheads and prompts, was basically everything. I decided to implement a daily journal in my class. I offer an idea to get the kids started but they are not tied to that. If students do not want to write on the topic, they can write on their own. The only rule is that they have to write. I told them that if they wanted to write “I hate writing,” the whole time they could. I found that even the most resistant writers write “I hate writing” a total of about 4 times, then they moved on to another thought. Some of the ideas that have come out of the journals have been incredible. After our writing time, we share and I think that is probably the students’ favorite part. From the journals, I pull sample sentences and we do a dictation activity so they can work on spelling, punctuation and connecting the spoken word to the written word. Since the sentences come from the students own work, I have found it to be very meaningful for the students. I totally agree with many of the ideas in chapter one about how we are over focused on procedure and instructions and we make it much more difficult then what it is. As I plan my lessons for this and next week, I will be making sure that I incorporate time for students to work side by side with my, which is something that, if time did not allow, I skipped over. I found the essentials on page 13 of the text to be particularly helpful and easy to read. I made copies of that page to stick in my lesson plan book so I am mindful as I plan.
ReplyDeleteChapter 2 seemed to connect with my ideas surrounding the journal that I have incorporated. It created an avenue for the kids to practice writing, and they could take some control over what they were writing. We share the entries but I do not correct them. What I did take away from chapter 2 that I need to do more writing in front of the kids and also to incorporate story time into my writing time. Story time seems to be something that I skip over due to time constraints. Lately, as I have been incorporating CAFÉ strategies into my reading time, I have been doing story time to model and teach those strategies to students. I am adding a story time into my schedule during our literacy block. At this point, we have not been really celebrating or writing, so I need to do some thinking about what they could look like.
Chapter 3 is interesting because as I read chapter 1 and 2 and was thinking about the journals and how my students need to see my write more in front of them, it led me right into chapter 3 and how can I share how I write with my students. It really opened my eyes to see how what I do when I write, could be really helpful for my students as well. I need to talk about things before I write them down, I am only imagining how many of my students could benefit from the same. I have made several notes about what helps me to start writing when I don’t know what to write about and I am going to incorporate those things into the journal time.
Hello Kaetlyn,
ReplyDeleteOral Rehearsal is so important for students, though sometimes it is not allowed in writing classrooms...teachers often expect it to be "Quiet" while others are working. But students need to talk, remember, add details, hear how it sounds out loud and get their ideas ready before they write. This is such an important part of the writing process and I would argue not just for beginning writers. All levels can benefit from the time they spend sharing and discussing their ideas.
Yes, training your students to be cognizant of their audience should improve the quality of their writing.
Your question regarding the graphic organizers is an interesting one. I’ve thought about it myself when I consider how I write. I rarely ever use graphic organizers and if I do it’s a messy web. I’m more of a list person. I think the answer might be to expose students to some different ways to organize their thoughts but not require them to use only one format. Does anyone else have any thoughts???
Hello Jen!
Other teachers have also shared that they appreciated that the 12 Essentials worked for all grade levels. And they have also shared that they were skeptical that they would span the grades but after reading the text both primary and high school level teachers have given us great feedback.
I know, it is great to find that what we are doing in our classrooms is what the experts would do or suggest! Too often we are focused on what we need to do better or more of, it’s refreshing to have affirmation that we are, in fact, doing a good job!
Yes, the quick simple shares at the end of writing are a great way to celebrate and build community. I would suggest that you keep a check off sheet that you note who you’ve asked to share and how many times. This way you’ll be sure to recognize everyone. And while we may not remember who we’ve called on, the student that you missed never forgets. (This is not to say you shouldn’t organically note an example you want the class to hear, but rather is a system to make sure that all students, regardless of their abilities, are recognized for something positive that they’ve accomplished.)
Hi Jessica!
Good for you for recognizing what your students needed was not a scripted program or tons of worksheets.
I think it’s especially important for our primary and struggling writers to be released from the responsibility (initially) of worrying about spelling and mechanics. I want them to realize that their words matter and are important and be able to get down their ideas without being stymied by what they do not know how to do yet. The more students write, the better they become. I share that I’m a great writer, but have a hard time spelling. I get my ideas down and then know it’s my job to check that my writing makes sense for my reader and check words I wasn’t sure I spelled correctly. The most important piece, I believe at this point, is building up your students’ confidence and developing a level of trust between you and them. They are going to be doing things that are very hard for them and a struggle and for them to take the risk that is necessary for them to grow they have to have a healthy rapport with you.
The journal will be great evidence of how much their writing has improved over the year!