Assignment Nine: Final Course Reflection
(All assignments are due by 3/18 !!!)
Take a look at the last section in Regie's text, Writing Essentials, it's chock full of great resources!!!
Teaching in Action: Lesson Essentials 5 Day Lesson Plans & Appendices
• Secrets of Second Graders• Heart Poems• Procedural writing• Hero writing• Persuasive writin• Appendix survey
Be sure to look through this section. If you haven’t already done so, look at Appendix A (page A-2.) Re-examine your beliefs about writing by re-reading the statements about the writing process and marking true or false in your book. Did you change any of your previous answers? Would you consider bringing this page to your team or even to your entire school to jump-start discussions about writing? Take some time to look through the appendices. There are several useful examples included. One we’d like to point out to you is Appendix L- The Genre Characteristics Excerpt on page A-13. Look to the Writing Essentials companion website at www.heinemann.com/writingessentials for the entire chart as well as directions to assist you playing the DVD.
ASSIGNMENT NINE: Final Course Reflection - Critically examine your current literacy program and develop realistic goals to improve your instruction. Also reflect on the balance between your home and school life. If our students are to become happy, literate people, they need happy, balanced teachers. BRIEFLY, share several of your goals with the class by posting them to the blog for this final assignment.
Thanks for taking our course!!!! Mary & Jackie!
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I am glad that I took this course. It gave me the permission to spend time looking into something that I was doing just okay and find ideas and ways to do better. So much of my time as a teacher, away from school, is spent correcting papers. Not enough time is spent learning how to teach better and recharging my own teacher batteries so that I am excited about my lessons. These are my goals as they relate to writing in my LA and SS classes.
ReplyDelete• Find more authentic writing prompts for my students.
• Use the conference plan that I have from this course to meet with EVERY student at least once a week.
• Remember that I don’t need to read every piece of writing that students do and that conferencing with students (not notes on paper) is what prompts students to make improvement.
• Have students write every day.
• Adapt and use the lesson plans in the back of Routman’s book to jump start my writing program.
• Talk to my students about what they would like to see changed and have them write about that.
• Take time to celebrate students writing!!!!!!
Assignment 9:
ReplyDeleteI stated previously, working through this text has been an experience in discovery. This class has allowed me the opportunity to revisit successes and rethink failures, I have made as an educator. I have come across areas in my teaching where I can let go and areas where I need substantial work and growth.
My goals are divided into two categories.
For Early Childhood students:
• Assist students with the concept of a real audience and purpose.
• Reread out loud
• Continue to connect reading with writing (seems to be a tough concept for Pre K)
• Raise expectations
• Celebrate these budding authors!
For Elementary students:
• Spelling COUNTS!
• Raise expectations
• Use varied conference types
• Reread out loud
• Use “stickie notes” judiciously
• Celebrate!
Assignment 9:
ReplyDeleteThis course has changed my perspective towards writing. I always felt and heard from colleagues writing is the most challenging subject to teach. However, I think we just need to be aware of the effective practices teachers should adopt in their daily curriculum, and then writing will be the most joyful and creative subject. I gained a lot of knowledge from this course; however, practicing what I have learned is my goal. I am planning to:
•Use this book as my guide in the future and share its content with my colleagues.
•Continue reading books and articles about writing
•Communicate with school members and parents
•Modeling
•Use data to improve learning
•Raise expectations for all students
•Teach authentic writing
•Confering with my students
•Students’ self assessment of their own writing
•Celebrate!
Over all, I don’t think there is an ended list to achieve competent and self-confident writers. We need to have faith in our student’s ability to write well, and we need to be knowledgeable about the effective strategies and research findings about the context and the conventions of writing.
{Thanks Jackie and Marie for facilitating this great learning experience)
This has been a very worthwhile course. I feel that the time that I have spent reading Writing Essentials, reading other teachers' blogs posts and critically examining and evaluating my own teaching of writing has greatly improved my teaching. The biggest change is that it has challenged me to be more intentional and focused in my writing instruction.
ReplyDeleteMy goals include:
-conferencing regularly with my students (and keeping better records of the conference.
-raising my expectations for students writing
-Writing EVERY day.
-providing authentic audiences for my students
-keeping my mini lessons short and focused
-celebrating student's writing
-making sure that all my lessons are helping to make my students better writers, readers and thinkers
and finally, continuing to work on maintaining that balance between home life and school life.
During my teaching program, I felt that I received little instruction on how best to teach writing. I took this course because at the beginning of this year I didn’t feel like I was an effective teacher of writing. I felt like I had little direction or knowledge of best practices. However, I feel much more confident and like I have the tools to be a better writing teacher now. This book is something that I will turn to constantly in my teaching, as it shares the entire process of an idea. Not just what it is, but the teacher talk that goes along with it.
ReplyDeleteMy goals:
• First and foremost, I plan to spend a lot more time on celebrating my students writing, rather than asking for perfection. Through this course I realized that I was putting unrealistic and unnecessary expectations on my students. It was making them dread writing, and taking all of the fun and meaning away.
• Read more and model more!
• Stop writing on their papers! I will be using post-it notes from now on. I didn’t realize how much I might be damaging their writing by having my own writing on their paper. I even had one student ask me not to a few weeks back. I was kind of stunned at first, then realized that, “yeah, I should take a step back. How rude of me to presume it was okay to start writing on his story.”
• Try to have writing occur everyday (which means asking the teacher of the classroom to change her schedule).
• Raise my expectations to expect students to consistently do what I know they know how to do, but also keep my expectations realistic.
• Start having author teas, and make meaningful writing for authentic audiences happen.
As a final note, I would like to thank Jackie and Mary for offering this course. I feel much more confident in my ability to teach writing! Also, I have never written on a blog before and it turns out I love it! Reading other peoples comments helped me to understand the concepts better, gave me new ideas, and was over all just a fun way to learn! So, thank you to the other bloggers as well!
My goals include:
ReplyDelete- scheduling time to write everyday.
-model
-celebrate
-conferencing with my students – with sticky notes!
-Develop/teach audiences for my students
- use writing to teach fuel minilessons
- use the plethora of resource and ideas from this book. It’s already flag and highlighted!
- Share and inspire others with what I am doing in my classroom. I really want to spend time on my yearlong plans and look at our writing expectations with new lenses for next year.
Always keep in mind:
“How did what I so today help students become more competent, confident, and independent as literary learners?”
I will also reduce the amount of take home to increase the amount of baby time AND not feel guilty!
Thank you ladies! It has been inspiring!
Assignment 9
ReplyDeleteI am very happy that I took this course. It has helped revive my love for teaching writing and writing myself. I have always loved to write and now I am writing more in front of my students and in my private life. I have four journals going for different things! I am also happy to have several great writng topics to use with my students. I want to use Secrets of a Sixth Grader toward the end of the year so they can give them as introductory letters to next year’s students as they enter my class. My goals are:
• I will begin conferencing with my writers both individually and whole class
• I will make sure my students have an authentic audience
• I will do more letter writing, I think using that format for students to tell me what they have learned in multiple subjects.
• Celebrate more
• Praise more
• Write more free verse poetry
• Raise my expectations
• Make sure students have a sufficient amount of writing in order to revise and edit
• Continue using The Gift of Words, borrowing powerful words and phrases
• I will continue to have an independent spirit, never be a follower
• Encourage my colleagues and principal to participate in a book study of “Essentials of Writing”!
Thank you for teaching this course. It was worthwhile and purposeful for my teaching career and I enjoyed blogging. This is a first for me!
i
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ReplyDeleteThanks again everyone for your thoughtful comments this term. Just wanted to let you know that all assignments have been responded to. Have a great Spring!!!! -Mary
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