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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Katherine Lum:
ReplyDeleteGreetings! My name is Katherine, and I have been teaching for 14 years now. I started my career in Washington State, teaching third and fifth grades, but after 9 years, jumped at the opportunity to move to Bogotá, Colombia and teach! I spent two years there teaching math to first and second graders. Currently, I am finishing up my third year in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where I teach grade 4 at an all-girls school.
I have 16 girls in my room this year, all below grade level in both reading and writing, save one. Three of my girls receive support from our EAL department, and one girl has finally been accepted into our learning support program, although no services have been started for her yet. My girls are enthusiastic, but reading is not a part of the culture, and so much of my energy goes into motivating them to read and write at home, as well as in the classroom!
How I teach literacy has been greatly influenced by what I learned at a three-day workshop about the CAFÉ program. I use this small-group teaching/’center’ activity model for teaching reading strategies, grammar, spelling, and writing strategies. While I love the idea of writer’s workshop, I have neither had any training nor have I figured out how to successfully manage it. When planning lessons, I usually focus on a particular form of writing, and then in conferences with students about their work, I make notes to myself about what grammar/writing skills I need to present in small group lessons. I also teach some concepts whole group. Our school has provided limited training in a writing program called Step-Up to Writing. While the expectation is that we use the ‘stop-light’ model to teach our students how to write expository pieces, I find it limiting and more suited as a scaffold for my struggling writers. I have enjoyed teaching different types of topic sentences as presented in this program, however. Perhaps my favorite tool when teaching writing is the 6Traits+1. My students seem to like having the rubric so that they can not only score their own work, but also know more specifically what they need to do to improve their writing. I like the language and the specificity of the rubric for that reason as well.
I have to admit that my training in teaching writing is somewhat limited. In the States I attended several workshops on the 6 Traits+1 as well as one in using the Sitton Spelling program. Here in the UAE, my school offers in-house training. Perhaps this is because we do not have to meet any writing requirements - no high-stakes writing assessments for us! I have attended the same introduction to the 6 Traits+1 three times. I have also had the same intro to the Step-Up to Writing training three times…. I feel that I have stagnated as a writing teacher here, and that was my main reason for selecting this course.
Despite some of the frustrations I have experienced at this school, I do love my job! Teaching is such a challenging, exciting, and rewarding profession - I can’t imagine doing anything else!! And despite my insecurity about teaching writing, I love teaching it. Many of my colleagues complain about the ambiguity of writing as a subject. They are frustrated by the subjectivity of scoring/offering feedback. It is exactly that ambiguity that I like, oddly enough. And that is probably why I have not warmed to the Step-Up model for teaching writing. I want my students to know that there are many ways to express one’s feelings; that a sentence can start with the word ‘because’; and that writing is judged by its appropriateness for a given audience. I mentioned earlier that I liked the idea of writer’s workshop, but I have never had any training in that. I am not sure if I am entirely in Lucy Calkins’ camp, but I know that I lean more her direction than the direction of my current school. Next year I will be moving to Lithuania to teach grade 5 at an IB school. I am hoping to regain confidence in myself as a teacher of writing, and to learn how to better facilitate my students as they master the written word.
Hi Kathy,
DeleteCan I just start by saying that your life as a traveling teacher sounds like such a fascinating experience! One of my good friends is currently in Japan and will be taking a job in Korea next fall.
I'm also relieved to know that even after many years of teaching, you are still seeking help and don't have all the answers. This gives me comfort that in 10 years I still don't have to be an expert! That's a bit daunting in nature.
I look forward to reading your insights and posts this term!
-Melissa
Hi Kathy!
ReplyDeleteWe're so happy to have you in another course. I am sure you will find the text a resource you will revisit and that you will develop more confidence in your ability to teach writing to your students! We look forward to working with you this term. (It usually takes a few weeks for other students to enroll and to start posting, so be sure to keep an eye out on these early posts.)
Welcome to our Course Spring 2013 Students.
ReplyDeleteYou are free to work ahead on the assignments and save them on your computer.
One of the benefits of the blog format for online courses is the discourse between students. We post only one or two assignments at a time in order to foster communication between the course participants.
If you do work ahead you will need to post your reflection on the blog when the corresponding assignment is posted.
If you have a question please email us and put "Question" or "REPLY NEEDED" in the subject line so we can get back to you in a timely fashion. We frequently scan our inbox for questions but wait to reply to assignments for when we have a good chunk of time. If there is no notation in the subject line of the email, we assume it is just an assignment.
You can expect us to reply to your reflection in about a week from when you submit it-- though at times it may be longer. Again, if you have any concerns or questions email us and note in the subject line that a reply is needed or that you need "Help."
A couple of notes:
We suggest you save your work in a word processing document before posting to the blog. There have been times where something happens and a post may disappear. (Having this saved, makes it easier to repost.)
Some students have experienced problems posting using Firefox. There are work-arounds, but the easiest is just to use a different browser.
Winter term starts 4/1
All work due 6/10
Grades available online 6/19
We look forward to learning and working with you this term. :D
My name is Melissa Grothe and I am a third year teacher from the north Oregon Coast. I teach in a very small district, just outside of Astoria, called Knappa. I am part of a three person team that teaches 4th/5th grade blended classes. My class consists of twenty-four students, twelve of each grade level. Knappa is the only place I have taught, and my teaching placement and class size will be approximately the same for the next couple years.
ReplyDeleteThe 4th/5th classrooms do not receive instructional support because our Title I program is only K-3, though some students have one-on-one aids that travel with them throughout the day. These aids are not for the whole classroom. We do have pullout programs for math and reading, and students that receive those benefits also usually receive additional writing support as well. I use the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Treasures curriculum for my reading program and although it has a writing component, because we do Walk to Read, I do not use the writing pieces. The reading is separated by grade level and our writing times are during homeroom blend time. Unfortunately, our team does not collaborate fully as a PLC, so we are independent when it comes to writing instruction. I tend to use a variety of tools and resources to teach writing to my class, including things adopted from student teaching, “Fuel for Writing” resources, and a couple generic writing texts from Scholastic. I try to incorporate journal prompts or open writing activities, some guided topics for longer writing duration, research formatted papers, focused modes of writing assignments, and reflections or responses to other texts. These all have diverse purposes and varying lengths of time so students are exposed to the many possible uses for writing. I have not had much training in the writing area of literacy, minimal college courses and a crash course in “Fuel for Writing” through an online course. This spring I also did Oregon Writing Scoring Training, which was insightful from the audience’s perspective in the writing process. I have had significant literacy training in reading and fluency programs, and have my reading endorsement from the University of Portland. I feel very unsure and uncomfortable teaching writing; especially because the grade levels previous do not do much in the way of authentic student writing. When students arrive in the 4th grade, I start from scratch in my writing process and skills instruction. We literally practice forming sentences with appropriate structure, then developing paragraphs, and finally creating full essays with supporting information. We have class writing time for thirty minutes four days a week. This never seems like enough time, but I think much of that is due to feeling like I’m not using my instruction and writing time as effectively as I should. I feel as though my instruction and feedback is not beneficial for the students, and may be hindering them. I have not used a writing workshop or conferencing in an efficient manner, nor is it very impacting to the overall writing process of the whole class.
My district has provided very minimal training in writing, led by our K-5 principal. Although it was a good reminder and quick refresh for some writing activities and expectations, it was not thorough, nor was it stable for long term implementation. The district has been worried about writing and assessments for the three years that I have been there, but not much work has gone into helping staff or students improve in teaching or writing. I have taken a TINT course before and receive mailings about each term’s new courses, and saw this course as an opportunity to improve my own teaching skills so that I may help my students.
How do I feel about teaching? Oh my goodness, I LOVE it. Honestly. I tell people all the time that I have the best job in the world, that I teach in the best place ever, the best grade levels, the best teaching partners, and have the best students. But perhaps I’m just bias! Seriously though, I may complain at times about students, or testing, or my paycheck, but I think everyone in every job has those moments. I truly believe that teaching is my calling, my vocation, and I can’t imagine doing anything else.
ReplyDeleteWork has been stressful since returning from winter break in January, but it is not the teaching or the students that have been the cause. Rather it is the change in staffing and lack of communication from administration that has been occurring. One of my teaching partners suffered a stroke the day before we returned to school, he is thankfully doing quite well physically, but he is not returning to school this year, and possibly not in the future either. Therefore, we have had a substitute for his class. The two long term subs that have been hired do not have full year teaching experience. The two months that they are each teaching is the longest assignment either has experienced. I am by no means an authority on teaching nor do I consider myself a veteran, but I can say from personal experience that there is a significant difference in substituting and having your own class for a full year. The stress the subs feel about planning day-to-day, week-to-week, is rubbing off on the rest of the team and the whole school. To top off that stress, the administration has not been forth coming with the staff about what their plans are, or what is going on. We got a new long-term sub last Monday, and we didn’t know until she arrived! It seems very secretive and frustrates people, myself included. Tired and stressed? Yes. Love my job too much to give in to those problems? You know it!
Now that I finished my ranting, sorry, I can tell you who I am outside of teaching! I teach outside of teaching, go figure, at my church. I am the middle school Sunday school teacher and also our church secretary. Needless to say, I keep quite busy in life. When I am not doing work or volunteering, I love to scrapbook, renovate old things, do all sorts of crafty projects, travel anywhere, especially by car, watch crime shows and read! I also am an amateur blogger, which makes this class that much more exciting for me! I also enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I am not married, nor do I have children at home (I have 24 at school, which is sufficient at this point for me!).
My goal for this course is to get a more effective and efficient teaching process for writing. If I am more comfortable with my teaching of writing, I will be more confident and able to help my students, and they will see that writing is not as scary or threatening as it may seem. I also hope to develop skills that can help me as a colleague to my teammates and other staff members. I know that I can’t single handedly fix our school’s writing problems, but I can share information so that others can help too.
(I had too much to say to fit in one post! Oops!)
Hi Melissa,
DeleteThank you for your reply earlier. I am enjoying my time overseas, but don't think it's all wine and roses ~ at my current school we struggle very much with issues from administration and the company that owns this for-profit school. On the bright side, as you have said about your school as well, the students and colleagues help to get us through the days!
I sure do understand what it is to be unsure of how to best teach writing. I must say, that I have really tailored my own teaching more in response to the training I had in the 6Traits+1, and feedback I received from my own daughters (particularly in how I teach poetry!). I am so excited about this class, and so far, I really appreciate the insight that Regie Routman shares in her book. I especially like the reminder that we, as teachers, need to be writers. I had let that go my last couple of years of teaching. Partly because for two years I taught only math, and then here at this school because we only had 45 minutes for ALL of our literacy (reading, writing, spelling.... the works!) and there simply wasn't any time for me to write. There wasn't even time for my girls to write! Then last year our time was doubled, so for two years I have had about 85 minutes. Still not enough, but I was able to somehow get a bit more writing in. I want to finish out this last quarter by doing more of the shared writing with my students. I know it's only a quarter, but with luck, this will still boost my girls' writing.
Hang in there!
Smiles,
Katherine
Hello Melissa!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the class. We’re happy to have you join us. Jackie and I love Regie and this text and feel confident (from years of teacher feedback after the course is over) that you will def. develop comfort and skill with instructing writing. In fact, I bet you will want to share the text with your team and school once the course is over. :D
At this point, since there are only two of you so far, I want to remind you both that you can look back at last term’s blog comments and see what other teachers wrote. You don’t need to but sometimes it’s helpful to do so.
I am so sorry to hear about your colleague and glad that he is doing better. It seems odd to have two long-term subs instead of one. Hopefully the administration can set up a mentoring situation where a teacher could be paid to help support the sub. I know if I were a parent there I would hope that they were offering supports to the sub, especially if they had never taught before.
Ah, communication, communication, communication; so important and frequently missing from administration. It baffles me, but has been my experience also that many principals lack in this area. (Namely my sons’ current principal. How do you just not answer emails and joke about it???? Not very professional in my opinion.) So no worries on the rant, we all get it. ☺
One point that I noticed that you both commented on was the lack of time for writing. Regie addresses this later in the text but basically the answer is to write across the curriculum. We should be writing in math and science and social studies. It takes more effort and planning, but all good teaching does. There just isn’t enough time to do everything so we must integrate when we can and think outside of the box. We’ll touch more on this later but just wanted to mention it.
My name is Jessie Camp and I am joining the course a little late in the process but I hope you’ll forgive my tardiness. I teach at East Orient Elementary School in the Gresham-Barlow School District. I teach 5th grade in a self-contained classroom. I have been teaching for 3 years, so I am relatively new to teaching. I have 37 students in my small classroom, which can sound daunting, and it is at times, but my kids are lovely.
ReplyDeleteI have no instructional support in the form of an assistant or EA. I do have a few parents that come in once in a while to help out and make copies or such. Our current literacy program is of much debate in our school and district at the moment. We do not currently have an adopted curriculum for writing. Our district has a program called Literacy By Design, which is based solely as a reading curriculum. There is a writing component but our district does recognize that it is not comprehensive and should not be used as the only means of writing instruction. We are also supposed to be using a writers workshop model based off of Lucy Calkins’ work in the Teachers College. But we have found with her material, she can be rather wordy and it lacks the grammar, conventions, and specific writing instruction. So we are at the point that we are looking as a school what to do to help our writing scores. We are looking at making up our own common curriculum to go by at our school with common phrases all the way to the same graphic organizers, to help students have consistency. I have taught writing using a cross between Lucy Calkins/Writers Workshop/my own technical writing curriculums. I taught 7th grade Humanities for one year and 5th grade all subjects for 2 years. In my student teaching experience, I taught a self-contained classroom with 6-8 graders in it. I was in charge for the full year of writing/health/social studies and anything else she wanted me to teach on a daily basis.
My district does not offer any training, they will allow us to seek out trainings and go to them if our principal deems it necessary to our goals.
In the last week we have gotten the reports on the 4th grade state test and along with the rest of our district we scored pretty low. Which is definitely a concern at my school and in the district. However, like I said we are not offered any support in the writing area. We have to find our own entire curriculum to supplement the shortfalls in the curriculum that was assigned to us. I hope that this course will give me better direction and guidance in teaching not only writing about topics or prompts or merely tell me to have the students write, but I hope that it gives specific tools to teach the writing process along with grammar, sentence fluency and paragraphing as well. I would like to know different ways to teach writing techniques and structure as well as being able to engage my students. I find it easy to make prompts and topics for them to teach, I find it difficult to teach sentence structure without editing their paper for them on the spot. I hope to find efficient ways to apply these things in a classroom of 37 students. I hope to learn ways to conference better with students and give more effective feed back.
Hi Jessie! I am Katherine (also in this class), and I just wanted to tell you to hang in there! It sounds like your district is really going through some tough times, and with that many students in your class, it's amazing that you are still so positive!
DeleteI, too, am hoping to find some new ideas about how to best teach writing to my students. I can tell you that I have enjoyed great success using the 6 Traits +1 as a tool for discussing my students' writing with them. You spoke of having a common language, and that is what I like about the Traits. I think also that it fits nicely with a workshop model of teaching. Personally, it allowed me to separate the convention errors from the rest of my students' work, and really appreciate and offer good feedback on their organization, word choice, or sentence fluency. My students like it too, because they can see that even if they are not doing so well with one aspect of their writing, they are strong in another area.
I hope this helps you a bit :) I am really enjoying Regie's book for this class, and I have the feeling that our teaching will only improve as we discuss what she shares with us.
Smiles,
Katherine
I love teaching. It can have its ups and downs of course, but it is fun and definitely fulfilling. I enjoy my students and my colleagues. I can get stressed with 37 students and many IEP or behavioral students, but I try to keep it in perspective. I am stressed lately about the upcoming $6.5 million shortfall in our districts budget. I just finished my probationary 3 years, but I will be facing the prospect of being RIF’d for a second time within the next two months. It is hard to not be stressed with that looming, but like I said I really do love my students and colleagues and this helps. I have the best 5th grade team and the best principal where I work. It is such an ideal work environment that I am stressed that I may be moved or lose my position, because I know any other place will not be as supportive or pleasurable to work at.
ReplyDeleteI am a volleyball coach for the district as well at Sam Barlow High School. I coach high school ball and club ball, so I am in the gym year round. But I love it. I am engaged and currently planning a wedding for this summer. My fiancé is also a teacher but he teaches in Rainier, OR. So he commutes on the weekend’s home to Gresham. We have 3 dogs, 2 St. Bernard’s and 1 black lab. We love to camp and do outdoorsy things. My love is reading! I can sit for hours and read. I like all genres as long as it is something I can’t put down, which happens for most books. I love history books and anything I can learn about the WWII era. I do not have any kids of my own yet, however, I have a niece and nephew that I adore. I try to spend as much time with them as I can, because they just make me happy, no matter what is going on. They are my stress reliever, they make me smile and I just love them so much!
I am looking forward to helping my colleagues out and finding new ways to enhance my writing program with this course.
Hello Jessie,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to class. No worries, at all, about joining now. It’s a busy time of year and TINT accepts registrations up until the 17th so we may have more people joining. This is one of the benefits of taking an online course; work at your own pace. (And you will find that at times I may take a little longer to reply, as I’m on the job hunt so I’m applying and interviewing and just realized I need to renew my license as it expires at the end of June. Ugh!) But remember at any time if you need to contact me, either put a subject heading that indicates this, like: “help,” “reply needed,” or “question,” and I’ll get back to you in a timely fashion. I scan the emails for pressing needs but wait to reply until I have a good amount of time. (And no children tugging on my sleeve or grabbing my mouse. :D) Also, you can call me, my number is on the Welcome Letter. I just ask that you remember I’m in Vermont so 3 hours ahead of you in Oregon. Sorry, I don’t know the time difference from the Middle East. :D
I have to agree, it sounds like you have a great attitude with all that is going on. Your class numbers is really high and to worry about being RIF’d is a difficult thing to contend with. So kudos to you for keeping a positive attitude! (Plus you are planning a wedding??? I’d say you must be pretty organized!) What I first thought of when I read about your district’s and building’s recent focus on writing is, “What a great opportunity!” The amazing thing about Regie and this text is that it can be incorporated into any program that teachers are using, either one that they create or that is assigned and mandated to them. So I believe you will def. come away with new ideas and perhaps even a different perspective on the writing process.
(Regie is so close to you guys out there in Oregon, she lives in Seattle, it would be awesome if your district could come up with funds to have her be a consultant for either your school or the whole district. Or if grants could be secured for this.)
Many teachers have shared that they have planned either to bring parts or the whole text to their teams, schools and principals after they were done with the course. Hopefully, you will also feel that the time was well spent and that you want to share what you learned. ☺