Assignment Nine: Final Course Reflection
(All assignments are due by 12/2 !!!)
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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Assignment nine
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this book I have taken a good look at my curriculum I use in the classroom. The program is very difficult to use and I have been using it for years. There are several good strategies, but it breaks writing into such small pieces that it makes writing very scripted. It has several great strategies for gathering information and pre-writing activities that are very successful. The program is made to support the teacher with writing, not to be a core curriculum. This allows for the teacher to incorporate all of the strategies given in the book we just read. I feel very confident that I can add so much to my writing program and see improvement in my writers. I have that confidence because I have already seen improvement in my teaching and the writing my students are producing.
I truly believe that we, as teachers need a balance between school and home. We can’t have great stories to tell if we spend all our home time grading papers and writing reports. Because of this book, I stop and think about stories I can tell my students. I remind them when they leave for the weekend to come back with stories to tell me. They leave happy and excited to return with a story to tell. This was a nice wake up call to remind teachers that we can trust our knowledge and training. Don’t always feel you can only use a selected curriculum to instruct your students.
My Goals:
Model, model, model
Conference more
Post- What Good Writers Do:
Write more
Do the lessons in the back of the book with my groups
Help my students to love writing and feel confident
Read more professional texts about writing and other subjects
I currently do not use nor have a writing program to use. Our school does have Step Up to Writing. Some teachers use bits and pieces of it, but not the whole program. I either build on or assist students work on what their classroom teacher is asking them to do or create my own writing exercises. Through this class, it has reinforced the fact that I need to work closer with the classroom teachers I work with in order to support writing across the curriculum. It is not best practice to teach isolated skills nor focus on one concept. I want to model for students, do shared writing, and use the language suggested to encourage students while giving them the support to dive deeper into their writing to become students who enjoy writing!
ReplyDeleteBalancing school and home is very important. I recently moved within walking distance to work, which makes it very easy to go in on non work days or stay later than I would. I have learned to prioritize what needs to be done because my list is never ending and extremely overwhelming. When I do go in, or bring work home I set a goal of what needs to get done or a timeline of when I need to be done right as I begin. I have found that very helpful in keeping me organized, on track, and sane.
My Goals:
Mode much much more!
Define the purpose for each writing activity
Do shared writing
Collaborate with teacher to figure out the modeling they are providing
Use more free writes
Conference with students more
my goals:
ReplyDeleteWrite in front of my students every day.
Use whole class conferences more.
set up a regular and consistent routine for conferences.
Assessment FOR learning.
strip down to the essentials.
establish criteria for good writing.
Hi Leah,
ReplyDeleteWe’re so glad you enjoyed the text! The great thing that we felt when we created this class was that Regie’s suggestions can fit with any program or curriculum to improve writing instruction.
Tia and Tony your goals look good and are manageable.
Have a wonderful holiday season! We hope to see you in another course some time!