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.
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.
My name is Megan Binder-Vitti and I have been teaching Special Education for four years. I teach at Timber Ridge School in the Greater Albany Public School District, which has grades three through eight. I am the middle school level Basic Skills teacher and have 15 sixth through eighth graders and one fifth grader. My students have special education eligibilities of: intellectual disabilities, other health impairments, autism (severely impaired to high-functioning), traumatic brain injury, communication disorders, and specific learning disabilities. In terms of skills, I have students who are accessing the resource room for part of the day for reading instruction all the way down to students who are nonverbal and wear diapers. I have six assistants who work in my room. Three of my students require one-on-one assistance for various reasons (behavior, personal care, etc.). I also have students with medical issues such as seizures.
ReplyDeleteOur current literacy system isn’t as ideal as one might hope. The district has provided the Read Naturally program which practices fluency and, to a limited extent, comprehension. We have pieced together a collection of Harcourt reading textbooks that the students read in groups. For writing, Step Up To Writing has been provided to me but I have limited use in implementing the program and it does not seem to work for several of my students. My experience teaching writing and learning to teach writing has been minimal at best. My district has provided some training in literacy instruction for general education teachers but tends to focus on math instruction overall. In addition, since the training is geared toward general education teachers, I have had a hard time getting much out of them (from the few occasions I have been able to attend). There has been some focus on district-wide writing assessments but again my impression is that the focus seems to be on math especially since we aren’t currently participating in state writing assessments at the middle school level due to funding issues.
I love to teach and I enjoy my job. I cannot imagine teaching anything other than special education and within that, I cannot imagine teaching anything other than basic skills. My challenge in my current position is that I currently have a room filled with students who do not interact well with each other. Last year, many of the same students got along and dealt with each other, but this year I am seeing more fighting and bullying within my classroom. Going along with that, I am seeing an increase in severe behaviors and aggression. I have had to do around 17-20 room clears this year alone due to student behaviors and the room being unsafe for other students to be in or because the student acting out is enjoying the attention that the other students provide. I have had students tear my room apart, spit, yell, hit, kick, throw more than in my first three years combined. While dealing with the behavior is something that comes with teaching basic skills, the extent of it this year has been mind-blowing. The majority of the school year has been crisis management, which has left very little time to come up with and implement new ideas that support literacy instruction. I am hopeful that this course will help provide some easy to begin ideas to help me teach writing and to help me motivate my students to be better writers. Even with such a high-needs group of students, many of them have the potential to be good writers and I am looking for ideas to help get them there.
Outside of work, when I am not catching up on rest, I enjoy spending time with my husband and animals (we have two cats and a dog). We like to run and have run three half-marathons in the last year and are attempting to train for another. We also enjoy going line dancing whenever we can. Family and friends are very important to me and I enjoy having them over for dinner and to play board games.
Hello Megan,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to class! Wow, what a difficult year you are having, but it seems like you have a positive attitude regarding teaching and your position. That always helps and is so important. I think you will find some easy to implement ideas from the text that your students will be successful at. I am currently back to work after being home for a couple of years and now work at a K-2 primary school. I frequently tell my students that they can be great writers even if spelling is hard for them. I myself have a hard time spelling, but tell them that I am a very good writer. I just know that I have to be sure to check my work and ask other people to check my writing to be sure it is error free so that my message and meaning is clear to my reader (audience.)
I believe this message would also be beneficial for your students. I'm guessing that they have had a hard time in the past with writing...but it's their ideas that make them a writer. (Even world-famous authors have editors who check their work and make suggestions to improve the clarity of the writing.) I am also happy to bounce specific questions or ideas around if that would be helpful for you.
You are the only person enrolled in the course this term, but there is still 20 days left before registration closes. If you feel that you would like to email the assignments we can do that. If you want to read the last term's comments you will get a feel for what some other teachers were thinking for each assignment. (We leave one term's comments up each quarter.)
I finished the PDX marathon in 2002 (I think) and did a half marathon here in Vermont in 2006. But that's the last I've done in years. My daughter will be 3 in May so it's time for me to start exercising again as I have let it slide. Oh well...there is always tomorrow. :D Let me know if you have any questions...just mark your email "Questions" or "Reply Needed" and I'll respond. Looking forward to working with you.
Mary
My name is Christi Braun and I teach 2nd grade at Creative Science School in Portland, Oregon. We are a focus option school in the Portland Public School District. I’ve been teaching for 6 years, 5 of which have been in 2nd grade. I love teaching and I love this grade level! I feel like magic happens in my classroom and I feel so privileged to witness and be part of it. My school was founded almost 30 years ago as a kindergarten program called The Piaget Program. Through the years, the program grew so that now we are a full-fledged school with students from kindergarten through 8th grade. As the original name implies, we are grounded in the constructivist theory of teaching and learning. We are fortunate to have an administrator who supports our work and beliefs about what’s best for kids but we are certainly feeling a lot of pressure with high stakes testing (DIBELS, easyCBM, SmarterBalanced) and the implementation of Common Core. I feel very lucky to work with a passionate and talented group of educators – we support one another and are constantly striving to be better.
ReplyDeleteOur district adopted Scott Foresman Reading Street as our reading curriculum and I have all those materials available to me. Most importantly, I have a robust classroom library and I am continually adding to it. We have a district-developed writing notebook (Units of Study) that appears to be grounded in the work of Regie Rountman, Lucy Caulkins, and Ralph Fletcher (these authors are referenced through-out the notebooks.) While I have these resources available to me, I am not required to use them exclusively and so I don’t. I (along with my colleagues in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade) am using the framework of the Daily 5/CAFÉ to create a reading/writing workshop. We also use Storyline as a method to integrate science/social studies, reading, writing and art.
I have 30 students in my classroom and I feel like this is my biggest challenge in teaching writing. I am overwhelmed by the numbers. I believe in student choice and independence. I also strongly believe in the power of relationships in learning. This is especially so in writing and I feel distressed that I am unable to support and confer with students and meet all their individual needs.
I read Writing Essentials as part of my graduate teaching program and I have referred to it throughout the years as I reflect on and try to improve my teaching. I’m excited to go through a more focused book study through this course.
On a personal note, I have 3 children (13, 18, and 21!) of my own and it was really through volunteering in their classrooms that I developed my desire to become a teacher. I feel that I’ve found the thing that I was meant to do with my life (other than parent my own children) and I will always strive to get better.
Hello Christi,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our course! Jackie and I both taught 2nd grade together for a couple of years before I moved to Oregon. :)
You are lucky to work with such a dedicated teaching staff. Jackie and I are fans of The Sisters and you will find Regie is one of their inspirations, so their methods will mesh. :)
Yes, class size seems to be one of the biggest challenges in Oregon that many teachers face. One of the things that Jackie and I did when we set up our literacy shedules was adjust it to make it work for the time we had. Sometimes, this meant that we had a less than ideal or perfect schedule or rotation, but we had to make it work with what we were given. (Only doing groups 4 days a week or only seeing our top students once a week...etc...In a perfect world it would always work out as the text book outlines, but we are frequently operating in less than ideal situations.) It's not easy to let go of what we WANT to do for our students, but once we can look outside the box we can often come up with creative solutions.
Yes, re-reading this text (many times) is something I often suggest to the course participants.
Looking forward to working with you!