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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Hello! My name is Drew Persse and I currently teach 7th grade Language Arts and 6th Grade Literacy Workshop at Happy Valley Middle School in the North Clackamas School District (South and East of Portland). I ‘loop’ with my students so the kiddos that I had for 6th grade LA last school year I will continue to teach in 7th Grade LA. It is nice knowing your students names, as well and their strengths and weaknesses, at the beginning of the school year. This past school year was the first that I taught LA and Literacy Workshop. I am a transfer to the middle school from Milwaukie High School where I taught Social Studies.
ReplyDeleteDue to recent budgetary issues statewide our class sizes have ballooned to 40-plus! I have around 180 total students and, thankfully, the vast majority are respectful, hard-working and driven to become better readers and writers. Due to the move to Smarter Balance Assessments, our district has offered trainings utilizing Instruction By Design (IBD) and I had a lot of success with this program last school year. I have enjoyed teaching LA this past year because I feel that I am teaching students skills that they will use throughout their lives. Becoming more polished, confident, and capable writers will enhance my students futures immensely.
I live in Portland and am a proud father of a 4 year old girl and ‘soon to be born’ baby boy! Our due date is August 3rd so there is the possibility of a short break towards the end of this class. I look forward to exploring new and innovative ideas and tools for teaching writing that I can add to my teaching repertoire.
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ReplyDeleteHello Drew!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our class. How exciting about the upcoming birth of your son. I am a fan of looping also. Sounds like you are able to maintain a positive attitude in spite of the budgetary issues still plaguing Oregon.
I look forward to working with you this term.
ReplyDelete
Hi, my name is Kathy and I teach 5th grade in the Lake Oswego School District. This fall will be my 13th year of teaching at Westridge Elementary for a grand total of 18 years in the profession. Typically, my class size hovers around 25. My current literacy program consists of integrating the district reading program, novel studies, book clubs, and an independent reading program using Reading Counts. I like to have a wide variety of reading material in my classroom, which then gives the students exposure to all different kinds of writing. My students write in journals, all modes, reader’s responses, etc. My reading and writing lessons are very connected. I have attended a variety of writing trainings ( Step up to Writing, Linda Vanderford, Anita Baker, and other district inservices). I love my job. I am feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the changes coming our way this coming school year. I am taking three classes this summer in preparation of the CCSS. This class is one of them. I am hoping that I will feel more confident when September comes around. I have a husband, a daughter ( a recent OSU graduate), a son (who just finished his 1st year at the U of O), and my ever faithful companion, Berkeley ( a three-year old black lab). I hope to learn from this course a way to inspire a love of writing in my students ( and myself).
ReplyDeleteHello – My name is Sheryl Zerda, and I teach 3rd grade at Lake Hood Elementary School in Anchorage, Alaska. I previously taught kindergarten for nine years and first grade for one year, so 3rd grade was a big change for me. I had 24 students, so luckily I wasn’t overwhelmed by a big class. We had a literacy block in the mornings and we spent an hour or so on our reading program and language arts skills. The second part of our morning was language arts centers including writing and leveled reading groups. I found teaching writing this past year to be a challenge. I recently completed a two day Step Up to Writing workshop, but other than that I have to think back to my teacher training days for strategies to teach writing. Our district provides classes for teaching writing on occasion, but no formal grade level training. I enjoy teaching the most when I feel like I am doing a great job, and sometimes I didn’t feel that way last year as I was finding my way through a new grade level (and new district-wide math program). I think we are all feeling a great deal of pressure and not as much joy in our teaching these days. Budgets are tight, training is weak, accountability is high, support is hard to come by. Wow, I’m depressing myself! I really do like being a teacher, I just want to feel like I am the best teacher I can be and that is why I’m taking this class. On a personal note, I am married and have two kids. My daughter’s 20th birthday is today. She is going to be a junior at Western Washington University in Bellingham. My son is 17 and will be a senior in high school next year. The fifth member of our family is our golden retriever, Roxi. During the summer, I like to take care of my yard and garden, read and go to our cabin on the Kenai River.
ReplyDeleteGreetings Kathy and Sheryl! Welcome to our class. I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.
ReplyDeleteKathy--Three class is a lot over the summer. I hope you will have some time to get out and play and also to relax!
Sheryl, I think many teachers feel as you do regarding teaching writing. Many of us were not really trained how to do this. Jackie and I both REALLY love this text (and Regie in general) and feel positive you are going to come away with many new ideas to implement into your program and also find joy in writing for both you and your students! Regie wants us to find ways to focus on what is essential and think if our time and energy is worth the effort. Changing levels and learning new curriculum does require a lot more of our time…but it gets easier with each year that passes. Looking forward to working with everyone this term. :)
Greetings!
ReplyDeleteMy name is Katherine Holtgraves and I am taking this class to refresh, renew and follow up a reading distance class I took last term. I am an administrator for Three Rivers Charter School in West Linn Oregon. I am taking several classes to find new pathways for our teachers for the coming year. We are a lovely little school, with 100 students. Our teachers teach 4th – 8th grade and all subjects. The great aspects of this type of education, is the beauty in helping kiddo’s see who they are throughout a span of 5 years. They learn how to have deep relationships with their peers, working together with the adults, through all kinds of ups and downs in the teenage years. They also learn how to see adults as supportive and helping them achieve their best. It is why I first started teaching… what I lost teaching in a district… and what I gained back when we opened this school 14 years ago. Since then, we don’t have a “district” providing curriculum – which is a blessing really. What we all do is take areas of the curriculum and become “quasi-experts” for each other. I am going back to my roots to refresh and renew my thoughts about literacy this summer. I am excited at the many deeper learning opportunities that CCSS standards ask of us all. I look forward to this class, as a great follow up, to the class on reading that I finished this spring. I am also taking and Informational Text class – I just love learning and finding cool ways to help our literacy program at school grow stronger! Thanks for having me and I look forward to the next few weeks together!
Katherine ( EEEEKKKK sorry I have 2 kids myself (27 a magnificent teacher herself, and a 31 year old son who is a CPA) both doing great and well on their way. My husband and I are loving the part of life that we have now with each other – exploring everywhere! It is just a blast!
Hello Katherine!
ReplyDeleteGlad you are able to join us this term. How exciting to have the freedom to teach what you want and how you want. I agree, I am also excited about all the opportunities that the CCSS will bring to teachers across the country. (I see it as a license to dig deeper and spend more time on topics and subjects.)
Does your daughter teach at your school? I'm sure you're a wonderful resource for her.
Hi, my name is Alix Schmidt. In June I completed my third year of teaching at Westridge Elementary School in Lake Oswego. My first year of teaching I taught AM Kindergarten and a section of second grade math and for the past two years I’ve taught a first/second grade blend. I’ll be teaching first/second grade again in the fall. This past year I had 24 students in my class. Since we have blended classrooms we separate and teach literacy and math to straight grades. I teach second grade language arts and first grade math. We have six sections of first/second grade and switch students to create even grade level classes. We have a 90 minute block for language arts where we teach both reading and writing. Then we also teach writing in homeroom as well. Our district just adopted a new common core aligned reading program called Reach for Reading created by National Geographic. Our district has given teachers 4 extra prep hours this summer and one training day before school starts to prepare to teach the new curriculum. At this point I know very little about the materials or what our literacy program is going to look like. I was able to quickly browse the materials this spring, but again this quick as each building only had a day or two with the new materials. So there will be a lot to learn in a short amount of time! In my three years with the district I haven’t attended any trainings for writing specifically. I’ve attended trainings on the CCSS, which included writing, Read Well trainings, and CCSS math trainings. The focus the past couple years has been on learning the CCSS standards and adopting new curriculums for literacy and math.
ReplyDeleteI love my job and school! I feel very lucky to work where I do and have made great friendships with the other teachers in my building. I am fortunate that I have made it over the hump of being a temporary teacher and the uncertainty the comes with being a beginning teacher. I am part of a great team and next year will be our third year together. We have a groove in terms of dividing responsibilities and sharing ideas.
I have lived in Oregon my whole life and love the Pacific Northwest. My boyfriend is also a teacher, he teaches P.E. It’s nice having the same schedule and getting to enjoy our summers together. We’ll be spending the summer traveling throughout the NW to visit friends and family. We are both sports fans and enjoy attending Timbers games and watching various sports on the weekends.
My hope for the course is that I’ll be able to learn new ideas and strategies to teach writing that will work well with our new curriculum, which is heavy on non-fiction texts.
Hello Alix,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the class. We are happy you joined us!
Boo. Turns out I should follow directions. My big long post disappeared as I was trying to publish it. .....
ReplyDeleteMy name is Davinie Fiero and I just finished my first year teaching at Buff Intermediate in Madras, OR. I consistently had a class of 30 students. 30/30/30 white, hispanic, and Native American. I loved them all and had a hard time saying goodbye , which I wasn't expecting.
I walked into teaching late. I went back for my Masters, teaching license, and Reading Endorsement when my youngest went to Kindergarten. I have two daughters and they will be in 3rd and 5th this year.
My District has adopted a new ELA program this year.... Read Well for K-3. I am worried about this program but haven't been trained yet. Traditionally we have had a 30 minute writing block but we are also changing to a 1 hour block with push-in ELD services. This is also a challenge that concerns me. I will have ELD students at ELPA 3 mixed with TAG students and need to meet the needs for all. I love the idea of a writer's workshop as well as the Daily 5 so am looking forward to learning more strategies to make it all work.
Before teaching I used to also work in the papercrafting industry. I worked for scrapbook manufacturers and magazines for several years. I am a very creative person and enjoy making my own lesson plans and manipulatives, etc. I want to find a way to make all requirements still work with my natural teaching style.
Last year my writing block was the last 1/2 hour of the day which was yet another challenge. My goal with this class is to find a way to make writing fun yet effective, for tired minds and busy 3rd grade bodies.
Hi, my name is Brittany Ferguson. I currently am a K-5 Learning Specialist in a small district near Astoria, Oregon (Knappa School District, Hilda Lahti Elementary School). This fall will be my fourth year of teaching; I worked as a para-professional in Tigard-Tualatin School District in their elementary behavior classroom prior to getting my masters. Currently, we use a pull-out model in my district for special education goal instruction. I have anywhere from 1-15 kids receiving small group instruction in my classroom at any given time. My classroom has reading, written language, math and social/behavior skills instruction that takes place throughout the school day. Currently, I teach core reading to kids who have reading goals. For core reading, we use Treasures/Triumphs. There is a very small writing component that is within this reading program. When I have my written language groups, we do a few different things. My younger writers usually work through a writing program called “Language for Writing.” My older kids do a lot of structured free writes, grammar instruction, and different writing samples based on the 4th grade writing prompts from OAKS. Honestly, teaching writing is one of my least favorite subjects to teach. My district has really struggled as a whole in the area of writing. There is no real expectation of what is taught in the classroom. The new statewide assessment, Smarter Balance, is much more writing intensive and I am worried about my SPED students. I love being a teacher. I especially love teaching students who others think will never learn to read/write. I believe all kids, no matter their disability, have the ability to learn and achieve their individual dreams.
ReplyDeleteA little about myself: I have an identical twin sister. Both of my parents were in education (they both just retired). My mom was a high school health/family consumer studies teacher at Canby High School. My dad was the Director of Special Services for Oregon City School District. I am the only kid that went into education. When I graduated from college, I wanted to be a high school health teacher. However, my path changed when I had the chance to teach ESY and worked with children with disabilities. I moved to the coast for my first teaching job and have decided to stay for a few more years. Besides teaching, I coach high school track and field. I just became the coach of a state champion this past year which is an amazing feeling. In my spare time, I really enjoy reading, knitting, hiking, sailing, fishing/hunting, playing with my dog and spending time with friends/family.
My master’s program focused mostly on special education and the laws around school aged special education. I feel like I do not know the essentials of teaching writing effectively. I am hoping to learn how to teach writing in a fun way. A lot of my writing students do not like to write because it is hard. I, myself, am not a strong writer and have a very hard time teaching it to students. I also want to build an effective program that I could use as a tool for my general education teaching partners. This coming school year we, as an entire district, are really going to focus on writing and strengthening our student’s ability to write. I am really looking forward to learning new ideas around teaching writing from my fellow classmates.
Hi. My name is Caitlin Olara. I am licensed to teach in Oregon, as I finished my master’s degree from the U of O. However, I teach in an International School in Kampala Uganda. I have been teaching there for five years. I spent the first two years teaching the equivalent of fourth grade and the last three years teaching the equivalent of third grade. As I teach in an International school, it is private, so they can limit the class sizes. The maximum is 24 students per class, which I know is such a blessing. In the past few years though, our numbers have been steadily dropping so last year I only had 14 students, and there are only 13 registered for my class next year. There are three classes per grade level, and we share two teaching assistants between the three classes.
ReplyDeleteMy school follows the British National Curriculum. I am the only American teacher and have had a lot to adjust to. They used to have a Literacy World program for teaching literacy, but have recently changed focus as our assessments have changed. As a school we have shifted from the British exams to the Cambridge International Exams and this very last year have tried to adjust our teaching to match these tests. As a result it was the hardest year of my teaching career so far, as we had also completely changed our math curriculum and the curriculum for teaching our history/geography/science. So in short, we changed every curriculum we were using in one year. As far as Literacy, my particular training is only that which I got in my pre-service training. For my school, there was a focus in reading instruction last year. Last year I observed one lesson on guided reading done by one of the administrators and then was observed by the same administrator. Other than that, we generally focus on teaching a certain genre, by looking at some examples and then writing a sample based on the features of that genre. It has so far not been inspiring to me as a teacher or motivating to the students.
I personally have felt extremely frustrated with my teaching of literacy and feel that it needs a great deal of improvement, but I don’t feel that I have much support or resources. They are putting a great deal of pressure on us to have our students pass the Cambridge exams, and are advising that next year we will set targets for certain numbers of students showing improvement and if we don’t meet our targets there will be some unnamed consequences. Next year the focus is supposed to be improving our teaching of writing. I would love to do that, but felt I needed to seek out extra knowledge about how specifically to do that. That is why I have decided to take this course while on my furlough to the U.S. for a few weeks.
In general I love teaching my students, as they are mostly enthusiastic, and they are all very sweet. I really enjoy my classes, but as I mentioned earlier this last year was a very difficult one for me and has made me somewhat burnt out as a teacher. I am hopeful that this will improve next year. So far though, I have tried to maintain a good balance, by not sacrificing my family time for that of my work. I have just celebrated my fifth anniversary with my wonderful Ugandan husband. We have been blessed with a cute little boy who is almost 4 and a beautiful little girl who is turning 10 months. This of course, keeps me very busy at home and has kept me busy this summer, as I have been traveling with our two little ones to visit our various family members.
Hello Davinie, Brittany & Caitlin!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the course!
Oh, Davinie, I'm sorry that you lost your assignment. That has happened to me a few too many times so I know what a bummer that is. :( Congratulations on finishing your first year! :) UGH-- I am not a fan of Read Well as the main reading adoption. This is a long story, but one district I taught in forced us all to use it with fidelity K-2. I have heard it's somewhat better now but I haven't seen it. I hope you will be given the flexibility to decide who needs the intensive phonics instruction and who may need other supports. (I was in a very affluent district so the majority of students did not need this type of instruction. And at the time there was NO comprehension piece to the program.) Anyway, I'm stepping off my soap box. :)
I've mentioned this before but I think you'll find Regie's ideas and the Daily 5 compliment one another. I agree, the last block of the day is a difficult time for students. Perhaps your schedule might change a little this year, if not, I'm sure you'll find some new ideas to interest and excite your students.
Hello again, Brittany. :) We're happy to see you in another one of our classes this term! We have had many teachers share with us that they did not like to teach writing and/or did not feel confident in teaching writing; so you are not alone. We're sure you will come away with new ideas to implement into your program that will benefit both you and your students and put more joy into writing. :)
ReplyDeleteCaitlin,
How exciting to teach abroad! Congratulations on your new daughter. I can see why last year was so stressful for you, in addition to having a baby and a small child at home. If you find that you like Regie's book, I'd highly suggest you read her Reading Essentials book as well to learn more about reading instruction. Even though these two books are a little older they have the basics of what good reading and writing instruction looks like. Enjoy your time state side! I know what a challenge it is traveling with small children. Hopefully you'll have a little time for your self to enjoy some sunshine. :)
HI EVERYONE, I WROTE IT LATER IN THE BLOG, BUT JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT I'M ON VACATION THIS WEEK AT THE OCEAN. I plan to respond to assignments but it may be a little longer than usual. If you have any questions or issues email our course email as I'll be scanning that as well. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone! I am late to this class and am working to read comments and catch up. Nice to see such a wide variety of educators involved! I teach second grade in a small country school in Molalla, Oregon. I have been teaching (with some time off to have a family) since 2000. This year I will have around 28 second graders. I do not have instructional support, but I often have amazing parent volunteers working with me. I use a district curriculum for reading (Treasures) alongside Daily 5 and CAFÉ. We do not have an “adopted” writing program and I am like a fish out of water trying to teach my littles the writing process. Help!!! I am used to working with 5th graders in writing. These past few years I have taught kindy, first and second. I am definitely lacking in my skills, knowledge and ability to help these kiddos become successful writers. I was great with the older grades. I taught during the time of “benchmarks”. Anyone with me on that? My year (grade 5) was the year for the writing test. We became pretty strong writers….though often “canned” writing prevailed in order to pass. I feel like we struggle as a district in writing. We are all doing different things. Some of us use the “writing” piece in Treasures. Some of us do small writing “projects”. For those of us using Daily 5, our kids are writing daily as one of their choices. That alone doesn’t cut it. By the end of second grade we are expected to have our students writing a 3-paragraph essay with correct punctuation and some sense of beginning, middle and end. We have no common rubric aside from Common Core Standards. With Smarter Balanced here, I feel like we need to come together and figure something out that will scaffold from year to year and help our kids be successful. We are doing well in reading, and that is so much a part of writing. We (I) just need some more tools in my tool belt! I LOVE being a teacher. Now, I have been on break for two months, ask me in another two and the LOVE will be in small case. Teaching is my life calling. It is who I am, not just what I do. I am a mom of two amazing boys. This year they enter 3rd and 4th grade. Sniff. I have been married for 21 years to my high school sweetheart. We have a “farm” that produces, more than anything, opportunity for work. My indulgences include reading and going to the gym for a little “me” time. I hope to leave this class with ideas from others and from the lessons on how to help my students (and boys) become lifelong writers. What can I teach them now, to help them write, reflect and write more?
ReplyDeleteHi Randee,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the course. :) I'm confident the text will give you the process to improve your writing instruction. In fact, as I say it time and time again, you're going to want to re-read this book after you finish it and you'll come away with even more ideas to implement into your program! Jackie and I taught 2nd grade together back in the 90's. :) 4th grade was the big testing year in our state and when I taught that level, we taught the test writing as a sort of genre for students. We told them it wasn't how we normally wrote but for the criteria of the test we had to include different pieces. (It sort of helped to put the artificial feel of teaching to the test into perspective for the students.) Many teachers in this class share that they are not confident in teaching writing, so you are not alone. My personal thoughts are if we make writing more fun and joyful then students will want to write and not see it as a chore. :) Looking forward to working with you.
Hi! My name is Julie Schwerzler. I am coming joining this course a little late-I just got back from visiting family for 3 weeks in Ohio and I couldn’t put my 3 month old nephew down long enough to get my assignments written up!
ReplyDeleteThis will be my 13th year teaching first grade in Oregon City. I previously taught full-day kindergarten for 6 years at a private school. We currently use ReadWell for our reading program and are fortunate to have assistants during that time to help with small groups. We are adding the composition part this year. I’m not sure what that will look like but am hoping that it doesn’t take time away from our writing block. We also have implemented Step-Up-to-Writing (although I have not been formally trained on it) and add pieces of the Comprehension Toolkit when there is time. Our writing block has only been about 35 minutes long which doesn’t leave enough time for students to have time to write. It has also been frustrating the last few years having to score first grade writing samples using the fourth grade scoring guide-I’ve been finding myself using more prompts which I never used to use. We are changing our schedule around a little this year and am excited that it will allow more daily writing time for the students. I am taking this course to provide me with some more tools to strengthen my writing instruction-mainly by adding more shared writing and conferencing into the day.
Hi Julie. Welcome!
ReplyDelete