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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My name is Amanda. I have taught in Hillsboro School District for 1 year, and previously for 8 years in Evergreen School District, in Vancouver, for a total of 9 years. I have had anywhere from 20 – 29 students in my classes – WA focuses heavily on keeping class sizes low…Oregon - not so much.
ReplyDeleteI have taught 1st-4th, including splits, and am set to teach 2nd next year – my favorite!
I have very little instructional support, except I always recruit volunteers and offer to take student teachers/practicum students.
In literacy, I have had training in workshop, so all of my writing follows workshop style with a mini-lesson/modeling of a targeted skill, lots of independent work time and conferring (an area I constantly try to improve and feel I have never quite mastered), and a reflection focusing on the target for the day and including students reading their writing. I have used Lucy Calkins curriculum to teach writing, and believe in using mentor texts as often as possible. I have also been trained in Daily 5 and implement a modified version 2-4 times per week for literacy. Although it wasn’t “training” in a formal sense, I am also a National Board Certified Teacher, which included a writing entry. This process really forced me to reflect on how to help students progress in the area of writing by finding goals for them based on the needs they showed me in writing. I am trained in GLAD and SIOP, which both have great writing tools for integrating writing into social studies and science content (which I find absolutely necessary). I love to have kids do interactive journals, although I admit it is HARD to get back to 30 kids weekly.
I have had training in writing, but in comparison to other subjects, it is not very intense. Usually writing training is reviewing a curriculum or writing a unit. Both of these trainings were in Evergreen, I have yet to have writing training in Oregon. Next year as a school, we are focusing on writing and I am excited about it!
I have definitely seen the stress the state testing has put on intermediate teachers. A lot of them do tend to gravitate toward prompts, which I believe DO have a place in the classroom. However, I have seen a lot of overuse of prompts. I was guilty of that, too. I would say that the Common Core actually changed that for me, as I am focusing on the three kinds of writing much more and continue to look for real life writing for the kids to do…mixed with prompts, word work, poetry, and choice writing. Although my district definitely pushes to have us do well on the tests, but there really isn’t any coherence in the elementary writing system. Everyone is doing their own thing, I couldn’t tell you why some teachers have success and some do not, and that is frustrating.
I love teaching. Simply put, next to my family, it is my passion. I have wanted to be a teacher since I can remember! Although I feel frustrated from time to time, I would say I am generally happy about teaching and love the people I work with.
Out of this course, I hope to broaden my knowledge of how to teach writing. Possibly walk away with some more authentic writing experiences for my students, and just see what else there is to learn!
Outside of teaching, I am a mom of 2 kiddos (Aris is 8, Aurelia is 5 – going to kindergarten this year – eek!). I have been married for 8 years and live in Beaverton. I like to garden, scrapbook, and work on projects around the house. I just got a new puppy, her name is Nykki, and she is a YorkiePoo. She weighs 4 lbs right now. I also have a weak spot for really bad reality TV…I’m so over this Bachelorette!!! Can’t wait to get started!
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm just copying Irene's first response and Amanda's reply to this post. :) Mary
SussmanJuly 23, 2015 at 1:35 PM
Introduction
My name is Irene Sussman. I live and teach in a small university city in Oregon. This is my third year of teaching. The first two were kindergarten and last year I moved up to first grade; a much better fit for me! I love teaching although at times I do find it exhausting! A big part of that is there is so much for me to learn. I am absolutely blessed with having an amazing first grade PLC team to work with. It’s through their experience that I see how far I would still like to take myself; their knowledge and commitment to excellence is a daily inspiration to me.
My District does have an adopted reading/writing curriculum, Houghton Mifflin. Last year I intermittently used the writing from our curriculum and I also attempted to use “Month by Month Writing.” It was difficult wading through all of the information to hone what was best for the class. This is why I’m so excited to be taking this class. I feel as though writing was a subject that I didn’t grasp well enough to be an effective model/guide for my students.
When I’m not teaching I enjoy hiking, walking, camping, gardening, reading, friends and family (I have an amazing husband, three wonderful daughters and five siblings). And, I enjoy really good coffee.
Amanda July 25, 2015 at 10:15 AM
Oh, you had me at really good coffee ;) I'm drinking some Sleep Monk RIGHT NOW :) I can't agree with you more about collaboration, either! I NEED to have a PLC in order to review student work and create more instruction! I have always been pretty lucky in that department. I am curious what Month by Month writing is? Also, do you find that the Houghton Mifflin connects to the Common Core? Excited to learn with you!
Hello Amanda!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our course! I think you will find some suggestions and strategies to improve your conferring time later in the course. ☺ My sister is also Nationally Board Certified, so I know how much work it took to become so. Def. something you should be proud of.
I would say that responding to 30 students weekly in their journals is very ambitious and impressive. Have you considered ways to streamline this so it’s not so time consuming? As Regie has said, there’s nothing wrong with this, in fact I’m sure the students love it, but how do you feel about maintaining this? Let us know if you would like ideas or suggestions, I’m sure all of us could offer some thoughts.
Jackie and I have a similar view regarding the prompt writing. When we were in the classroom we taught prompt writing as a sort of genre. We told students it was for the state test and there were specific things that the scorers were looking for. We let them know it was a different type of writing from what we normally did in the class, but it was important to know how to write for the prompt. We tried to take the mystery out of it and showed them examples of writing that met the standard, exceeded the standard and also was below the standard. We had class discussions about how pieces could be improved or why they were considered pieces that exceeded the standard.
I’m guessing your staff will come to a clearer understanding next year as you focus on writing of what works for some teachers and what can be improved. Having this time to work, learn, process and review together is very valuable. I’ve been at schools where we spent entire staff meetings discussing student work examples and how we would score them. As well as coming to common understanding of different terms and methods. (I vividly recall spending MANY staff meetings discussing what Guided Reading Groups meant. It was fascinating to realize that while we threw this term around, many of us had vastly different ideas of what it meant and how it was implemented in our classrooms. (There was much discussion and new learning around Strategy Groups vs. Guided Reading Groups and the parts of the workshop.))
Wow, kindergarten, so exciting…my daughter, Ellery, is 4 so I have one more year. She’s my last one, my boys are 9 and 10 heading to 5th and 4th grade. Crazy how the time flies.
We don’t have cable at home, HOWEVER, I’m on vacation this week in Rhode Island AND we have TV. I LOVE HGTV, so excited to be able to watch some. ☺
National Boards were hands down the hardest thing I've ever done educationally (for my own career), but I learned SO much! It was a GREAT process, and I'm proud of it...and glad I'm finished, too :)
DeleteI would LOVE ideas to maintain the journal writing, because, as of now, I start off doing it and I end up not doing it as much because it is SO much work! I'd love ANY suggestions.
I like what you said about teaching prompt writing as a genre! What a great idea. I also like the idea of picking apart prompts AND looking at different levels! I think prompt writing IS important, as they kids need to know how to respond when asked something, but in the past it has just been over used. I like studying it as a genre.
I love your daughter's name! SO interesting :) It is SO crazy how time flies...enjoy your HGTV - I also love that, lol!
Hi again.
DeleteI just touched base with Jackie as she's the "expert" in literacy. She's found that interactive journals work best more for 3rd grade or higher. But even at the higher grades, she hasn't found any teachers that have been able to sustain responding all year. It's a lot of time and what she encourages her teachers to do instead is to spend that time planning your teaching points for groups or conferences.
In second grade she would recommend that it needs to be more guided, especially for the first half of the year. You might want to do an interactive read aloud where the students (group or whole class) responds to a guided response. This way you are training them and teaching them what you are looking for. If it goes well then moving, after Jan., to more independence would be the time for 2nd graders to try journaling more on their own.
Another thought was for the teachers to do it by groups of students each week (table groups, reading groups, alphabetically, etc…) so you aren't reading and responding to the entire classes' journals. Jackie really stressed she hasn't seen any teachers at her schools able to maintain this year long. Perhaps planning for 3-4 weeks at a time, say every marking period might be a better way to manage the journals. Her advice to her teachers is that she'd rather the students were having time in class for process writing, rather than response to text in the lower levels. The question she said to ask yourself is what is the purpose of the journals? Is it worth your time and is is worth the student's time?
Hope this makes sense. Anybody else with thoughts or ideas?
Thanks, we worked very hard to come up with Ellery's name. It means cheerful. :D Her full name is Ellery Grace. It's a little tricky not associating student names when you're trying to name a baby and when it's #3, it has to "fit" with the other two names (Gabriel and Nathaniel.)
Thank you for the suggestions! I don't tend to start any type of back and forth with my kiddos until the second half...they just can't handle it ;) It is reassuring to hear that other teachers can't sustain reading them all, either. It becomes exhausting! The only way I can even get around to all of their writing is if I have them leave it on their desk and do it right after they leave. That way it is open and ready to go. Often, I glance at it and leave a sticker so they know I saw it.
DeleteIt makes sense to me to really focus on the process writing. I think I use journals as a means to boost writing fluency. So often my incoming 2nd graders just can't write more than a sentence or so. There is such a huge jump in writing skills from the beginning of the year to the end, so I want to get them back to writing asap...they tend to write if they know I'm going to write back! I'd love ideas, these were great!
It is SO hard to name kids when you have classrooms full of names...some you just KNOW won't fit ;)
Hi Irene,
ReplyDeleteWelcome! As Amanda said, you are both very lucky to have such a supportive community. Sadly, not all schools are like this. As you both mentioned it is so important to have support in order to take the risks we need to grow and learn as professionals. I also felt, when I started teaching, that I really hadn't been taught how to instruct writing. I think you will love this text and I encourage everyone who takes this class to plan on re-reading this book again. Each time you do you will come away with new ideas and strategies to try.
Looking forward to working with you this term. :) Oh, and sorry ladies, I'm a tea girl. ;)
I can already tell this book is going to be a great resource! And tea is good too...just not quite my coffee ;)
DeleteMy name is Tara Wangen and I am a special education teacher in Lake Oswego. I have been teaching grades 3rd-5th for seven years and this next year will be my first year teaching grades K-5th. I teach in what what we call the Pathways program which is mild to moderate disabilities with a focus on functional academics and functional communication. I have had between 5-8 students in my class and this next year will be my biggest class with 12 students. I am fortunate to have support from educational assistants in my classroom and the number of assistants that I have changes from year to year based on my caseload and student need. My current writing program is varied and based on each student’s IEP goals. Some of my students are working on really functional writing (e.g. important personal information, writing letters, writing lists, etc.) while I have other students who are working at a more academic standard, but 2 or 3 grade levels below. Due to the fact that I am not following the curriculum of the regular education teachers, I don’t attend the trainings that our district provides for their academic programs. While I don’t know for sure if there has been writing training provided by our district for our regular education teachers, I know that there hasn’t been any provided for the special education teachers. My knowledge and training comes from when I went through the special education masters program at the University of Oregon and I took a class that was focused on writing instruction. While I believe that the U of O did a great job at preparing me for my teaching career, now that I actually have some experience I am looking to refresh some of those skills that I had learned and actually apply them to the students that I am working with. From this class I am hoping to gain an overall better perspective of writing so that I will be able to make the writing programs for my students more comprehensive and complete. Overall, I love teaching and working with all of my students, but we all know that there are days that can be challenging and draining. When I’m not at school I love to spend time with my family (especially my husband and two dogs) and our friends. We love to be outside gardening, hiking, walking our dogs, or just barbecuing and sitting around the fire pit. I also love to sew, organize, and do yoga.
ReplyDeleteHi Tara,
ReplyDeleteI will write this at the end of the blog for the others as well but wanted to let you know that we see all your assignments. With the end of the term tomorrow we have a ton of work coming in and need to get grades to TINT for PSU very quickly this term. So I will be responding to the posts in the next week or so once I have all the grades submitted. I am looking forward to reading your thoughts about the text and material. :)