Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Assignment Two: Written Reflection

ASSIGNMENT TWO: WRITTEN REFLECTION–Section One- The Essential Writing Life Chapters 1-3
BRIEFLY reflect on the following comments written below from Chapters 1-3 and any additional thoughts that you have after reading these chapters.

Chapter 1: Simplify the Teaching of Writing• Simplify our teaching
• Becoming more knowledgeable about teaching writing
• Examine your beliefs

Regie gets to the heart of her book Writing Essentials with this quote on the final page of Chapter One: “By reducing the clutter in our teaching lives-the over-planning, the unnecessary activities, the paper load, all the ‘stuff’ that takes our time and energy and does little to improve teaching and learning-we bring joy back into our work and the world of our students.” Many of us work very hard and spend many hours complicating our teaching lives. In this book Regie will help you simplify your teaching life for your benefit and that of your students.

One of the frustrations that teachers encounter regularly is the ever changing “latest and best” writing programs that districts or states force on them and their students. With this revolving cycle of programs, teachers are spending too much time learning how to use the program rather than becoming better writing teachers. Regie explains that in the districts where students are the best writers, they are writing for real purposes and audiences and publishing their writing; teachers are not using prescribed writing programs.

Look at Appendix A (page A-2.) Examine your beliefs about writing by reading the statements about the writing process and marking true or false in your book. (Go ahead and write in your book, it’s OK! You can even use a pencil and mark very lightly if you want to.) We found this activity very enlightening. Let us know what you think after you complete the activity.

In your reflection for Section One, please include your thoughts about the following questions or statements:

• Regie demonstrates how to use the Optimal Learning Model (shown on the front cover and page 11) throughout the book. Consider how the Optimal Learning Model fits into your own instruction.
• As you think about how to teach writing so that all students can become successful, effective and joyful writers, reflect on how you presently teach the “12 Writing Essentials” (as described on pages 13-14 in the text) during your daily writing instruction. As we continue to read through Regie’s book, hopefully you will begin to see how you might make changes in your instruction to better incorporate these “12 Writing Essentials.”

Chapter 2: Start With Celebration
• Make sure writing is meaningful not just correct
• Use stories as springboards and ensure that ALL students hear stories
• Write in front of your students and connect home and school

The title of Chapter Two simply states, “Start with Celebration,” and that’s exactly what we need to do for our students. The celebration of all students’ writing needs to be put into the forefront and be made our first teaching goal. Celebrations should happen school-wide, within our classrooms and with students individually. As children begin to see themselves as successful writers, they will take more risks in their writing and in turn will become better writers who enjoy the writing process.
Another key point that Regie highlights in this chapter is to “make sure writing is meaningful, not just correct!” Students need to understand that writing is “enjoyable and for a real purpose and audience.” She also reminds us “that teaching skills in isolation does not make student writers; neither does teaching to the test. And breaking writing into bits and pieces robs children of the joy of writing.”

Regie suggests using stories as a springboard for teaching and learning. Hearing and telling stories builds our students’ oral language skills and these stories are “an entryway into reading and writing.” Only when students are reading and writing real stories can they connect the “skills” based learning to their reading and writing!

Please include your thoughts about the following questions or statements in your written reflection of Section One:

• Regie explains how important celebrating student writing is. How do you celebrate student writing in your classroom? How might you add more celebration of student writing to your day/year?
• Consider what changes you could make in your writing instruction to make writing more meaningful and purposeful for your students.

8 comments:

  1. Brian Beadle
    Chapter 1
    The Optimal Learning Model to me is the same as what we refer to in Portland Public Schools as “I do, we do, you do.” Basically, the idea is that you show the students how to do something, practice the skill with them, then have them work on the skill on their own.
    Ideally nearly every lesson I teach, regardless of the subject matter, would follow this pattern of instruction. Much of the time my lessons do, but sometimes they do not. In terms of teaching writing I sometimes have a bit of a hard time with the timing aspect of this model. It can take a while (especially for me, I tend to write slowly) to model how to write a paragraph or more. As I model writing a paragraph or something similar in length, I tend to worry about all the students who choose to check out because the only task they need to do is listen to me while I do all the work. It’s hard to get kids to focus and really watch closely while modeling writing.

    Through out the year I hit on most of the twelve writing essentials, some more than others of course. I can’t say I hit on all of these each day, or even each unit though. While introducing a unit I try to discuss the purpose, audience, and genre in order to clarify the demands students will be charged with undertaking. As an ESL teacher who teaches ESL and writing together, I certainly teach a range of mini-lessons on essentials such as experimenting with language, introductions and conclusions, conventions, etc. I haven’t done a lot of explicit instruction, however, on voice and revising on the fly. Overall I am familiar with these twelve essentials. Incorporating all of them on a semi-regular basis however is a different story.

    Chapter 2

    I celebrate student writing primarily by having publishing parties. At the end of most units, upon students publishing their writing, I bring in snacks and students read their writing to their peers. Sometimes the format is partner reading and sometimes it is an individual reading to the class. Though some students get bashful, they enjoy publishing parties immensely.
    I try to provide opportunities for students to share more informal writing at the end of class, though time and other constraints more often than not, stop me from doing author’s chair style sharing.
    One thing I may do is up the amount of sharing time during publishing parties. In the race to cover everything that needs to be covered I sometimes cut our 45 minute block in half. We’ll do an activity in the first half of class, then celebrate during the second half. I’d also like to take more time, whether at the beginning of class or at the end – to celebrate both strong writing and committed effort.
    Routman is frustrating in that she has the luxury of waltzing into a classroom for a week or two at a time and doing “fun writing” with students. She then pirouettes out of class without teaching harder, less interesting writing units. (When doing so, and at regular intervals in this book, she boasts about herself, an attribute I find highly unflattering). The reality is that along with teaching more fun/interesting stuff, I have to teach character analysis essays, research papers, and other units... aka less fun/interesting stuff. I am also charged with the need to teach/strengthen conventions as well.
    Despite my rant, there are things I could do to make writing more purposeful and meaningful. I’m going to try and go over the genre, purpose, and audience at the start of each unit. I’m going to try to provide my students with authentic purposes and audiences. I’m going to try, but it’s hard! I had this great idea to tell my students that we’ll send our character analysis essays to the author of the book we’re studying, but all he lists is an email address, not a postal address. It’s hard!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Assignment 2

    I’ve always had a bit of trepidation about teaching writing. It’s been one area of instruction that I’ve struggled alongside my students with. Writing is scary to many first graders. They so want to please those reading their work, and often don’t have any idea where to begin. The illusion of a scripted program is that it will sequentially and thoroughly cover all the bases and make my students into confident writers by the end of the year. The problem with these programs is that they don’t create independence. So when Routman repeats the need for “writing for specific audiences and writing for meaningful purpose, “ I get excited about changing course. I am in the process of returning to a more “joyful” kind of writing instruction after our district spent an enormous amount of money on a new and ineffective program. After using for a year or so, we knew it wasn’t going to help my students grow into confident writers. So this year, I’m back to putting together lessons that align with standards, and will help my students love the writing process. Still, I’m feeling scattered .

    After reviewing the 12 Essentials, I can see the incredible value of these as a structure to continually refer to. I have chosen lessons with specific purposes in mind, but I need to spend more time including student chosen topics. I see the value of asking students what they would be interested in writing about and creating a list that could be used throughout the year. I have a basket of books I’ve used to get writing lessons started, but the essentials include taking time to talk about responses, discussing who the readers will be, studying the styles of other authors, revising and editing together. These are ways to engage young students and give them more ownership in the process as well as the finished, published pieces.

    Recently one of my students moved to another district. It was hard to see her go and the feeling was mutual with all of my students. Just before Winter break, we received a little envelope full of little bits of writing from you know who. She’d asked her new teacher to send it from school. The immediate response was that we should write back to her! It didn’t take long to realize that this was a golden moment of opportunity. We brainstormed some ideas for materials and I just let it happen. No pressure on my end and almost everyone sent our friend a little something they had written.

    I remember years ago when my days were full of shared writing experiences. Gradually, with all of the demands of teaching writing and covering ALL the bases, that model hasn’t happen enough. I use the phrase “I show, you go,” across experiences in the classroom. When kids see what it looks like, and it’s meaningful, they will want to imitate this. There are so many reasons to write throughout the day, and I’m on my way back to showing those purposes.

    As far as sharing writing in my classroom, I have had students share in their small table groups. Unfortunately, I can’t get around to encourage each child and/ not everyone gets a chance to share. Recently, I have set a stool in the front and we’re calling it the “writer’s stool.” There’s no pressure to climb up and share but they love trying it out. We have also been finding ways to cheer each other on; “rounds of applause”, silent cheers, thumb claps etc. In past years, I have invited the principal or other school friends to come and listen to us read our stories or reports. I’ve been reading Winter poetry to them this last week, and some have tried their hand at a poem themselves using our Winter word bank. They beg to read their work aloud and I’ve made sure they have that opportunity.

    Still, after reading chapter 2, I see the need to tell stories, and show more often the joy of writing those stories down. I need to celebrate the little bits of effort my struggling students make. I’m anxious to see them turn the corner in their writing practices.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Assignment 2

    One writing model I lean on when teaching a new technique, such as writing a “how to” piece is “I do, we do, we do, we do, you do”. I believe in modeling and setting the students up for success with multiple examples. There are definitely students who don’t need this much back filling, but the end results are glorious! This is probably one of my favorite genres because we do many “how to” make, and eat, things together. After the demonstration, we eat, laugh and begin the process of writing the steps for our creation. The last step is for the students to teach me how to make/do something. Did I mention the “you do’s” were glorious? They are creative, hilarious and so much effort goes into them! I love reading them and having the students share with the class. While this particular unit is wildly exciting and engaging, I can’t say the same for all units…maybe because my partners and I deviate from the scripted writing curriculum… shhhh!

    I love the sentence, “make sure writing is meaningful not just correct.” So much emphasis is put on the correctness of writing… scoring guides, testing, report cards, even parent teacher conferences. When I conference with parents, I show their child’s progress in the writing process, getting ideas down on paper, conventions, etc. I can’t remember the last time I told a parent, “your child LOVES to write!” I need to do more purposeful writing lessons that gives them freedom to create.

    Having an “author’s chair” is motivating for my students. I encourage everyone to share their writing, no matter where they are in the process. If students are in the beginning stages, I ask the audience for ideas or suggestions. We talk about what details could be added because we are interested in knowing more. We celebrate when a piece is complete. The amount of time for this type of sharing and collaborating is minimal. I can definitely improve in this area!

    I want to work specifically on creating joy with writing. This will be my new focus!

    ReplyDelete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello Brian,

    This gradual release is the heart of best practices for all instruction. You are correct, the OLM goes by a variety of names. The Gradual Release of Responsibility: To, With, By/ I do, We do, You do…but the one issue I have with these two last names is that they imply that it’s a three step process, which I feel can be misleading for teachers. Most educators do a good job of showing students what needs to be done and having them work independently. The area that is often the weakest is the Shared Demonstration where the teacher does the work with the students helping AND THEN the Guided Practice where the students do the work with the teachers helping as needed before the final stage of Independent Practice.

    What has been my experience is that teachers often merge Shared Demonstration and Guided practice together (likely in the interest of time) and move on to Independent Practice. Taking the time to fully utilize all components of the OLM makes a stronger lesson and supports the students in their learning.

    Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? I also want to say that I can be just as likely to do this as the next person. My point is that when we really take the time to give students the time THEY need to process, practice, reflect and understand, their learning is more solid/deep and long-term.

    I think that’s an excellent idea to increase the time for sharing. I love your comment, “To take more time to celebrate both strong writing and committed effort.” Often the committed effort goes under-recognized and it is truly something to note and celebrate.

    Were you able to email the author or publisher for his mailing address? I think the students would love to be able to send an author their writing.

    Hi Karen,
    Yeah!!!! More joyful writing. I love it. What a wonderful, authentic purpose for writing to your student who moved away. I’m sure student engagement and motivation was high. I am not a fan of scripted programs, and like you, feel that they are a waste of money. I’d rather see the funds go into quality PD for teachers around writing rather than a program that will likely be discarded in a few years for the next great thing.

    Hi LeAndra,
    Music to my ears, writing that is “creative, hilarious and has so much effort that goes into it.” Don’t worry; no one will hear from me that you are deviating from the scripted program. ;) If we take a second and think about how we instruct reading, we do not score or correct every little mistake that the students make. We give them tons of time to explore books, read, read and read some more. Then we (or we should) pick one or two areas that will help move the students forward in their learning. Correcting every little error is a sure way to kill the joy of reading or writing. If teachers allowed students more time to write and had them focus on their audience and purpose then the quality of writing will improve. (But more on this later.) More joy in writing for everyone!!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Assignment 2: Ch. 1, 2 & 3

    Teaching writing using the 12 Writing Essentials and modeling are two necessary ingredients to good writing instruction. I do however, need to talk aloud more about my thought process as I’m demonstrating. I tend to be more brief and to the point. I don’t always explain how I came to the topic I chose to model. Having the students see how I arrived at my topic may help some of the more reluctant writers. One thing I have started doing was referring to my students as writers. Having them visualize themselves as “real” writers helped them enjoy writing. Unfortunately, up to now, I think that the students saw themselves more as “learners” of writing rather than “being” writers. All students have thoughts, stories and ideas to share and therefore all deserve the status of “Writer”. We’ve even moved into publishing our works therefore we have published writers in our classroom. It seems to help the students look forward to the process rather than dread it.

    Celebrating writing in my room won’t be the same. Sharing aloud now looks much differently. I am always pulling for more detail because I am so engaged in what they write and they can’t “leave me hanging in suspense”. I love seeing their eyes twinkle as they think of what detail or information they can add to make their writing more thorough. I have started asking new questions that demonstrate how all readers need to make changes to their writing. I now ask “Who tried something new?”, “Who rewrote a part that didn’t work?”, “Who had a great idea?”, “Who heard an idea that they’d like to use?” I no longer focus on the conventions but, about getting their ideas across clearly. A springboard I never thought of is “start with a story” and actually use the hooks like “You’ll never believe…..” etc. Everyone loves to hear a good story and I’m really excited to start using it since my “hooks” aren’t as dramatic. :)

    I’m now using books/stories as examples of good writing. As a former 4th grade teacher, we’ve looked for specific writing traits in trade books but the goal was to recognize the trait rather than looking at craft. I now (as 1st gr teacher) ask the students the simple question, “What makes this book so good?” As I do this more often, the students will more easily see the connection between reading and writing. They understand the author’s purpose, but looking at the author’s craft will be even more thought provoking and hopefully transfer over to their writing.

    I love the idea that, “writing is messing around with thinking on the page”. This statement alone gives students the freedom to be messy with their thoughts. It doesn’t have to be perfect right off. Constant demonstration of what that thought process looks like whole group, will continue to make writing seem a less scary process. Bringing in all types of writing in my life and sharing it with them will be a great connection to home. They will also begin to identify types of writing that their family members do at home. I already have students bringing in their journals from home, so that they can continue to write during the day. I love to see that these 6 & 7 year olds are excited to write.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hello Brenda,
    It sounds like you are instituting some positive changes to your instruction. :) I'm sure they will have the desired result you are looking for. Calling students writers and published writers is def. a powerful motivator. I'm especially excited about your new questioning and focusing on the message of the writing at first over conventions.

    I agree, I think mentor texts are so powerful. (At all ages!) Sharing great leads, or amazing endings, or vivid descriptions helps students to transfer these elements into their own writing. There are so many children’s books out there that have amazing leads. You can use picture books to support your lessons on engaging leads, effective endings and powerful language.

    Pull some books that have examples like: one’s that start with dialogue, a question, quote, a flashback, an action or exciting event, or character’s thoughts…

    Read,Write,Think’s website has some lessons for teaching leads. You can do the same thing for effective endings as well with examples from children’s books.

    ReplyDelete