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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I teach in a functional skills classroom in a high school. Students in my classroom range from 9th grade to 12th, but their ability levels range from pre-academic to 3rd grade with a great variance in between. I have 10 students in my classroom, which might not sound like a lot, but those 10 have enough needs that I constantly feel like I’m not able to keep up with the demands of my classroom. I have a group of about 5 students who, while they are at varying levels, I hope might benefit from what I learn in this class.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first year teaching, although I worked as an instructional assistant for several years prior to becoming licensed, and I also worked as a case manager for a couple years, which was work in the field of education, but not teaching. I do have instructional support, six other staff members work full time in my classroom to help support my students. The reading component of my literacy program is Read Naturally, a program that was in my classroom when I arrived. The writing component of my literacy program is very loosely based on writing workshop, which I observed in action as a student teacher. While I really loved the writing workshop situation I observed, I feel that the way I am running it in my classroom needs help. I’m not sure exactly where to go with it, so I am hoping that this class will help me create a writing program that fits my student’s needs a little better.
I’ve realized that my direct training in the area of literacy is kind of minimal. I do have a BA in English which I would think should count for something, but I do feel lacking in my ability to directly instruct struggling writers. The classes I took when I was getting my Masters certainly focused around literacy but I think now that my feet are on the ground I’m in greater need of specific instruction. As far as training my district provides, I’m not really sure, this is my first year, and the trainings that so far come across my radar are focused on other aspects of my student’s needs rather than literacy. I am also not sure if my district is bogged down with getting students to perform on state writing assessments as the support/interaction I generally have with my district is not around general education state assessments.
How to I feel about teaching? This has been a very hard year, understandably I think because this is my first year teaching and also the classroom I work in is a very difficult classroom, I’m the fifth teacher in the four years the program has been at my school. The student group includes some kiddos with pretty extreme physically aggressive behavior, and this piece of my teaching experience has been the hardest, and has prevented me from being able to teach academics like I want to. I am looking into transferring into a different type of special education classroom next year.
And myself. I am married to my true love who has also worked for many years in special education. We have a gorgeous, gregarious and terribly sweet 18 month old baby girl. I had to add in the baby girl part, I’m not ready to call her a toddler yet, though she thinks she’s ready for adulthood right now! I do enjoy reading and writing on my own time (when I have my own time!), I like gardening and various crafts as well. I mentioned a little of what I hope to get out of this class already: I hope to tighten up the writing component of my language arts class, and I am also looking at working in classrooms in the future in which there might be more of a focus on literacy and want to be prepared for that!
Hello Emily,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the course. I believe you will find ideas to help shape your writing program to meet the varying needs of your students from this text.
That is a lot of turnover in your program. I hope you are finding the administration supportive.
My baby girl is turning 5 in May and we are getting ready for Kindergarten orientation. It goes by so fast. She is def. a self-sufficient little lady. Much more so than her brothers were...or rather are, and they are 10 and 11. :D
I think that's a great goal to work on transferring to a different type of SPED classroom. It is extremely challenging dealing with behavior and safety issues when you strive to teach academics.
Looking forward to working with you this term.
Mary