Assignment Nine: Final Course Reflection
(All assignments are due by 8/21!!!)
Take a look at the last section in Regie's text, Writing Essentials, it's chock full of great resources!!!
Teaching in Action: Lesson Essentials 5 Day Lesson Plans & Appendices
• Secrets of Second Graders• Heart Poems• Procedural writing• Hero writing• Persuasive writin• Appendix survey
Be sure to look through this section. If you haven’t already done so, look at Appendix A (page A-2.) Re-examine your beliefs about writing by re-reading the statements about the writing process and marking true or false in your book. Did you change any of your previous answers? Would you consider bringing this page to your team or even to your entire school to jump-start discussions about writing? Take some time to look through the appendices. There are several useful examples included. One we’d like to point out to you is Appendix L- The Genre Characteristics Excerpt on page A-13. Look to the Writing Essentials companion website at www.heinemann.com/writingessentials for the entire chart as well as directions to assist you playing the DVD.
ASSIGNMENT NINE: Final Course Reflection - Critically examine your current literacy program and develop realistic goals to improve your instruction. Also reflect on the balance between your home and school life. If our students are to become happy, literate people, they need happy, balanced teachers. BRIEFLY, share several of your goals with the class by posting them to the blog for this final assignment.
Thanks for taking our course!!!! Mary & Jackie!
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My Final Reflection.
ReplyDeleteMy writing program consisted of the work given from the Treasures 3rd grade curriculum. It did not work with my students and I wasn’t happy with it at all. As with my reading curriculum I found that I did a little bit of the common sense teaching that Regie talked about. So it was exciting to see that I was on the right track. Unfortunately, I came to that conclusion late in the year, and it didn’t help my students enjoy writing in the classroom.
I am going to overhaul my entire program. Throwing out the Treasure writing program and all the worksheets that came with it. I am going to have kids writing everyday for at least 30 minutes. Since my specialty is math, and I have always had my students do math journals, I am going to step up the writing in the math journals quit a bit. (I’m very excited about this)
My husband and two daughters are all writers. They all love it, are all published, and all inspire me with their wit and beautiful writing. While I don’t expect to ever be of their quality, I do know understand why they love to write so much. In just the few weeks since starting this class and working on writing everyday, I do look forward to the time during the day that I get to write.
There is a question about how I will find time for myself. Well I have always enjoyed reading, and now writing. Both are an excellent moment in the day to have time to myself. What a joy to have found that out from a class. Thank you!
Patricia,
DeleteI'm so excited and inspired by your comments! Yeah, for more time writing and less worksheets! I'm glad you've found new joy in writing! We also feel that Regie is inspiring and validating!
I have to say the biggest AH-HA moment for me was actually watching the DVD of Routman’s conferences she had with the students. I took away a few ideas from the book but honestly for me it’s seeing her teaching philosophies being taught. I am a visual person by nature so this brought all her thoughts in the book and turned them into a more practical application for me. I loved how she talks to the children and the calmness in her voice, she comes across like she really cares about them as writers. I will be taking that back with me to my classroom as well, maybe I talk too stern during writing time and care too much about the grammar and the organization too much and not on what it is the student’s are trying to say in their writing. I especially like the part in the video where she showed a student who was struggling with the spelling of a word and how she helped him through that and how she made it very clear that he was no longer allowed to misspell that word in his writing. I again will be taking that back with me into my classroom and realizing that other students can benefit from that small lesson on spelling. I know this isn’t about standards or writing in general, but I really liked how she was sitting with the students on a couch instead of at a kidney table or at their table. I feel that that makes the writers more comfortable with her and trust her. I also feel that takes the pressure off of the students by giving them a more light space to learn in and somewhere away from the other students who could be listening in and making the student feel uncomfortable. I think I might be adding a new little couch to my classroom, exciting!
ReplyDeleteAs for keeping away from school life, I make this a commitment to myself at the beginning of the year and I follow through with it. My Superintendent and my principal also make it a priority for us to keep our home lives a priority and to have fun outside of school. I never take work home on the weekends because that is my time and I feel that I should be able to get all my correcting finished and prepping by the time I leave school, granted I never leave during the week on my contracted time, but only maybe and hour and a half longer is the limit.
Thank you for the class, I enjoyed it!
Julie,
DeleteWe also get inspired from watching Regie in action! I wish she had more clips available. That is so exciting to hear about a principal and superintendent that encourages teachers to keep a healthy balance of home and school work and to encourage having fun! That's a true blessing many teachers would love to have. The kids will love the couch. (I'm a fan of fake-leather as to help keep it clean, and avoid ringworm and lice issues. :D
I found the suggestions for parents checklist in the appendix helpful. I think I might use a version of this during my back to school night. I’m not sure that I would change any of my previous answers to the checklist but I do believe I have ended this course with some valuable ideas. There were some writing strategies that I already knew, but it was very helpful to review. I also got some new ideas that I would like to try out in the classroom. I have zeroed in on several changes or additions I want to make in my classroom this year.
ReplyDelete1. Provide more opportunities to write for an audience. (ex: other 2nd grade classes, other grade levels, letters to people in the community, blog posts, etc.)
2. Focus on having students reread writing, during and after. Perhaps have students make a checkmark at the top of their page every time they reread, then make a goal to have at least 3 checkmarks. Model this explicitly.
3. Do more whole group writing with the purpose of modeling how to to revise, not just edit.
I agree that keeping a work/life balance is both essential and challenging as a teacher. I hope to keep getting better at this as I learn how to use my time more efficiently. Thank you for your encouragement and feedback!
Hello Lindsey,
DeleteYour ares to target are good ones to focus on! Good luck with balancing your time, it is something I think we all work on every year.
After five years at West Sylvan, I’m making a big change. Although I loved my old school, my commute was at least an hour and a half a day. My new school is a ten minute bike ride away! I’m so excited to work on that balance between home and school, and that extra time is going to help immensely. My goal is to not bring work home – I will stay later if necessary, but time at home is for me and my family. I will also make time for working out and spending time with friends.
ReplyDeleteRevamping my reading and writing curriculum will also help in that regard. I plan to set aside reading and writing time daily, and do modeling of my own writing as well as shared writing. Although I will have them write often, I will only have them choose a few pieces to bring to completion. As a class, we will work on revision and finally editing, before we publish in a booklet to add to the class library. With the help of my student teacher, we will offer a variety of writing conferences (for example, he can do a directed group while I do a one-on-one). I definitely plan to set up reading/ writing time expectations and practice them!
Some ideas for the year:
September – welcome letter / “snapshots” for marketing a classmate
October – Amazing Race essay (based on an in-class SS interactive activity)
November/ December – poetry suitcase
January/ February – biography speech
March/ April – choice writing piece
May/ June – persuasive, mock trial
Thanks for this class; I really enjoyed it and it definitely made me think!
Shelley - what grade do you teach? I like your monthly plan of writing assignments! I think my first assignment with my fifth graders will be to put together school brochures, for the purpose of helping new students find their way around the school, and to know the school rules and procedures.
DeleteHi! It's been seventh, but this year will be my first in sixth. I like your brochure idea!
DeleteGood luck at your new school! It's a prefect time to revamp your literacy program! So glad you enjoyed the course! Yours, and everyone's, kind words really means a lot to us! Thank you!
DeleteFinal Course Reflection
ReplyDeleteRealistic goals for me include incorporating more writing across the curriculum and DOL with class made sentences. I want to look again and the conferencing videos to fine tune my student conferences. Another realistic goal is making writing in my classroom more purposeful in terms of the audience we’re writing to. I do this many times during the year, but see the importance of doing it on a regular basis. This past year, my balance between home and school life was so skewed and I need to fix that to be a happy balanced teacher for my class and my own children.
Thank you for this course. It has been excellent for me this summer and anything Regie is always a to-do for me.
I agree, anything with Regie is sure to be worthwhile for me! Good luck with focusing on a more balanced year! I think it will make a big difference for you. :D
Delete
ReplyDeleteMy number one goal this year is to achieve a work-life balance. It will be a must now that I am a new mom. This course gave me so much confidence that it is possible. I want to write out the question “Is what I am doing right now helping my students become better readers, writers, and mathematicians?” That way I can always keep myself focused on what truly matters. When I started this course I was very unsure of myself as a writing teacher because I didn’t have a packaged program to follow. However, through reading this text I realized that what I was/am doing is what I need to do. However, I do need to make some changes. Here are my main goals for next year:
1. More modeling and writing in front of students.
2. Dedicated independent writing time EVERYDAY!
3. More conferencing – I will take more anecdotal records to document student progress.
4. More, but less lengthy, writing assignments.
5. Eliminate most homework to allow students more leisure reading.
Thank you for such a great course!
Hi Sarah,
DeleteI see a theme with many of us planning to focus on a balanced approach this year! Def. a positive change in my book. Other teachers have shared that they have posted the question or had it in their plan book to help focus themselves on what was truly important. (I like the addition of "mathematicians.")
Excellent goals! So glad you enjoyed the class!!!!
I think one of the things that makes teaching writing so difficult is we don’t have confidence in ourselves. I believe that’s because we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable, and put our writing out there, in order to get feedback, and we don’t always have the opportunity or inclination to do that. When I worked at our local newspaper, it was always nerve racking for me when we sent the paper off to be printed. Once something is in print, there’s no taking it back. But once I started to receive feedback and compliments on my writing, I was encouraged to write more, and I therefore enjoyed it more. As teachers, we don’t have much opportunity to share our writing, but we can certainly share it with our students. They may not think to give us feedback, but at least we’ll be modeling not only the writing process, but also being vulnerable, which is a hurdle many students also need to jump. So I want to be vulnerable to my students and encourage them to do the same.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most powerful things I read in this book was Regie’s account of caring for her dad after his stroke. She said, “I knew if he was to ‘recover,’ it would happen through personal connections, through nurses and aides ‘seeing’ the intelligent person behind the disability.” She goes on to talk about how she seeks out those students she works with who have a defeated look in their eyes, and strives to put them on their feet and help them find success. That really drove home for me the fact that every student is intelligent and has potential, even if we sometimes have to dig deep to help them be seen. I hope that I can inspire my students to write, as I believe that is such a personal way that a child can be “seen.” It’s something every kid can do (affordable), and it allows them to express themselves in a way that is uniquely their own. There’s no right or wrong about what they write, so they can take complete ownership of it, and pride in it. Plus, I think writing is great therapy for students who have difficult lives or emotional challenges, something we have a lot of in our school district.
Goals:
1. Model, model, model. Vulnerability, good writing practices, courage.
2. Help students find their own voice by giving positive feedback and plenty of opportunity to write.
3. Hold conferences with every student at least once a week, more if time allows. I think conferencing will help me see what I need to teach, and help the students see how they can make their writing better.
Hi Cindy!
DeleteYour comments about receiving feedback and compliments on your writing and how that helped you to feel more confident in your writing are great to share.
Yes, one of the reasons I love Gardner's Multiple Intelligences is that it constantly reminds me that we are all intelligent in different ways. Just because someone isn't strong in writing or math doesn't mean they are dumb or a lost cause. As teachers, it's our duty to help students see what their strengths are and that each of us has talents to share with not only the class but the world.
I agree, writing is great therapy and affordable and attainable for everyone!
There are a lot of things that I have taken away from this book that I see myself using this coming year. I am particularly excited to incorporate more shared writing and to do A LOT more thoughtful modeling. I think both of these things will help my students to become better writers, and will help them especially in the beginning of the year when they are just beginning to build their independent writing stamina.
ReplyDeleteI am also going to change how I do conferencing during writing. I put a lot of pressure on myself last year to do writing groups like I did reading groups. After reading Routman’s book, I can see that the same model just doesn’t work. I’m looking forward to re-structuring conferences and focusing more on individual conferences or whole group conferences, and I think my students will benefit from it greatly!
My main goal in separating work and school life is to bring less work home in the evenings and on weekends (if at all). I want to prioritize exercising after work and getting home in time to have some that is not focused on school. This summer was good for me to remember what it’s like to not be constantly consumed by work. I don’t want that feeling to disappear until next summer, so I’m hoping that leaving more work at work, will help me to do that.
Thanks for the great course!
I agree, those areas of focus will help your students become better writers! Good luck with your new plans for conferring. I think you, and the students, will really enjoy the changes.
DeleteMe too!!! I want to keep this happy, peaceful summer feeling going as long as I can! Good luck with more balance in your life.
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for taking our class. It's been a pleasure working with you all this summer. I'll be emailing you your final grade. And thank you all for your kind words about the course, truly it means a lot to us! Have a wonderful start to school. I have one more day and the fun begins! :D