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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Good Afternoon,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Andrea Anderson. I am a 1st / 2nd grade teacher in a small town called Vernonia. This is my first year teaching in a Title 1 school. Previously I taught kindergarten in a small suburban private school. I have 25 students (9 1st graders and 16 2nd graders). I do have an Instructional Support Teacher who focuses on moving students forward in reading elements. Currently in my Reading Core hour we focus mainly on phonics and fluency. Later in the afternoon I plug in a 30 minute period of writing instruction, which I hope to learn how to strengthen. The district does not provide much training, most is done independently. We currently do not even have a budget for a curriculum in reading / writing.
Recently our team saw the future expectations of students regarding the reading / writing portion of the state test and were... well wide eyed and worried for our students. I am hoping to start my students off in a direction that will help them to climb the latter for success on these tests. They seem developmentally inappropriate and I feel the only way to give them a successful chance is to start scaffolding them from 1st grade (my classroom).
I love my job. I love my students. And my ultimate goal is to help them succeed.
I am also a mother of a 18 year old son, a 9 year old daughter and a almost 20 year old (ex)step daughter whom I call my own. I love the outdoors, camping, hiking, the beach, and the arts.
I hope to learn enough from this course to help me strengthen my instruction in writing in my classroom, the rest of this year and in the future.
-Andrea
Hello Andrea,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to our class. I am very confident that you will be coming away from this course with new knowledge and skills in the area of writing. In fact, I always say to students that you will want to read this text more than once. Each time you do you will come away from the experience with new ideas and insights. We look forward to working with you this term!