Entry 12

I cannot believe that this semester is coming to an end already. I feel as though it was just the beginning of the semester and I was trying to feel out the boundaries of graduate school. As I reflect back on this semester and this class in particular, I have learned so much!

As I review the syllabus and see if I gained knowledge in all the specific areas this course was supposed to encompass, I noticed that I achieved all the learning goals or outcomes and then some. I have gained an in depth knowledge of the various genres that people read, write and communicate in. I am not less intimidated by a lot of the more difficult genres that I was not comfortable teaching and writing in. I know see the importance that each genre has and why students need to learn specifically about each genre. Modeling and scaffolding the process of reading and writing each genre is key to a students success.

Also, I have been made aware of the importance of the role of the audience and purpose that each writing piece should take on. I believe that through the writing process and completion of my Genre Pieces Project, I have become even more aware of this aspect of writing. I always just thought of my writing as being for my teacher and only my teacher, so that was the constant audience that I was writing for and the purpose was just to complete the assigned task at hand.

This semester has opened my eyes to the connection that reading and writing truly have together. I do believe that both a teacher and student is better able to write a specific genre after they have been exposed and taught how to read a genre. When a student has been made aware of the characteristics of a genre they are better able to adapt them into their writing of that genre. The mentor texts used to display a genre are very valuable tools to be used in a classroom as both modeling tools and exploration for students. By having students explore genre texts, they will become curious and hopefully want to write with the characteristics of the genre they are learning about.

Finally, I have reinforced my previous knowledge on scaffolding and differentiation throughout this semester. I believe that each genre of reading and writing can be taught to every grade and developmental level of students as long as it is differentiated to meet the needs of the students and is at a level at which they are able to comprehend and apply the knowledge they are gaining. For example, some students may be able to handle more individual work while others may need the teacher to walk them through each step of the writing process. Also, some students in your classroom may need to be challenged or need to go through the writing process in a different way so they could be publishing their works through some type of word processing system. Technology can be implemented into your classroom to aid in the writing process but only when it is developmentally appropriate for your students. I believe that differentiation truly is the answer to reaching each student in your classroom no matter what content area you are teaching.

Entry 10

"How can we use it with the younger students?"

As I was going through many of my peers blog posts, I came across this question in Rihanna's blog. I have been thinking the same exact thing as I have worked my way through this class and the readings that we have done for it. I find that there are so many great ways to implement technology into the classroom and the writing process, but I struggle to see the way in which it can be adapted for the primary grades.

I know that many of my students have computers at home and have grown up using them, but there are still many obstacles that I am faced with on an everyday basis when it comes to technology and my second graders. First off, they struggle to even log onto the computer since their typing skills are so poor. I know that they are still young and trying to perfect their fine motor skills, which will come with time, but it makes it difficult to implement many of the strategies that we have read about. I know that in computer class they are slowly gaining more of a tech savvy ability by learning to type a couple sentences and using power point. So hopefully with time they will be able to handle some of the more technology based strategies throughout the writing process. 

I do believe that once my students gain more of a confidence and typing ability they will be able to type final drafts of writing pieces to be published while adding graphics to them. I could also see my students using some type of googledoc or blog to keep track of all of their writing pieces, so that I would be able to conference or even check in with every student on a daily basis by going to their blog or googledoc to read what they have written so far. With these ideas, comes many challenges. First of all, by teaching a private school the funds are very minimal. I am lucky to have a smartboard and two computers in my classroom. Ideally, for my plans to implement more technology based strategies into the writing process, I would need a computer for every student to use throughout writing time. I know this will never happen, or at least, not any time soon. So I could see my idea working if I had a roatating schedule, somewhat like centers, where some students would be working on the computers on their writing pieces while others were doing other writing/ reading/ phonics activities. So that way hopefully each student would be able to use a computer during writing time at least once a day. Then at the end of the week I would be able to go onto googledocs or their blogs to check in with their writing progress. In order for this plan to work, I believe that it would take a lot of my time to model, support, guide and scaffold the process for it to work the way that I would want it to. So hopefully by the New Year in the school year my students would be able to somewhat independently work through the writing process on either a google doc or blog. I know that there may be other hurdles that I am not intending for throughout this process, but with trial and error I believe this could work. Also, the blog or other program you decide to use would have to be simplified with specific directions as to how to use it so each student would be able to navigate through it on their own or with the help of a buddy.

Ideally, I would love to be able to implement this idea with my class and see how well they move through the writing process while using technology. I am still trying to refine my idea for implementing this, so hopefully I will be able to start taking the baby steps towards this idea very soon.

Entry 7

There has been some difficult moments in my classroom lately with one particular student who has touched my heart from day one. She is a very eager and happy student who has a passion for pleasing the teacher. But the one difficult aspect of this child is that she is below grade level and struggles with the simplest task in the classroom. She only benefits from one on one instruction, whether that instruction is coming from me or an AIS aid who is in my classroom for a short period of time each day to work with students like her.

Today, my students were given a new writing assignment to begin in their writing journals. After giving the instructions, going over examples and modeling different writing strategies that they may want to try to use through this writing piece process, this particular student just sat at her desk with a blank stare on her face. I struggle with always guiding her through each writing process step with me telling her each little thing she needs to write about. I do not want to leave her to fend for herself, but I also want to see some of her own creative in her writing. So today, I decided to let her think for a few moments about what she wanted to write about before I went over to her desk to check in on her. When I went over to her, she explicitly told me that she needed help. I decided that I would make sure the rest of my class was under way with the prewriting and drafting of their writing pieces before I moved with the student to the back table to guide her through this writing.

When I brought the student back to the table with her journal, word journal and pencil. We talked about what she needed to write about and some of the things she wanted to include in her piece of writing. I thought it would be a good idea to brainstorm some of her ideas and organize them on a white board so we would be able to easily rearrange her ideas if need be. Since this student is one that does benefit from one on one instruction and verbally communicating her thoughts before she writes them down, I believe that using this technique of the white board would be very beneficial. Once we completed our prewriting together on the white board, I guided her to writing a topic sentence to begin her writing piece. Once she had her topic sentence down, I moved her to look back at the organizer we created to see what she should write about first. I noticed that once she had an organizer of some sort in front of her that she was better able to self direct her writing and stay on topic since that is one thing she does struggle with.

This whole situation made me think about differentiation and how important it truly is to differentiate in every aspect of learning if possible. This particular student of mine definitely benefits from differentiation since the majority of my students are able to free write while they are drafting while this paricular student needs some guidance to get her ideas down in an organizer before she moves on to drafting her writing piece.

Differentiation is always the answer!

Entry 6

Before reading Tompkins (2012), I struggled with finding a balance when it came to assessing my students' work. For being a new teacher, I feel as though I am still learning the best ways to complete certain tasks as a teacher. One task I have been struggling with is what is the best way to assess my students' writing pieces. Throughout my student teaching places, I had two teachers who had completely different views on writing but they both had similar conventions that were used with their students. Both of my cooperating teachers taught their students to go through the writing process and steps, but the way they went about it was different from each other. One of my cooperating teachers thought it was best to model, use mini lessons and walk students through the process, while the other one just did mini lessons on different writing styles and genres and then had their students go through the writing process. I am not sure which one I believe was the best strategy. I would like to think that I use a little bit of both in my own classroom.

I do not feel as though I am struggling with how to teach my students how to write or how to guide them through the process of writing; what stumps me is how much to assess and how to assess a students writing. I am afraid of being too critical with my second graders writing abilities and stifling their writing passions. So I believe that I am still trying to find the balance of how to exactly assess my students work the correct way. I am still not sure there is a correct way to assess a writing piece. Do I correct all spelling and grammar mistakes? Do I work with them to revise their writing so they are learning their mistakes having to do with grammar and spelling? There are just so many questions that come to mind when thinking about assessing a student's writing. I know that certain writing pieces should be assess based upon a rubric to make sure they are meeting the standards and requirements for a particular writing style or assignment and that a teacher should not assess every piece of writing a student produces since students will be producing more writing than a teacher will have the time to look at. Also, I know that as a teacher, we should be constantly observing and performing informal assessments on our students to gage their understanding of a certain topic or concept which then helps to guide our instruction.

So after reading Tompkins (2012) about assessing writing, I have gained a little more clarity on the topic of assessing students' writing, but I still see to have a lot of questions. I believe that if I follow Tompkins (2012) suggestions on how to assess students' writing then I will be on the right track and better able to guide my students in learning how to become better writers. After reading Tompkins (2012) I think I am going to try to implement more time to have assessment conferences with my students. This way I can be constantly monitoring my students' progress on certain writing pieces and see what strategies they may be struggling with and need some reinforcing with. Through these assessment conferences that I am going to implement with my students, I also think I will get a better sense of what type of writer each one of my students is and better able to support them in their writing while getting to know them on a more personal level by reading their writing.

Entry 4

Hicks (2009) made me begin to think more about implementing technology into the writing process. I knew that it was something that should be done, especially with the generations of students who are coming into school knowing more about technology than I do. But Hicks (2009), truly has began to open my eyes on how I can adapt the use of technology with my second graders.

My second graders are just beginning to learn to type using the home keys through a typing program in computer class. I believe that with the help of this program and practice, my students will be able to master typing in a word processing program very soon. Once they have become more confident with their typing skills, I believe that they will be able to use the word processing program on their own to work through the writing process. This whole thought excites me!

I am excited for my students to know how to type and for me to be able to utilize their knowledge of technology to incorporate throughout writing. There are so many different avenues that I am able to take when implementing technology into the writing process. My students would be able to use the laptops in the school to write throughout the school day while taking advantage of the other tools on the word processing program, such as spell and grammar check. But I believe that my students need to have mastered the rules of spelling and grammar along with the conventions of writing to a certain extent so then they are able to know how to correct their own mistakes without having to rely on spell and grammar check. I believe that a student should not completely rely on spell and grammar check to make sure their writing has followed all the rules of English writing. But on the other hand, for the student that does struggle with spelling, the spell check tool may be a useful gadget for them to utilize when needed.

There are so many options for a teacher to incorporate within his/ her classroom's writing workshop. The ideas are overwhelming at times. I can see my students beginning the writing process in a word processing program and then moving on to other options, such as creating their own blog or having an email pen pal with another student from another second grade classroom. I believe that these are great ways for students to work through the writing process while still being able to take advantage of the technological advances that their school offers. Technology is such a large part of our lives today that I believe that it needs to be incorporated in schools and what not a better way to do that than through the writing process.

Entry 1

When I first think about teaching writing, I begin to get anxious. This anxious feeling comes from believing that writing is such a crucial aspect within a student's education. Once the anxious feeling is suppressed, I am able to focus on my personal core principles of writing.

A major core principle that I value and enact in my classroom is the idea of planning or pre-writing. With this critical stage of writing valued, my students see the importance of getting their ideas down on paper without any judgements. In a way this is a time for them to brainstorm and work through many ideas that could later be turned into fully developed writing pieces. But without a great emphasis put onto planning and pre-writing, students are able to create works of art with their writing.

The one aspect within the writing process that I value is meeting or conferring with my students as often as possible. I believe that through these writing conferences, a teacher is able to understand and get to know their students on another level as well as seeing a students strengths and weaknesses with writing. Once a student's strengths and weaknesses are identified then a teacher can better target their instruction.

My love and need to conference with my students along with teaching and implementing the planning and pre-writing stage with my students are remained constant throughout my various experiences with children. I have been able to adapt and transform my writing values with various grade levels, while still keeping conferencing and pre-writing a part of the writing process.

There can be a number of challenges that are faced by both teachers and students when using new age technologies. Many students now have computers in their homes, which makes them at a greater advantage when told to use a computer to word process a final piece of writing. On the other hand, there are students who may not have a personal computer at home or have only used a computer for games or internet use, so they will not be familiar with any word processing systems. So the teacher may need to gear their instruction to target these students. With the large amount and fast pace at which new technologies are coming about, it may be difficult for teachers to keep current.

If there was infinite amount of time in the school day and even the school year, I would love to be able to devote a large amount of time to writing and working through the various stages of writing. But with all the pressures that are placed on teachers with curriculum, standards and testing, there is just not enough time in the day and year to devote endless amounts of time to writing within the classroom.