Entry #11

 When I think about writing I don’t think that I am good at it , and I usually avoid it because I don’t really enjoy it.  So at the beginning of this course I was nervous that my struggles would hinder my ability to learn the genres to best benefit my students.  As we moved through the semester however I gained more confidence in each genre.  I also gained a unique look into each genre that I think will benefit me as I start to form lessons to teach my students so that they don’t have the same struggles I myself have in writing.  I think that I have learned more about genres specifically through this course then I have all my different reading/writing experiences in the past.

          The genres I knew at the beginning of class that I knew well I would list narrative, descriptive and biography.  These genres were the ones that I have used the most and enjoyed the most because they fall into my personal interest of social studies most of the time.  While I had a good grasp of each I also have learned much more about each one.  Narrative is much more than just sitting down and writing in your own voice.  You have to consider all the different aspects of what a narrative is.  Same with biography and descriptive, I had a good grasp of the genre as a reader which net me up to absorb everything given to us to become a good writer as well.

          I struggled with poetry as genre both as a writer and a teacher at the beginning of this course.  I found it to be the most intimidating genre.  There were so many different types of poetry, with so many different forms that it can take, how was I going to be able to teach them all?  I also found poetry to be intimidating because of the creativity behind it,  I don’t find myself creative or artsy how could I expect my students to do what I didn’t think I could?  After watching the presentation on poetry and having Dr. Jones introduce different forms I have many more ideas about how to make poetry much more accessible to students.  The If I ruled the world poem and the I am poems I now see that there are many form poems that can be introduced for the students to use, it will ease them in and allow the students who like me were intimated to still participate. I also pick up something from working in a first grade classroom since September, the teacher introduces a poem a week, they discuss it and students have to illustrate it.  I think that this helps by making poetry they see every day and not so scary. 

          I think that all the other genres make sense to me as a writer which is the first step to teaching it to students.  Then looking into all the packets that the groups created with mentor texts, graphic organizers and different strategies will move onto create the best lessons to engage students.  I think that each presentation has helped to set me up to create a writing workshop that can teach each genre and foster students independence so that they can be writers on their own, and not dread it like I do. My own feeling about writing are what intimidate me about teaching it,  I want my students to enjoy putting their ideas on paper. 

Entry # 10

   " Giving students choice is something that we have talked about in class and a topic I've addressed in previous posts, however, this idea of passion and students having opportunities to write about things that they are interested in exploring connects to a writer's voice." While reading through my classmates blogs I found this quote in Jamie's entry.  It was he response to our other classmate Lindsay addressing students voice in writing.  This quote in particular struck me because every class in literacy that I have had so far has had some focus on student interest.  And the more time that I spend in schools the more I see how students choice can fall to the wayside in the rush to get everything else done. I think that student choice plays a huge rule in student engagement and motivation.  Think about it we have all had to do those assignment that we have not connection to but instead just do for the sake of the grade. I don't know about you guys but for me I didn't take away much from assignments like that, and I didn't put my best effort into my work either.  There was a lack of passion,  which Jamie address in the quote above.  How can we as teachers expect our students to learn as much as possible an engage fully with an assignment when we know full well how we have done in the past in our own educational careers?

     This idea of interest, passion and engagement all come back to the idea of authentic experiences with text.  Something that I had never thought about in depth before I got to graduate school. We as teacher have to create a classroom that allows students to interact with text in an authentic manner, meaning that it fits into the real world and their real lives.  This also comes down to writing that matches up with how they write and fits into the real world.  I think that this is where writing workshop really comes into play.  The way writing workshop and digital writing workshop are discussed in Hicks(2009) and Tompkins(2012).  Both want students to choose what they are writing about and work through the writing process at their on pace.  This will allow students to work on a piece and become truly involved with thier project not just do it to get it done.

   After listening to all the differnet genre presentions and seeing all the different ways that we can help kids to interact with and create text of all different types.  The more I think about it the more I think that the only way to achieve this is to create a writing workshop enviornment where kids want to work together and feel comfortable.  If students feel comfortable and understand that everyone is different and everyone is in different places in their writing process.  I have always known that for me creating the most comfrotable and safe enviornment for my students was my main goal when I start teaching and I think that is what sets the foundation for successful writing workshop as well as everything in the classroom.

   

Entry #2

             With my limited experience in teaching being in a self-contained classroom as well as a sixth grade science classroom I haven't had much experience with writing workshop. For the writing assignments that what a part of the topic was chosen for the students and they had rubric that they were to follow as they wrote so that they knew what they needed to include and what needed to happen for them to do well. I also look back to my own experience as a student, I can't remember having such independence that this type of workshop creates. Hicks(2009) has students working in both a physical and a virtual classroom on projects that they have a lot of control over. They were able to choose their own topics, collaborate with the teacher as well as other students on their projects and then had the ability to choose how they were going to publish their work. These choices are what I see as independent and taking responsibility for their own work. Taking responsibility for their own work to me means that they aren't writing just for the grade but they have a purpose and they are using writing to create real meaning and sharing it with the world.
       Since I don’t have experience teaching writing workshop I have an ideal set up in mind that I would love to implement in my future classroom. It would start by tying into what we’re learning in science or social studies at the time so students could get experience researching. Within the broad topic that we are working on my students would have the ability to choose something that they wanted to learn more about and then create a writing piece about that would eventually be published and shared with the class to enhance the learning of the class as a whole. Once the topic is chosen students can research in books or on the internet and then start the prewriting process. There would be places in the room where they can work individually as well as consult with other students and myself.
       Once the prewriting, drafting, revising and editing stages are complete students would be able to choose how they want to present what they have written to the class. This is where the digital part comes in; they will have access to computers to blog, use a wiki, and create a brochure, PowerPoint, prezi, poster …..the possibilities are endless and I am sure that my students will have more ideas then me. After this final step students will share what they have created to the class and everyone will learn more with the broad topic that we started with. 
       I understand that this is a very idealized digital writing workshop but I would like to create a community in my classroom that fosters students independent, curiosity and a sense of ownership for their work instead of creating students that are just doing something just for a grade and not really learning or getting anything from the writing process. This is what I ultimately see as the goal of writing workshop and I was never able to experience this much freedom of choice in the classroom so I would like to create this in my future classroom.