Monday, June 14, 2010
Section I
After reading the first chapter I leaned back and thought for a moment. I never thought of myself as a writer. I enjoy writing and I tend to express my thoughts better through writing. I am great at grammar but to consider myself as a writer, not really. Calkin's expresses that "writers are more in the habit of finding the significance that is in their lives." (P. 7) We, as educators, should become writers. We need to find our inner writer and put it in to motion as to be contagious when it comes to teaching our students writing. We should develop real human reasons to write. When we get into beginning the writer's workshop we need to remember that even though we have written we must MAKE time to share our students thoughts in order to make a student's writing significant. This gives the writer's workshop a purpose to our students. I found the first section inspirational and motivating to become a great teacher by not having a certain expectation of my student's writings. Reflecting on my past year I realized that I turned down many ideas of my students because they were not long enough, they only drew a picture but no words, I couldn't understand the writing...and the list may go on...HOW WRONG WAS I!!!!I feel terrible. Chapter four opened my eyes to accepting my students writing just as is and to understand that behind the thin layer of 5 words is a deeper story and it is my job to tap into my students writing rather than critiquing. With that thought in mind, establishing and introducing writer's workshop (I feel) is so crucial and the method in which we introduce our rituals will predetermine the feel for the writer's workshop. Please think about how you can make writer's workshop exciting to your students. We should share our ideas and make our own better. My goal for this upcoming school year is to develop a true writer like Jennifer on page 40. Wow...it was sweet, it was heartfelt writing and best of all it was HER...I will celebrate and extend for the rest of my life as a teacher, not only in writing but in all my subjects.
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I agree this section was very motivating. I have set a couple of goals for my self for this next year. I want to become a writer myself so I am going to start a notebook. I am hoping this will help me become more comfortable with writing and help me become more confident with my teachin. My second goal is to research more about writer's workshop. I am excited.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great section! Chapter 1 was hard for me to grasp at first, so I had to reread it a few times. I didn't see writing the way she did. Writing is taking our life experiences and things that are personal and interpersonal and using those things to guide and shape our writing. When we use experiences that are meaningful to us, we are writing at our best.
ReplyDeleteChapter 2 was very powerful for me. The way we teach writing, "The Art of Teaching Writing", is so powerful and important. I loved the quote, "If the need to motivate student writing requires all of a teachers time and attention, is a teacher is constantly straining against a giant boulder of student resistance, then the teachers hands are already full." When she talks about the children that ask "How long does it need to be?" or "Is this enough?", it makes me think of children I have taught, who she says writing has been treated as little more than a place to display- to expose- their command of spelling, penmanship, and grammar. They didn't see the real reason for writing. Kids need to see and be taught that their lives and experiences are completely valuable and worth writing about and sharing! "When we help children knows that their lives do matter, we are teaching writing." "If you can convince your children that you love them, then there's nothing you can't teach them." I also adored the section about living in the moment as a teacher in your classroom. The moments when something out of the ordinary happens and you allow yourself to stop the normal routine, go outside of the box, and realize that "these are the moments and reasons that we chose teaching, yet we often arm ourselves against them. We focus so intently on the curriculum that went a child finds a moth fluttering inside his desk, we view the ripples of energy it produces in a classroom as interference. We continue with our curriculum, and the classroom settles back into emotional flatness." Relish in these moments!
In chapter 3, the rehearsal process came to life. I learned to take the small threads and stones in life and make something out or them. The analogy of a photographer seeing the potential of a picture, writers can see the potential of a piece of writing. The use of a writers workshop notebook, or a treasure book as I used this past year, allows children to write about their meaningful life experiences. I loved how Isoke introduced the writers workshop to her students. She invited her students to join her in living the "writerly life". "She didn't drill her students on the component skills of good writing or on rehearsal strategies but invited them to join her in writing in genuine, purposeful ways." She acts as if writing it he most important thing in the works and refers to her students as AUTHORS, members of the LITERACY CLUB.
Chapter 4, drafting and revision, I think is the hardest for me. I feel like I was never good at this, so its something I want to improve in. Plus, I think its hard for first graders to grasp this concept, because they are so excited about what they initially got down on paper, and don't like to "change it". Setting expectations for what a writing teacher (either a teacher or a student peer) should do to help someone revising and editing is a great idea. It lets children know what is expected of them.
Now...bring on chapters 5-10!!