I love bats, so I had to do at least one poem about the little darlings. For this, I cut out the shape of a bat, laid it down on black paper and wrote my poem around it. I think this would be pretty easy for students, too. You could put a small piece of tape down to help hold the shape in place, have them write around it, then gently remove the shape and tape.
Found Poetry
This is one of my favorite projects to do. I have done them for other classes and I had my third grade class do a biography poem the same way (we eveh hot glued on some stuff like race cars and Barbie outfits). This one was done on fairly heavy cardboard using Mod Podge so it holds up pretty well. Mod Podge is great for classroom use because you can go over the whole piece of work and have it dry to a clear slightly glossy finsih.
Journal Invitation
This is my journal invitation for Writer’s Notebook. My plan would be to make a similar version from a plain manilla envelope, then let the student decorate his/her suitcase. The suitcase could be glued to the inside cover of the notebook for reference.
Outside of Journal:
;img src=’http://cabotscorner.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/jiinside2.thumbnail.jpg’ alt=’jiinside2.jpg’;
Inside of Journal:
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My Favorite Poem
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
–Emily Dickinson
Best Practices Chapter 6
I have been feeling like writing has been neglected in my classroom. I keep thinking about a variety of daily writing. But, we have been working on an Arctic Animal project that is just taking longer than I expected and it is no wonder we don’t have time to do a lot. Passages in this chapter offered hope. Page 125 in the text gives a list of things that should be done in a classroom that supports writing. And again on page 133, “to apply the report strategy effectively, students must be able to generate and organize information from multiple sources.” Okay, this is happening. The only question I have with this section of the chapter refers back to pg. 125 where it is mentioned that students need to be able to create their own writing space (not sure how I could that). All in all, my classroom appears to be pretty well supported (lots of room for improvement though).
We have engaged in pre-writing activities such as gathering info from a variety of sources and using a graphic organizer. We have had conferencing with teacher and peers, edits, and revisions. I just hope we get to the publishing part before the end of the year.
I had been concerned that I was too involved in their work. But from what I have read regarding the Principles for Teaching Planning Strategies, a lot of modeling and teacher participation is required for students to learn the writing the process. The only one of these strategies that I will find hard to incorporate is in tailoring instruction to meet each student’s needs. With such a wide variance in ability levels, I don’t know how to do this effectively without some other support. And while I agree that students should be able to process and progress in their writing at their own pace, this does not jive very well with the demands of other curriculum areas.
The characteristics of writing for an audience, planning, high levels of student support, ownership, conferencing, and going through the process of evaluating, revising, and editing is time consuming. But at this point, I would rather have done one project pretty well, than a variety of projects rushed.
One of the concerns I hear from upper grade teachers is that students have trouble staying on topic. The steps outlined in STOP LIST really addresses this issue. I need to spend some more time thinking about how to implement this in my class.
Best Practices/Graves Reflection
I was so relieved to read a quote by Dr. Graves about literacy and connection. He states, “Children need to hang around a teacher who is asking bigger questions of herself than she is asking of them.” Oh joy and happy day! I have so many questions about so many things. But I feel that the most important aspect of those questions relates to how I can positively affect answers/outcomes. And I understand the emphasis that is being made to connection. One of the things that is commented on in most of my observations by administration/peers is the obvious emphasis on relationships. I see everything in terms of relationship – how one views a piece of art, integration of content areas, how/why we affect environmental concerns. So, I found that one little quote inspiring and affirming. There was so much packed into the few pages of this article. Journaling is such a struggle for me, but I have made the commitment to write at least 10 minutes a day. Also, his question, “What do you want to say?” is so important. I need to make more of a conscious effort to voice this in both my classroom and in my writing.
I have been feeling that writing was not getting enough attention in my class. But after reading the Boscolo and Gelati chapter, I see areas where authentic writing is happening in my classroom. I still cannot find the time to do some things that I really want to do, but what I am doing seems to at least be moving in the right direction. For instance, we have conversation logs. With these, I write a small blip about something that I wonder about or have a thought about. I then pose a question related to my blip. Students read my “side” of the conversation, then respond. I write back, usually a brief comment or another related question. Sometimes we have a general conversation where those who want to can share the thoughts from their log, which generates some interesting conversation.
We also do something called Terrific Travel Journals. The journals are folders with a supply of notebook paper. On the front is an index card with their parent’s name and address and their return address at school. Before going to lunch on Friday, we brainstorm what has happened during the week (special events, class happenings, stuff they learned, class problems/solutions, etc.). I write all of these on the board. Students then write a letter to their parents choosing the topics they want to share. They take them home over the weekend, and a parent (sometimes both parents) writes a letter to their child on the back of the page. They often comment on shared experiences (“I remember when I learned multiplication,” I was so excited to write in cursive and I am glad you are excited too.” ) The students love them, the parents love them, and it is a neat way to see their progression in writing. And the other piece that seems authentic is our science notebooks. Students form predictions, write down questions, draw pictures, and glue in data sheets from investigations. The soil unit is especially fun because it involves worms. They draw them, name them, they “talk.”
The two questions I have from the readings are:
1. “Revision by classmates was carried out in a collaborative activity in which each writer was also a reviser.” (Best Practices pg. 213). We have been doing this on writing pieces since the beginning of the year. I ask them to read them aloud to a partner, have the partner check for spelling/grammar and read aloud again to make sure it makes sense. When I look at these revisions, there are still lots of misspelled words, capitalization/punctuation problems, etc. Question: How do I help facilitate revisions when students still have trouble giving helpful/correct feedback.
2. Both Best Practices and Dr. Graves talk about the importance of collaborative writing. I am not sure how to go about involving a small group much less a whole classroom in a writing piece. Where do I begin???
Best Practices/Fletcher Reading
In reading Best Practices in Writing Instruction, I increasingly became frustrated with what the authors presented and in what/how I teach. For instance, “It was not at all unusual for 40 minutes or more of language arts instruction to be dedicated to writing…” left me feeling irritated and helpless. Since I began this school year, I have been sent to a day long Empowering Writers workshop as well as a day long workshop specifically geared towards introducing teachers on how to begin implementing a county-wide writing program. Yet, I have difficulty finding time to teach writing. The expectation for my teaching performance is that my reading instruction will ensure that our EOG reading scores are above expected growth, and heaven help me if my math scores are not at the projected growth of 12-19 points. The pacing guides for these two subjects would have children moving through the curriculum so quickly in order to cover everything, that it amounts to little more than a cursory nod before flying on to the next topic. So, all that to say, I want to be a really good writing teacher, but I don’t think I can be a good teacher at all because I can’t teach it to all of expected standards.
Another piece I would like to comment on mentions the importance of handwriting. Handwriting is not emphasized at my school. Last year, despite the handwriting strand in the NC SCOS, cursive handwriting was not taught. From county specialists to the adminstration, it was stated that handwriting (manuscript and cursive) were not areas of emphasis due to the technology (word processing) that makes the need for legible handwriting minimal at best. There has been debate (and downright argument) between grade levels as to who teaches what and what style. Also, I knew nothing about effective spelling instruction until I was introduced to Teaching Words Their Way and I have not even had the time to really study and implement that.
Fletcher’s article proposing writers notebooks is exciting, but even he acknowledges that high stakes testing and curriculum mandates affect classroom writing practices.
Perhaps I am reflecting more negatively on these readings as I found out earlier this evening that we have a faculty meeting this week on “Learning Centered Schools” and to plan on being at school until at least 5:00. This is just the sort of thing that takes away so much time for planning. It seems that so much time is being spent on telling us how to teach, that I for one, do not believe I can effectively teach.
