Assignment #7 - Student Writing Conference

Today I met with Xander who was in my first grade class last year.  He is very intelligent and loves to write informational books.  Some of his favorite topics to write about are rocks and minerals, animals, and insects.  Today we met at his daycare and we wrote a little book about a trip he had taken to Disneyland with his parents.

While Xander was writing I thought about what I should focus on as a celebration and what goal would be most beneficial to improve Xander’s writing.  I started out with what I liked.  Xander had included some dialogue in his story which made it a lot more interesting.  I told him it was a really great way to make the reader feel like they were along on the trip.  I could tell that the feedback I gave him made him feel really good because it was so specific.  I also referred back to his writing and read it aloud to him which reinforced how much I enjoyed the dialogue.

I decided to focus our goal on descriptive words.  Xander has a very extensive vocabulary, but hadn’t included many descriptive words.  I reread a sentence “Disneyland was nice.” and asked him if he could think of a more interesting word than nice.  Immediately he said “fantastic!”  We discussed how authors want to make their writing interesting and one way they do this is to use descriptive words.  Xander understood and felt proud to think of a more descriptive word on his own.

I felt that the writing conference was very positive for both of us.  Xander seemed to enjoy being part of the conversation about what was good and where he could improve.  I want to begin writing conferences in the fall because I think they will be more meaningful to students than written comments.  I look forward to helping students see their strengths as a writer and build a love of writing.

Assignment #9 Final Reflection and Goals

I have a lot of goals around improving my teaching of writing.  My first goal is to communicate to students the purpose behind writing.  We will have a dialogue as a class about why people write.  It is important for my students to be invested in writing, and showing them the purpose behind writing is a good way to get them excited about writing.  During this dialogue I will bring in samples of my writing so students can see me as a writer as well.

My next goal is to make sure students have time everyday to write.  In order for students to improve their writing they need lots of time to practice.  I want to give students at least 20 minutes a day of uninterrupted writing time.  They will be able to have choice within the structure we are focusing on.  For instance if we are studying poetry, they can choose any topic they want, but will need to write a poem.

Next, I will do more modeling of writing.  It is important to draw student’s attention to the skill you are teaching.  If we are working on using descriptive words, then students need to see me modeling using them in my writing so they can see what it looks like.  Then, I need to use the optimal learning model and have them participate so students can get support they need to be successful when they go to write on their own.

Another writing goal I have is to begin writing conferences.  I will meet with every student at least weekly to talk about their writing.  We will talk about what is going well in their writing and what they can focus their energy on to bring their writing to the next level.  I will record what we talked about so I have data and can easily monitor each child’s writing.

Lastly, I want to do more celebrating of writing.  Students need to be recognized when they work hard, and we also need to have school be a place where there is happiness.  We will do more celebrating of writing by having students read their work everyday to the class or to each other.  We will also do more celebrating by having a few special days where families are invited to listen to students read a published piece and share treats together.  Celebrating builds a strong classroom community where students gain confidence and a love of writing.

Assignment #6 - DVD Reflection

While watching Routman lead writing conferences I was struck by how fast the conferences went, yet how much learning took place.  The conferences are filled with learning and celebration.  Routman validates the student’s voice by rereading their writing, using their words to draw their attention to what was effective and why, and has students applaud after the writing has been read. 

Some of the reasons I think the writing samples are so strong are because the students are aware of their audience; they care about the topic, and are given choice within a structure.  All the students in the fourth grade class wrote a poem, yet their topics were all meaningful to them personally – that is how there is so much voice and often emotion behind their words.  It was interesting how while watching the video you didn’t know who the “high” or “low” kids were because all the students wrote wonderful poetry.

A strategy that I think is helpful is how Routman uses sticky notes to organize student’s writing.  This is an effective way to organize a writer’s thoughts and scaffold them so they can do more writing on their own.  By writing on a sticky note, it tells the writer, I respect your work, so I’m not going to write on your writing.  I want to use this strategy in my classroom with students who are having trouble sequencing their story.

Another part of the DVD that was very informative to watch was the spelling lesson with Derek.  In his writing sample he had missed many high frequency words.  Instead of giving the words to him, she made him use what he already knew about phonics to rewrite the words correctly.  When Derek is having trouble spelling the word “house” and is missing the “/ou/” sound, Routman says, “Do you know the word ‘out’?”(348)  She builds on what he knows so he can be successful.  I want to apply this strategy of building on what students know to get them to spell words so they become better spellers and more independent writers.

Assignment #5 Written Reflection Section 3

I learned so much from reading about Routman’s views on spelling.  My first year of teaching I spent many hours developing a word wall thinking it would help my students.  I realize the problem wasn’t the word wall; it was the lack demonstrating and shared demonstrating with the word wall that was the problem.  I want to try using a word wall again this year, but be very explicit about why we have a word wall, how we can use it as a resource, and develop the word wall with student assistance.  I will make it clear that I expect students to spell words on our word wall correctly.  I believe students will find the word wall empowering and lead to better spelling, and eventually better writing.

I began working on my schedule for next year and was able to fit more time for writing during my guided reading group time, and during our science/social studies block in the afternoon.  After I meet with a guided reading group I will have a question written out for them to answer.  This not only builds their comprehension, but will improve their writing skills as well.  I would like to do more shared writing in the afternoon about informational text we have been reading in science or social studies.  Once students have had enough scaffolding they will be able to write their own informational writing about science and social studies.

It was interesting for me to read about all the different ways to conduct writing conferences.  In the past I have always thought of writing conferences as meeting with an individual student and working with them to improve their writing.  I am excited to try whole-class shares as a way of conferencing.  Some of the reasons I am looking forward to trying them is students will become better listeners, we will celebrate student writing, and we will learn from one another’s writing.

The part of the “Make Assessment Count” chapter that stood out to me the most was having students do their own self-evaluations.  I often have students talk with me about their writing as a way to get them to begin self-evaluation.  I see now that written self-evaluations would deepen their thinking and would lead to students being more independent learners.  I believe even first graders can be successful with writing their own self-evaluations with proper modeling and practice.    

Assignment #8 Written Reflection Section 4 and 5

As I was reading chapters 11 and 12 I reflected a lot about the culture at my school.  I think every teacher at my school wants the best for their students.  We are all hard workers.  The problem I see is that we don’t collaborate much.  Once the bell rings and the students leave we do all our own planning.  Part of the problem is we have so many meetings that it is difficult to schedule a time to meet as a staff, but like Routman says, you make time for the things you value, so I believe we can make the time to meet and work together.

Over the weekend I watched “Waiting for Superman.”  When it first came out it was very controversial and many teachers I know felt attacked.  I thought the movie would depress me so I put off seeing it.  Although the movie was depressing in many parts, there were also parts that featured schools where kids were thriving.  In schools where students were doing well, the school culture was different.  Teachers collaborated and continued growing as professionals so they were confident and effective in the classroom.  These schools were inspiring to me and they made me want to bring that culture to my school.

I think the best way for me to begin collaborating with my staff on a weekly basis is to start small.  I work at a k-8 school, so I think if I brought the idea up of meeting weekly at a staff meeting people would feel it was too big a commitment.  However, if I start meeting with a few people from my team and we begin having conversations that directly help our students, other teachers at our school will start wanting to be a part of the dialogue.  I think more and more teachers will be willing to join when they see a small, committed group of teachers meeting to help our students. 

I love how throughout Routman’s book she stresses the importance for teachers to have a life outside of teaching.  The last few years I have devoted a lot of time to writing feedback on my student’s work.  This year I want to continue giving feedback, but do it through writing conferences.  Students will be more invested in their writing when we talk and think about their writing together.  When I wrote lots of feedback to students, I had good intentions, but I wasn’t having students do much talking or thinking about their writing.  This year I hope to spend the time I used to devote to writing feedback to meeting with my colleagues to have important conversations about our students and our teaching.

Assignment #4 - Written Reflection Section Two

Molly Frisch

Assignment #4

Written Reflection Section Two

I definitely believe that we should have higher expectations for our students.  When we have high expectations for our students, they stay engaged and stretch themselves in their learning.  I think high expectations goes hand-in-hand with planning engaging lessons, good modeling, shared writing, guided writing, and independent practice.  We can’t simply have high expectations – we must also be strong in our teaching so students can meet and exceed those expectations. 

While reading the chapter on raising expectations I reflected a lot about my own writing program and what can improve.  I see that I spend too much “writing time” having students do activities that aren’t authentic.  Reading Routman’s quote, “Worksheets aren’t good enough.  The students who can do them don’t need them, and the ones who struggle with them feel defeated by the red marks, which only reinforce their feelings of inadequacy….”(56-57) really drove home the point for me of the importance of giving students time to actually write so they can have practice and at the same time experience success.  I made many worksheets this year that I spent hours creating, yet no student ever came up to me telling me how proud they were of finishing the worksheet.  No one wanted to share their worksheet with the class either, yet anytime we did free choice writing everyone wanted to share.

It was really interesting to read about Routman’s beliefs about teaching handwriting.  She talks about modeling good handwriting, having alphabet letter formation student visuals, and if needed working one on one with a student to help with their letter formation.  I have really worked hard to have my first graders write neatly, but it always seems like there are so many things we need to teach such as reading, writing, and math that it is always placed on the back burner.  I recently went to a presentation by an occupational therapist who talked about how our country has continued to devote less and less time to handwriting as teachers feel more and more pressure to get kindergarten and first grade students to meet benchmarks in reading and writing.  She talked about how in Europe they devote many hours to correct letter formation in the primary grades and how there is a “perfect” measurement ratio that the individual student desks and chairs are adjusted to so they can write more easily.  I had a little boy in my class who had brilliant ideas, but terrible handwriting.  Because I had so many students during writing time that needed my help much more than him I met with his mom and gave her some handwriting books to work on at home.  This seemed to help a lot, yet handwriting continues to be a big issue in school and there don’t seem to be easy answers.

While reading Routman’s “Tried and True Ideas for Shared Reading” I found myself starring and writing down many of them in my school journal to remember for next year.  Some ways I can teach shared writing in different content areas are as follows:

Math:

·        Write different story problems using student names as a class.

·        Generate a fact sheet on all the things we know about coins, then show what different groupings of coins equal.

·        Create a chart of different shapes focusing on descriptive language.

Reading:

• Write a book review after reading a book as a class.
• Have students reread the shared writing in pairs by word processing copies for students, and then have students take their copies home to illustrate and reread to their families.
• Focus on word work by having students highlight specific rimes or letter sounds.
• Bring attention to high frequency words by having students circle them with a partner on their own sheet.  As a group review the high frequency words students circled and teach several new ones.

Science:

• Create a “What we Know About Insects” shared writing together.
• Work together to describe the texture, color, and shape of different rocks and minerals. 

After completing shared writing I would give students an opportunity to think about what they would like to write, give them a chance to share and then begin writing their own copy.

I love how Routman makes the connection between comprehension and writing.  For years while reading I have written things down as I read because it helps me to remember.  This connection made me realize the importance of teaching students to write down information and highlight parts that speak to them.  I need to remember to be explicit about what strategies I use and teach them to my students.

Assignment #3 - Sharing Your Writing Life!

Part One

1.

• Start of School

My first day of kindergarten

How I feel before the first day of school as a teacher

Labor Day weekend with my family

• Special Memory

Hiking up the Schilthorn with Richard

Meeting Nina for the first time

2.

This summer I got to meet my niece.  She was born on July 7^th, so she is a tiny baby.  I was so excited to see her that my mouth fell open when I first saw her fuzzy head and thimble-sized nose.  The best part of my visit was getting to hold Nina.  I have never held such a small baby.  I loved feeling her breathe and watching her stretch her left arm above her head.  I know she is going to be the perfect niece!

Part Two

1.

Capturing a Moment

This summer I did lots of fun things.  One of the best moments I had was visiting a gelato shop.  The display case was filled with overflowing vats of sweet, creamy, colorful gelato.  When I was up to order I couldn’t decide between all the delicious flavors, so I had to sit down and look at a menu.  When the waiter came I ordered rum raisin, chocolate, and hazelnut.  The gelato was served in 3 perfect spheres with a triangle shaped cookie in the center.  The gelato was perfect – it was cool, flavorful, and refreshing.  Delicious!

2.

While I was writing I realized I needed to be able to visualize my memory first before a lot of the descriptive words came.  I also noticed myself deleting words when I thought of a better word choice while I was writing, instead of doing lots of editing afterwards.  I noticed myself reread what I had written to hear the flow and make sure it didn’t sound choppy.

I didn’t do much to plan my piece other than stop at the beginning to get a clear picture in my head of this memory.  I had to remind myself of some of the details of this particular gelato shop and think about how best to describe the gelato.  When I got stuck I would reread what I had already written to remind myself of the details I had included and help me figure out what I was leaving out.  At the end of the piece I reread my writing to make sure it had a flow.

I realize that my writing process involves a lot of editing as I go.  While I write, I think of better ways to construct my sentences or more descriptive word choices and I change them on the spot instead of waiting until I have completed the draft.  I also do lots of rereading.  I reread what I had written anytime I got stuck and again at the end.