Week 3: Approaches to Teaching and Assessing Writing
As I was reading through our chapters for this week, I found myself encouraged and enthusiastic about writing and sharing this with my students, but yet I was consciously thinking about my classroom in a small silver of the back of my mind. I agree with so many points made about writing in these chapter and would love to implement them into my classroom (if possible). Routman also has this great way of always answering my "but....", there were a few points that instantly the light bulb went off in my head and I was like "yes!" but.... (thinking back to my classroom), and she always had a way to cancel out my hesitation. An example would be that I loved when she said "Our students will learn to "do" all the necessary skills and a whole lot more if we shift our focus to meaningful teaching of writing and then teach the necessary skills to support the writing.... when we teach from whole to part and back to whole, when we teach the concept first and label it later, learning becomes easier and much more meaningful" (142). This really made sense to me, and clicked when thinking back to my elementary writing days and learning what a sentence was, or even subjects or tenses and how to organize paragraphs and use figurative language etc. and we were taught these terms first and then had to go and create a piece of writing surrounding that. It was a struggle to say the least. I understand how beneficial it would be to have the students create a piece of writing and then when editing point out and teach these terms that made up their writing. Students will have a better understanding of exactly the meaning and create a connection with these terms and see that they are meaningful to their writing.These lead to four major changes made by a 5th grade teacher:
1. Identifying writing genres that would interest students
2. Deciding who the audience would be for each piece of writing
3. Modeling their own writing process and struggle in front of students
4. Having students share their writing regularly
This is slightly where by hesitation, my "but" came in. I would love to make these changes as well, but the week before school started we were given a whole 5-week writing unit that we were required to teaching, starting literally the first day of school. It came with the prompt we were supposed to give, the "picture" or idea that the prompt was based on along with the questions that they wanted us to ask our students. This unit was created with collaboration of the "Grand Rapids Art Museum" and my students in third grade also had a starting unit with GRAM where they actually went and toured the Museum and saw all the pieces that they are writing about. The students have not been enthused about writing about these sculptures that they have already learned about and seen. It has been hard to motivate them to write these prompts when it doesn't interest them and also we are following the districts standards. Each prompt starts with a picture of a sculpture they have seen and then questions surrounding it (the first week was a picture of a jungle with animals and was a lot about the senses, and sensory terms) and then the students were to write about their favorite meal. This was very confusing for the students to be talking about what these animals might see, hear, smell, taste, feel to then writing about their favorite meal. I understand that each prompt is teaching a different style of writing from Informative to Narrative etc, and here is where Routman comes to the rescue when she said " Even if your state or district standards and curriculum documents focus narrowly on the parts of learning, you will easily satisfy those minimum standards and much more through meaningful teaching.. Our students are not likely to work seriously or feel the "need" to learn something unless they understand and value its purpose".
If my MT and I can some how find "meaning" and purpose within these prompts that we can resonate with the students then I could see this unit some what being beneficial. Any helpful ideas of what you are seeing in your classroom?
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI guess I am a bit confused about the assignment, but maybe that is the point you are making and why the students are so deflated when it comes to writing time. I love your connections and references to Routman's writing and ideas and I think that your teacher should try to incorporate it more. I think there could be some amazing and very entertaining opportunities for writing even with the sculptures. I think that this is where last week's Kersten and Pardo's article comes to play. I think that the preset writing unit can be finessed to fit student interests and trigger their motivation.
Like I said previously, I was a bit confused by what the writing assignment is exactly about, so I will clarify with you Thursday, but in the mean time I gathered that the students need to write sensory descriptions of the sculptures that they are seeing/reading about. I think this lesson could be finessed into a more exciting guideline. Why does the story that talks about sensory images need to make complete, logical, or accurate sense? If the students could create a made up story about the sculpture that requires the descriptive writing (sensory) then I think the students would start it and run off with it! This is where Routman's theory can be tested, and in what seems to be our opinion, seen. More and more elements of writing can be sparked once a student's motivation is activated and their passion for an assignment increases. We have all talked about the idea of how choice effects motivation, so a student with their choice to create a sensory story about a sculpture might just trigger this effect.
Hope this helps some, but I'd love to talk to you about it in person as well,
Sarah
Im sorry I didnt realize there was a writing assignment. I thought we were just to post about the prompt she had or about something we made a connection with in the readings and our classrooms. Sorry! Will do it differently next time!
ReplyDeleteI am sorry, I meant your writing assignment in your classroom. You did exactly right responding to the prompt she had or whatever. I meant what you were describing in your post.... if that makes anymore sense... lol
DeleteEmily, I feel like we have very different ways of teaching writing in our schools. That must be irritating having such a strict literacy curriculum. I feel as though my MT does incorporate some of the strategies of writing instruction discussed like incorporating mini lessons and having the students revise their own work.
ReplyDeleteI, like you, was excited after reading these chapters. I want to try all of the new things I know! I feel like some easy things we could incorporate, even in your strict curriculum, are word walls and peer editing. Those two things I feel could be very beneficial for the students. I like the word wall even for fourth graders because my students are still struggling with spelling site words and it will help them focus on their writing rather than the spelling. The peer editing will push them to produce quality work so they are not embarrassed by another student reading their work. It will also help with their editing skills. It’s all about adapting to the curriculum, I hope this helped.
i really liked reading your post this week. now i know how to do it :)Your writing curriculum is a lot more structured than mine.One thing that your MT could do to make the assignments feel more personal and get the kids more engaged, is to find something that really excites her and write about it as a class. we read something about this last week or two weeks ago. the teacher shared a story with the class and it was something personal to her. This is a way to give a great example to the kids and to involve them in the creation. Plus kids feed off of the energy of the teacher. If the teacher hates the writing curriculum the kids are going to feel that and give about as much energy as the teacher. The teacher has to make it enjoyable to themselves first, then teach it to the kids.
ReplyDeleteI liked your take on the reading and how you focused on your classroom problem.