Blog for 10/4: Review Response

I chose to review Sarah’s response for Inquiry two, Part A. First off, I really like that you mentioned the importance of relating content to the children’s lives. No matter what age, students need this type of support because they need to make sense of why we have them learn the things we do. With this being said, I think you should focus on modeling a lot of your thinking and interpretation of writing. Kids love to here how we feel about writing or what experiences we have had. The more you involve them in your life, the more they seem to want to do things because it helps them formulate meaning and ideas. I did a writing lesson last week, and my students worked really hard on thinking of ideas to write about. I shared with them my ideas and how awesome I thought it was that they get to write every day! I focused on pre-writing strategies, and modeling that part of the writing process really seemed to get them excited.

Revision and editing is also very important. However, be careful. As I read through Routman’s chapter 10, something really stuck out to me and I found I could connect it to your piece. She says, “Of course we depend on correct conventions and form. That’s a given. But the inspiration isn’t in that; its in the language, they way the piece flows and is organized, the impact the words have on the reader” (pp.239). This is great to keep in mind as you prepare to work with your students on revising and editing. These strategies are very important, but do not let it take away from the student’s thoughts and ideas. Try to support students and give them positive feedback, and mention the key components of editing and revising they could work on as you read through their writing. Maybe not fixing every mistake and see how they react to the major aspects you point out. Another thing that really stuck out to me in this chapter was her idea of keeping focused on effective writing. I hate using a checklist for young writers because I don’t want to lose focus on what the child is trying to say.

Try to make the classroom talk fun and exciting! I love observing my teacher talk with the students for pre writing activities and literacy lessons in general. If you think your students can handle it, let a student play the “teacher” role about a topic you would like them to write about or something you want them to make a connection to. My class seems to love that and it really helps get the students to feel more comfortable with sharing ideas. Editing and revising may be a little more tricky, but maybe make silly mistakes and see if they catch you? They feel really smart when they catch a teacher making mistakes, and they get a kick out of it. At the same time, they are learning from fixing your mistake without even realizing it! A lot of my ideas involve making it fun for students because then they will look forward to this discussion and writing time.

I loved how you mentioned the norms you would like to build within the classroom! I think the core practice you want to focus on is perfect as well. I do not know your classroom environment, but my students get bored of writing sometimes or complain that they write too much. So focusing on creating authentic, meaningful writing tasks for a real audience will help you promote creative writing activities. I think you are going to do a great job. Our readings really support your writing idea and you do a great job of relating these ideas to your own thoughts. I hope some of my comments are clear and helpful or interesting to you. I am excited to hear what you come up with :).

Target Area Questions

1). Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for guided lead teaching will be writing.

2).  Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Currently, my class focuses on writing for about 40 minutes per day.

3). Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

CCSS 2.W.5 With guidance and support from adults and peers, focus on a topic and strengthen writing as needed by revising and editing.

 

CCSS 2.W.7 Participate in shared research and writing projects (e.g., read a number of books on a single topic to produce a report; record science observations).

CCSS 2.W.8 Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question.

4). How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Teaching writing as my target area can provide students opportunities to learn important content related to their lives by allowing them to recognize that writing is a medium through which they can voice their knowledge, thoughts, feelings, and, opinions . By recognizing this self-connection that writing provides, students learn that writing is meaningful and they find a purpose in its practice. Not only that, but writing is a form of communication, and they need to understand that they can utilize this as an outlet to communicate with others. So much of daily communication is dependent upon electronic forms of mediums these days, and so teaching students how to accurately display this voice onto a written format is a necessary skill to attain that relates to their lives. Students also need to recognize that revision and editing is an important component of the writing process and by instructing in this area, students will be able to hone in on their editing skills in order to create an adequate product that conveys what they intended it to.

Learning about writing includes learning literacy in that you need to be able to make meaning from, understand, and interpret in order to be literate. By learning about writing, you are learning to do these things; you are learning literacy by learning writing. You are also learning about literacy because you are learning how to do these things through the action of writing.

5). What types of classroom talk takes place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

In writing, both discussion and recitation types of classroom talk takes place. For instance, writing may be more recitation-like at points when I am teaching about skills, such as editing skills.  The audience will play a more passive role, reciting the rules and expectations of editing of writing. However, discussion also takes place in writing instruction, during the points when I am trying to get students to focus on the quality of their work, express and inject their ideas, and compose their own meaning in written form. Therefore, discussion is more involving and engaging to students, as they act as co-generators as opposed to just reciting what the teacher wants to hear. In this sense, higher-level thinking is promoted when discussion takes place because the conversation is student-led and generated.

Norms I would like to build within my classroom as I teach writing, are for students to always give their best effort into their work, focus on improving wherever they can, and respect one another’s expressions of writing.

 

6). Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

The core practice I want to work on developing and improving as I teach writing, is creating authentic, meaningful writing tasks for a real audience. Focusing on this core practice will contribute to my own professional learning because it will give me some experience and familiarity with effective ways to reach my students through writing instruction and will allow me to see what works and what doesn’t.

 

7). What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

My mentor teacher is a great resource to use for writing. As a teacher for over 20 years, she has had plenty of experiences in this target area and is known for adapting her instruction for what has worked best for her students in the past. I can learn a lot of extra things from her in addition to written texts and articles from my past TE courses, including this current one. For example, our text Writing Essentials is dedicated to teaching and informing future and current teachers of many important aspects of writing. The librarian at my school is also a resource that I can utilize. She has access to numerous works that will be informative and can obtain any additional resources that may be needed by the teachers in the school.  

8). What additional resources do you need to obtain?

 Additional resources that I need to obtain are activities that I can use to get students engaged and that they can use as models for their own work. I need to find fun and intriguing ways to get my students interested in the writing process.

9). How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I have a little bit of information about my students’ writing ability from past teachers, and from my own observations. In order to gain specific information on where they need special attention and improvement, I will need to design an assessment that will target this.

10). What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

Because providing students the opportunity to make meaningful connections is crucial to a student’s learning, I will need to find out what interests my students. I will need some background knowledge on the things they like, are interested in, can relate to, have experience with, and are curious about. By doing this, students will be motivated to learn through their writing process as they try to communicate their thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

11). What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I need to learn what types of things, specifically, to take into account in order to create a meaningful writing task. I want to create a kind of checklist and be sure that my task embodies all of the necessary elements.

 

12). What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

A concern I have about planning and teaching my unit is that I am going to try and cover too much, or that my goals will be harder to get across to students than I am thinking right now. I don’t want to set the bar too high or think my students aren’t capable of something that they are. I hope that I can find the perfect middle ground in my planning and teaching so that the students will step away from the unit, better-rounded writers than before.

 

Target Area 9/24

1.    Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area will be comprehension.

2.    Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

Depending on the day, 30-45 minutes.

3.    Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

RI.2.1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.

4.    How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives?  In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

Comprehension is one of the most important aspects of literacy. Students must be able to read a text and understand what is going on, who is the story about, where are they, how are they feeling, etc. They need to master this strategy to get through life. A simple example would be reading signs while driving. A person must read the sign and comprehend what it is telling them so they are aware of their surroundings. Comprehension is an umbrella to many other areas of literacy. Vocabulary and writing are two important parts of literacy that can only be understood with basic comprehension skills.

5.    What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

My classroom community uses several ways to talk. There is a good balance between teacher-led lessons and student-led lessons because we have some high level students that are able to model for our lower level students. It has been a great way to get the students talking to each other and respecting others opinions. Students like sharing ideas and feel comfortable doing so. They feed off each other and encouraging them to learn from each other has built an awesome support system. We also allow students to share their graphic organizers when they have completed it accurately or we want them to share their ideas on how they found the answers to the parts of the organizer. Comprehension usually involves a read aloud and a graphic organizer model, which is done by the teacher. Then we have the students do the same thing in one of their centers. They work together and support/teach each other by talking about what they know and don’t know about the story. They learn different strategies from each other, like looking at pictures to tell what happened, or re reading pages to find character names.

6.    Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning?

I want to focus on finding important events in a story and summarizing. I also want to work on writing about reading because this strategy will help my students find important events and make it easier for them to summarize. Finding ways to effectively teach my students these strategies will contribute to my own professional learning. I want to try new things and see what works best for each individual student. I want to do my best to meet my students needs.

7.    What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

I will be focusing on using fiction stories found in our classroom library, as well as the school library. I will be using our basal book, Treasures, that includes both stories and themes for lessons. Guided reading books will also be used to make sure the students comprehension is improving (this is a weekly objective already). I am hoping to do this twice within my unit plan time period.  

8.    What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I will be using online resources for creative ideas on leading lessons. I am hoping to find fun activities for the students to understand the importance of comprehension and activities that allow them to understand and improve at their own pace. My field instructor has also mentioned working with me to help me find reliable resources and ideas for my lessons. I really want to try some new things and experiment with comprehension instruction.

9.    How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

My students do centers on a daily basis. One of the center involves them listening to a story and filling out a graphic organizer. We also have a center where they can choose a story out of their book basket, read it, and fill out a graphic organizer. I will be using these to assess the students and see where I really need to go with my lesson planning. I want to try different things so they are not bored. Graphic organizing is a concept that is very hard for my class to grasp, and they really need the practice to improve their comprehension levels.

10.  What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

I have a pretty good idea of where my students are at with their comprehension levels just from working with them. My teacher has also been leading guided reading groups. Students have been grouped by both their reading and comprehension levels. This is great because I am hoping to see an improvement in their level of comprehension. I want to find out more ways to make their learning fun. What do they really enjoy doing on a daily basis and how can I use it?

11.  What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

I want to find fun ways for them to work on writing about reading. Sticky notes may be a little too small fro my students, unless I can find bigger ones. I think my students will really enjoy this and it will make them feel older. They always see me marking pages with sticky notes and it will be beneficial for them to understand how it works so they can improve their organization on thoughts and ideas.

12.  What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

I am nervous about having dull lessons. They are so used to being read to or filling out graphic organizers. Yes, this is a big focus for my unit, however, I want it to be fun! I hope I can find activities that work for my students.

Target Area 1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching. My target area for guided lead teaching will be writing comprehension in regards to helping my students prepare their writing pieces for publishing. In the two weeks of my lessons I will be focusing on, “when you’re done you’ve just begun,” and “preparing for publication.” During my “when you’re done you’ve just begun” my students will be learning how to make good writing decisions, will be working on making strong leads, working on making strong endings, and repeating words for emphasis. In the “preparing for publication” section my students will be working on learning how to revise, conference, and edit their pieces to make them ready for publication. 2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area? There is 40 minutes per day allocated for writing in our schedule. 3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward? CCSS: 3.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences. 3.W.3a Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences. a. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally. 3.W.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 3 on pages 28 and 29.) 3.W.3d Provide a sense of closure. 3.W.4With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above 3.L.2Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. 4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy? These lessons will help my students learn how to improve their writing pieces in realizing that their writing always has room for improvement and needs several revisits before publishing. This will help my students later down the road in producing writing pieces in their everyday lives especially in their careers. These lessons will help them realize the importance in not just writing without going back and revisiting it before turning it in. These lessons also relate to their own lives because it will help them learn how to communicate in putting their thoughts to paper, but also that they must be careful with how they use their words in writing to convey messages and stories. It is always important to check their writing so that they can ensure the correct message is being communicated. These lessons help the students learn about language and how writing is language that can convey messages. The students will learn that their writing is something in literacy that they own and are responsible for to perfect. The students not only will learn the mechanics of writing, but also the literary aspects of having gripping and good leads along with satisfying and strong endings. The students will learn that in literacy these aspects are very important to have. 5. What types of classroom talk takes place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)? My discussions where I will be introducing different skills will be teacher led, because I will be using my own writing to show different skills that they will be using through my own thinking aloud and editing. There will be times when the discussion will be focused on higher-level thinking. These times will be when I am asking my students to notice different aspects of the expert text and will ask them to make connections between the author’s writing and their own writing. They also will be focusing on higher level thinking when they edit each other’s work, because they will have to think critically about the paper they are reading and they will have to make connections to prior knowledge, the new skills I teach them, and make connections to the world outside of the classroom to fully understand what they are reading and make educated suggestions on how to improve the writing they are editing. 6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this targetarea (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on thiscore practice contribute to your own professional learning? I want to focus on conferences and fostering meaningful revision practices because this is exactly what my lessons will be covering. I want to do both of these core practices because I need to improve and develop both in my own repertoire. These core areas will contribute greatly to my professional learning, because in any grade that I teach I will have to conference with my students and help them find meaningful ways to revise their writing. These two practices are both areas that I am familiar with but where I need to develop my skills further so that I can figure out the best method to helping my students perfect their writing pieces. Focusing on these core practices will help me to be a better teacher later on because I will be able to develop an understanding of what is important, and how to mold each conference towards my students’ individual needs. It is important to learn how to teach meaningful revision practices so that I will be an expert in knowing what to encourage my future students to focus on. 7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? I will not only have the support of my mentor teacher, but also the writing representative for the East Lansing Public School District, Sherri Person. She will be available to me by phone or through email. I also have the ELPS Common Core Writers Workshop Unit of Study curriculum, which I am using as a starting point for my lessons, because it is a great skeleton base to use to begin drawing up my lesson plans. I also will be using this resource to help me assess my students’ final writing pieces to monitor their growth as writers. In these stories the students are writing personal narratives so we will be using experiences they have had in their community. I also will be using Pecan Pie Baby by Jacqueline Woodson to use as a model text to help the students to learn what good leads/gripping first sentences to hook the reader look like as well as satisfying conclusions. I will also be using my own writing journal to help show them how to make their writing pieces perfected through think a louds. 8. What additional resources do you need to obtain? I need to begin a writer’s notebook and begin writing my own stories to use to model to my students the appropriate method of revising and strengthening their writing piece. I would also like to find some kind of poster that discusses helpful writing revising tips that they can use as a helpful tool. I want to obtain little rings and notecards that my students can write common misspelled words on that they struggle with to help them use as a reference later on down the road. 9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area? I have already administered a pre-assessment in this section that was a 40 minute writing prompt. The ELPS provided an assessment tool that acted as a checklist to document the students’ strengths and weaknesses. This tool will help me see where my students are really struggling. It will help me see how their revisions improve their writing pieces. 10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching? It will be helpful to find out my students’ personalities in what helps them to write better, whether its playing music in the background, allowing them to find a nice place in the room other than their desks, or some other condition. It will also be helpful to know my students’ prior knowledge of making helpful revision suggestions during partner conferences so that I will know if I need to help them in learning how to be a helpful editor. 11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching? I have a great worksheet to use that the ELPS curriculum provides, but I want to make sure that I am fully prepared to confer with my students. I don’t want to focus too much on the mechanics of the writing nor do I want to go overboard and expect my students to be able to write way above their grade level. I want to learn how to focus just on the important pieces and skills that third graders are supposed to do. I am so in the college writing mode that I need to learn how to step out of that mode and be a third grade teacher who does not have too high and unrealistic expectations and advice. I want to work with my mentor teacher more on this piece before I begin teaching so that I am fully prepared to confer with my students in the most beneficial way for them as possible. 12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit? My only concern is time while teaching. I want to have great lessons for the students but with only a 40 minute per day window of time I am worried that I wont have enough time to really get into the meat of a lesson to really teach my students how to be great writers.

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching.

My target area for guided lead teaching will be writing comprehension in regards to helping my students prepare their writing pieces for publishing. In the two weeks of my lessons I will be focusing on, “when you’re done you’ve just begun,” and “preparing for publication.” During my “when you’re done you’ve just begun” my students will be learning how to make good writing decisions, will be working on making strong leads, working on making strong endings, and repeating words for emphasis.  In the “preparing for publication” section my students will be working on learning how to revise, conference, and edit their pieces to make them ready for publication.

2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area?

There is 40 minutes per day allocated for writing in our schedule.

3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward?

CCSS: 3.W.10 Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.

            3.W.3a Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

a. Establish a situation and introduce a narrator

and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally.

            3.W.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 3 on pages 28 and 29.)

            3.W.3d Provide a sense of closure.

            3.W.4With guidance and support from adults, produce writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above

            3.L.2Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing.

           

4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy, learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy?

            These lessons will help my students learn how to improve their writing pieces in realizing that their writing always has room for improvement and needs several revisits before publishing. This will help my students later down the road in producing writing pieces in their everyday lives especially in their careers. These lessons will help them realize the importance in not just writing without going back and revisiting it before turning it in. These lessons also relate to their own lives because it will help them learn how to communicate in putting their thoughts to paper, but also that they must be careful with how they use their words in writing to convey messages and stories. It is always important to check their writing so that they can ensure the correct message is being communicated.

            These lessons help the students learn about language and how writing is language that can convey messages. The students will learn that their writing is something in literacy that they own and are responsible for to perfect. The students not only will learn the mechanics of writing, but also the literary aspects of having gripping and good leads along with satisfying and strong endings. The students will learn that in literacy these aspects are very important to have.

5. What types of classroom talk takes place within this target area? To what extent is the talk teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter 6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done in TE 402 on classroom talk)?

            My discussions where I will be introducing different skills will be teacher led, because I will be using my own writing to show different skills that they will be using through my own thinking aloud and editing. There will be times when the discussion will be focused on higher-level thinking. These times will be when I am asking my students to notice different aspects of the expert text and will ask them to make connections between the author’s writing and their own writing. They also will be focusing on higher level thinking when they edit each other’s work, because they will have to think critically about the paper they are reading and they will have to make connections to prior knowledge, the new skills I teach them, and make connections to the world outside of the classroom to fully understand what they are reading and make educated suggestions on how to improve the writing they are editing.

6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this targetarea (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on thiscore practice contribute to your own professional learning?

I want to focus on conferences and fostering meaningful revision practices because this is exactly what my lessons will be covering. I want to do both of these core practices because I need to improve and develop both in my own repertoire. These core areas will contribute greatly to my professional learning, because in any grade that I teach I will have to conference with my students and help them find meaningful ways to revise their writing. These two practices are both areas that I am familiar with but where I need to develop my skills further so that I can figure out the best method to helping my students perfect their writing pieces. Focusing on these core practices will help me to be a better teacher later on because I will be able to develop an understanding of what is important, and how to mold each conference towards my students’ individual needs. It is important to learn how to teach meaningful revision practices so that I will be an expert in knowing what to encourage my future students to focus on.

7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area?

            I will not only have the support of my mentor teacher, but also the writing representative for the East Lansing  Public School District, Sherri Person. She will be available to me by phone or through email. I also have the ELPS  Common Core Writers Workshop Unit of Study curriculum, which I am using as a starting point for my lessons, because it is a great skeleton base to use to begin drawing up my lesson plans. I also will be using this resource to help me assess my students’ final writing pieces to monitor their growth as writers. In these stories the students are writing personal narratives so we will be using experiences they have had in their community. I also will be using Pecan Pie Baby by Jacqueline Woodson to use as a model text to help the students to learn what good leads/gripping first sentences to hook the reader look like as well as satisfying conclusions. I will also be using my own writing journal to help show them how to make their writing pieces perfected through think a louds.

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain?

I need to begin a writer’s notebook and begin writing my own stories to use to model to my students the appropriate method of revising and strengthening their writing piece. I would also like to find some kind of poster that discusses helpful writing revising tips that they can use as a helpful tool. I want to obtain little rings and notecards that my students can write common misspelled words on that they struggle with to help them use as a reference later on down the road.

9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area?

I have already administered a pre-assessment in this section that was a 40 minute writing prompt. The ELPS provided an assessment tool that acted as a checklist to document the students’ strengths and weaknesses. This tool will help me see where my students are really struggling. It will help me see how their revisions improve their writing pieces.

10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching?

            It will be helpful to find out my students’ personalities in what helps them to write better, whether its playing music in the background, allowing them to find a nice place in the room other than their desks, or some other condition. It will also be helpful to know my students’ prior knowledge of making helpful revision suggestions during partner conferences so that I will know if I need to help them in learning how to be a helpful editor.

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching?

            I have a great worksheet to use that the ELPS curriculum provides, but I want to make sure that I am fully prepared to confer with my students. I don’t want to focus too much on the mechanics of the writing nor do I want to go overboard and expect my students to be able to write way above their grade level. I want to learn how to focus just on the important pieces and skills that third graders are supposed to do. I am so in the college writing mode that I need to learn how to step out of that mode and be a third grade teacher who does not have too high and unrealistic expectations and advice. I want to work with my mentor teacher more on this piece before I begin teaching so that I am fully prepared to confer with my students in the most beneficial way for them as possible.

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit?

My only concern is time while teaching. I want to have great lessons for the students but with only a 40 minute per day window of time I am worried that I wont have enough time to really get into the meat of a lesson to really teach my students how to be great writers.

Blog for week of 9/24

1. Describe your target area for guided lead teaching. I plan on working on writing for my guided lead teaching.

 

2. Approximately how much time per day is allotted for your instruction in this area? We currently plan 40-45 minutes a day for writing.

 

3. Which Common Core State Standard(s) will you work toward? I plan to use technology in some way to complete this project. Standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.3.6 States: With guidance and support from adults, use technology to produce and publish writing (using keyboarding skills) as well as to interact and collaborate with others. I will add others when I know a little more about my subject.

 

4. How will teaching in this target area provide opportunities for students to learn important content

and/or skills that relate to their lives? In what ways does this learning include learning literacy,

learning about literacy, and/or learning through literacy? I am in the process of planning where we will be for these weeks with my MT. The actual focus of writing for that time frame will dictate to some extent what the final product will be. Right now the plan is to create a writing project for the students that relates to some aspect of the class right now. It will be narrative, persuasive, opinion, or informational writing.

 

5. What types of classroom talk take place within this target area? To what extent is the talk

teacher-led, student-led, or focused on higher-level thinking? What norms for interaction would

you like to build within your classroom as you teach in this target area (e.g., see ideas in Chapter

6 of Strategies that Work, the Berne & Clark 2008 article, or draw from some of the readings done

in TE 402 on classroom talk)? We are currently in the process of getting the students started in the writing process. I am seeing most of the talk as teacher-led. Normally it starts with some sort of story that relates to what our writing goals of the day are. He then models exactly how he uses this information to write his story. The interactions from the students are usually in adding their background knowledge to explain the MT’s story. My mentor is constantly changing his pedagogy to reflect the need of the classroom though and I won’t be surprised to see the type of conversation change as the dynamic of the class changes.

 

6. Which ‘core practice’ do you want to work on developing/improving as you teach in this target area (refer to document “Resources for Developing Core Practices”)? How will focusing on this core practice contribute to your own professional learning? I would like to work on creating authentic, meaningful writing tasks for a real audience. I am struggling with watching kids as they stare blankly at their papers during writing time. Even with encouragement they will come up with great ideas and then not put them on paper. I hope that creating a meaningful task will help with the motivation those students need to finish their projects.

 

7. What resources within the community, neighborhood, school district, school or classroom do you have to work with in this target area? The district has a writing program. This is available on the district shared drive. In most cases lesson plans for each day are available to present to the class. In addition, there is a person in charge of the district writing program that is available to help with ideas and direction if needed. I also have my MT, of course and he has a wide range of lessons that he has created. Over the years he has saved everything he has done and shared it with me on a flash drive. I hope to bring the community into the project in some way. My plan right now is by making this writing project authentic. We will write about something that might help the community, or might be something the community might like to read. Another option is just writing about the community.

 

8. What additional resources do you need to obtain? My mentor and I have to take a little more time to block out where we will be in the writing process. This will allow me to focus in a little more on exactly what it will be that I am doing This will allow me to access some of the resources listed above as starting points for designing my lesson.

 

9. How will you pre-assess your students in your target area? I will have the writing samples that they have done to this point. I will be able to compare some of those samples to what they produce both at the beginning and end of my unit to see if progress was made toward the common core standard.

 

10. What else will you need to find out about all students in your class to help you develop lesson plans for your Guided Lead Teaching? I need to find out a little bit more about what would interest them to write about. Right now we are writing about their lives and they are having a hard time putting pencil to paper. I need to find an issue in the community they feel strongly about in order to get them invested. This may actually be a pre lesson to help me begin my planning.

 

11. What else do you need/want to learn about the ‘core practice’ to support your planning and teaching? I want to learn what to do if I feel like the practice isn’t working. I have this feeling that even if I get the majority of the students invested in the project there will still be a few on the fringe who just don’t buy in.

 

12. What concerns, if any, do you have about planning and teaching your unit? I only worry about the fact that I’m working on a rough idea right now. I understand the dilemma of my mentor in having a new curriculum and not knowing exactly where he’ll be. It just makes it a little tough to jump into this project right now. However, I have no doubt that the way we work together will help us get this project done in the time frame.

Blog for week 9/17

Blog for Week of 9/17

When looking at this week’s readings in Routman’s book, the author gave a lot of helpful advice in relation to her experience and research in the teaching of writing. In order to incorporate a lot of her advice into my own teaching of writing, it seems like I would need to be very organized with my planning in writing instruction in order not to stray towards the type of teaching I am more used to and have been taught myself as a student. For instance, I am used to learning things in pieces and have learned to construct my writing of essays and other written works through step-by-step processes. However, as Routman’s book points out, “Imagine having all the pieces of a large jigsaw puzzle on the floor in front of you but never seeing the picture on the lid of the box. That’s what learning is like for kids when we start with the parts”(p. 142). Using that as an example, I can see how students may look at the pieces of the writing process as isolated and disconnected and may miss the big picture. They may not be able to figure out what it all means and how the pieces fit together.

Also, I think it would be difficult to break away from my current mind-frame regarding editing. It is hard for me to concentrate on the meaning of a piece of written work, unless it has the correct grammar and mechanics. Otherwise, I am distracted by the mistakes and lose the meaning of the text. Therefore, I attempt to correct the grammar and mechanics immediately. However, this is somewhat counterintuitive with Routman, as her advice is to save the editing to after quality work has been produced. She supports this with a few good points. For instance, she mentions, “Overattention to grammar and mechanics while composing adversely impacts writing. That is, when teachers overemphasize correctness when students write, writing quality declines” (p.160). She goes on to say, “Truly, editing is the easy part, but it only matters if students have a piece of writing worth reading” (p.160). I can see how this is true, but it will certainly take reminding to save the editing for last.

I also find a challenge in trying to make sure that every student is motivated to make their writing of the best quality it can be. I am aware that Routman offers ways to do this, such as identifying an audience (other than the teacher) and stressing the importance of student knowledge of why conventions matter in writing. However, I’m not sure these approaches will reach every child, and I think it is ambitious to assume that the child is going to care about the audience for every piece of writing they compose. My question then lies in how to address this. Perhaps giving them a piece of written work that is hard to decipher or something similar might help them to appreciate what good writing looks like for the sake of the reader.

Blog for week of 9/13

     The overall thought that kept occuring to me as I read the four chapters in the Strategies that Work book was that I rarely read out loud and model my thinking as I do so. I have gotten so used to reading to myself for enjoyment and reading out loud to my kids as a form of entertainment that I need to focus more on the teaching aspects of sharing books with my class. I had an opportunity to read a book to my class on the first day of school. My initial thought was that I did an awsome job of presenting a book to the class. The next day my mentor read a story to the class and I got a real treat of watching someone who really knows how to model his thinking while still making the book entertaining. My worry right now is: How do I learn how to model my thinking while still making the story special?
     Another worry of mine is how I reach those kids who just aren't that into reading. I love books and can often make great recommendations on things that kids might like to read. However, there still often seems to be that kids or two who takes the book, gives it a cursory glance, and discards it. My ability to connect in that situation is hindered and I often don't know where to go next or how to get even a little excitement going.
     The second reading by Kersten and Pardo reminded me of the conversations teachers seem to always have about the reading curriculums that are so popuar now. Our school uses Reading Street and it seems that the teachers don't know exactly how they're going to use that with what they know works. It seems that the hybridization that the article talks about is going to be the route that most of these teachers go for. The other main complaint I hear is that these lessons take up too much time and don't leave time for the teaching of other subjects like science and social studies. I have had limited opportunities to explore Reading Street, but it seemed to me like there were ways to combine what was in the stories with the science and social studies curriculum so that both can be studied at once. One of my goals for this year is to delve into that thought more to see if there are any ways that I could think of to combine subject areas. Especially since I know I will encounter one of these readers in my future job.
     This isn't to say that I don't feel confident in some aspects of literacy that I know I can use in the classroom. I know that I can model fluency, expression, and parsity. My excitement for reading will help some kids make that transition to excitement themselves. Finally, I will build on my experience of reading books to my kids by being able to recommend several books that others may enjoy. I do look forward to watching my mentor and learning from his style in teaching literacy.