Poetry: A Needed Creative Outlet

The section on writing poetry caught my eye when I was reading through Chapter 7.  Often times poetry is seen as this elegant art of expressing oneself that only adults who have a lot of spare time do.  Contrary to this belief, poetry can be enjoyed by and written by anyone.  In a time when creativity in the classroom is being pushed aside for test prep, writing and reading poetry can serve as that creative outlet that children crave.  We as teachers are asked to engage our students’ high order thinking skills.  Interpreting poetry requires analysis.  Interpreting poetry requires a student to evaluate what he or she thinks the message of the poem means.  It requires students to draw on support to back up their responses.  On the other hand, writing poetry allows for the most creative expression among students.  The use of word-play, rhyme scheme, subject matter, and sentence structure all are blended together in a creative process that requires the student to use higher-order thinking skills.

The only problem is, poetry is seen as boring and hard by many elementary students.  Poetry is seen as bunch of sentences that are jammed together with a message hidden within them.   As teachers, it becomes our job to foster a curiosity and appreciation towards poetry.  I found an amazing video that does just that!  The video is only six minutes in length but does an awesome job giving an example of how to encourage reading and writing poetry within the classroom.  The teacher basically creates a stage setting in the corner of her classroom with an open mic and a makeshift spotlight (picture a poetry slam or stand up comic).  Children then take turns reading their favorite poems or poems that they have written.  Creating a special event for poetry, like an open mic night, attaches feelings of excitement and exploration with it.  As the teacher, be the MC of the event.  Own that mic and really hype up the event!  Children are more likely to become engaged and look forward to these special occurrences.  The more they become engaged with poetry, the higher the chances they will use their higher order thinking skills.

If the Youtube video does not load or does not show up then click here.

Writting Workshop

After reading chapter 7 I have began to look at the different levels of writing development differently. Over time children's writing all progresses at different rates. I wanted to know, what was the best way to teach writing development? Would it be useful for students at different levels? Would this help students creativity in their writing? I enjoyed looking into all the different ways to help children progress in their writing development, but writing workshops really stuck out to me personally.

In looking over several different styles and structures of workshops I found this to be a very effective method. One of my favorite workshops I read about (follow lower elementary link to view) talks about the creativity and inspiration that comes from children's writing development. Writing workshops can be easily adapted to different levels from upper or lower elementary as well as for students at different levels.  Writing isn't something that develops overnight, but takes years of continuous development. This is something you should keep in mind when teaching students, not to mark things wrong because they made an error, but to encourage their development and work with them to improve with time.

Did They Forget the Reading and Writing Connection?

I looked at this source and found it extremely problematic. This website/blog provides four tips for creating better writers in the classroom. While it provides helpful tips, the only focus it has is on writing. If we want to improve writing in our students, shouldn’t we be focusing on reading too? All of these ideas focus on handwriting, the environment, the writing process, and appropriate timing. Don’t get me wrong, all of these are very important parts of the writing process but I just think that an educator who focuses on building literacy skills would include some type of reading in those steps. It could be as simple as giving the students time to read about what they’ve read. In turn, this would increase writing AND reading, which is killing two birds with one stone.

            This wasn’t labeled in the article or anything but how beneficial would it be for students to write a sequel to a chapter or a book that they’ve read? I think that would be a great measure of comprehension because they would have to understand the elements of the story (plot, setting, character traits, etc.) and implement those elements into their own sequel. It was disappointing reading a blog that didn’t suggest ideas with reading. I think a big problem with students not succeeding in writing is that not every educator is on the same page in understanding the reading and writing connection.

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-elementary-school-students-be-effective-writers

Teaching Tips for Children in Different Stages of Writing Development

For this blog post I decided to look up tips for teachers to help children advance through the different stages of writing development. I think that these tips would be helpful to educators because it is important that we let children learn through their writing, instead of telling them that what they are doing is wrong. Because the writing process develops gradually it is important that educators remember to encourage children to explore and experiment with their writing. By allowing children to explore and and experiment, children will acquire the diverse skills of writing.


Teaching tips for children in different stages of writing development

The Development of Writing

At the beginning of chapter seven there is a quote that really stood out to me. This quote by Donald Graves reads, "Children want to write. They want to write the first day they attend school. This is no accident. Before they went to school they marked up walls, pavements, newspaper with crayons, chalk, pens or pencils, anything that makes a mark. The child's marks say, I Am." This quote stands out to me because it is showing that all children are ready to learn how to write. The are excited for it, which as teachers, we need to take advantage of so that we can make their learning experience as fun as possible. Since children learn a lot about literacy through play and the observation of others it is key that we understand that and model that behavior. Soon the marks the children are making will become written messages from which children understand the meaning. I think it is very important that future teachers understand the six steps of writing development in order to know where each of their students are with their development.
1. Writing via Drawing: The child will draw a picture to replace that of where words would usually be. The child sees drawing as a specific and purposeful message. When a child is using writing via drawing they will read their picture to us as if they were reading what they would have written.

2. Writing via Scribbling: The child will scribble on the page but intends it as writing. It is often that the scribbles appear to be going from left to right. This shows the comprehension of visually seeing an adult write and the mimicking of that behavior such as how the pencil moves and the writing sounds a pencil makes. The scribbles resemble writing.

3. Writing via Making Letterlike Forms: The shapes the child make at first glance look as if they are letters. However, if you look closer to the drawing they only resemble that of letters and are actually divided shapes. 

4. Writing via Reproducing Well-Learned Units or Letter Strings: The child will write a letter sequence commonly using letters they are comfortable with, such as letters that are in their name or that they most likely see more of.

5. Writing via Invented Spelling: Students use many varieties and levels of invented spelling. Students create their own spelling for words when they do not know the actual spelling of the word. One letter may represent an entire word, and words sometimes overlap and are not properly spaced. Sometimes the words or spelled correctly but only missing one letter.

6. Writing via Conventional Spelling: The students writing resembles that of adult writing.

 

Writing Development

This chapter helped validate the memories I have about being excited about learning to write when I was a young student and my experiences with teaching writing to young students. The chapter discusses how children learn to write very early by using drawings and then their craving to learn to write comes after they learn that the marks on their papers can be meaningful and fun to produce. Something I also remember about learning to write as a young student is how much better writing seemed to be when we wrote as a group in our journals. I remember cadet teaching and seeing students bounce ideas off once another and how that made creative writing time much more productive. The chapter states that students should have adults model writing and that writing in a social setting is important for development. The six categories of writing as kindergartners was very insightful and interesting for me because I didn't know before reading the chapter that there were so many ways that students could interpret and produce writing. This would be a good tool in observing my future students' progress when it comes to their writing. While I was reading the Objectives for Writing Development, I thought that it could be very helpful as a future teaching to include this list as an attachment in a handout to my students parents or guardians. They'll list things that I am striving for in the classroom and perhaps the parents will do some of these things for their child in their own home. I loved the section in the chapter about writing centers. I personally don't think that a lot of teachers put enough stock into how important a comfortable and productive writing center is. I remember years where I had a great writing center and how much fun I had producing content then versus the years where I was confined to a desk with a piece of paper and a pencil. The last part of the chapter that really stood out to me is the processes of evaluating student's writing. I like the idea of checklists, but I believe that the most effective way of evaluating children's writing is peer evaluating. Student's being able to point out one another's mistakes shows their own comprehension and also helps the students better their own writing. It's a strategy I want to use in my own classroom. Overall, this was a lengthy, but very informative and interesting chapter.

Progression and Development of Writing

I found this chapter very insightful. I found it interesting to analyze and look at children's writing throughout parts of the chapter. The six categories are very helpful in identifying types of children's  writing and I feel like they are very relatable as well. After reading about each category of writing I can relate each of them to things I have seen while working in classrooms and with children. It was very interesting to see how children's writing goes from drawings to scribbles into things that vaguely resemble letters. After students have reached a certain stage and they begin to form letters they then reproduce those letters over in over and then finally they reach forms of writing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this section of the chapter and going step through step through children's writing.  I also find these six categories helpful in realizing the progression of children's writing. Another section of this chapter that I found interesting was the section about objectives for promoting writing development. I found each of the objectives to be very insightful and resourceful. I agree with each of the objectives and their was multiple that stood out to me. For example number 6 stating that children's attempts at writing, whatever the form, will be responded to as meaningful communication (e.g. drawings, scribble writing, letterlike forms, random letters, invented spelling). I really like and support this objective and think it is very important to make children feel special and valued and listen and really try to understand how they are communicating with you. If teachers do not treat their form of communication as meaningful it could hinder their confidence as well as their progress in developing writing skills. Just as this chapter broke down the six categories of writing I also enjoyed and found helpful that it went into detail of writing development in different ages such as birth to age 2 and so on. Over all I found this chapter very helpful and as I read I found myself agreeing and confirming my own thoughts and beliefs as well.