Tuesday, March 24, 2015
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.
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I loved that you mentioned providing the parents/guardians a copy of the objectives because, as we went over in class today, there were a lot! I instantly thought of how we discussed cursive is not being practiced as much today as it used to be and I think that is an activity that can easily be done at home. Send some cursive activities with the students at the end of the year and challenge them to work on it this summer. I had a teacher give us her address so that we could write her letters during the summer and looking back, that was one of the coolest things ever! The catch was that we had to write our letters in cursive only, so it was an effective way for us to practice our writing. I think that keeping the parents involved in little ways like that will encourage the students to practice writing more often. I also agree with you about the writing center and the value of an effective, welcoming writing center. It is vital to encourage students to write in a setting they feel as though they can be creative in. As we discussed today, it is also important to make sure we do not correct students who are at the beginning stages of writing. No red pens, no mark outs. Just a little encouragement can go a long way.
ReplyDeleteI had the same feelings about remembering my writing when I was young. My mother kept nearly everything I did in school so I have looked back at work I had done and saw how the pictures then became words. I think it is very interesting that those pictures are valuable. I just wonder, if you have a student that does not like to draw is asking them to draw pictures creating a dislike for writing or is it necessary for students?
ReplyDeleteI had the same feelings about remembering my writing when I was young. My mother kept nearly everything I did in school so I have looked back at work I had done and saw how the pictures then became words. I think it is very interesting that those pictures are valuable. I just wonder, if you have a student that does not like to draw is asking them to draw pictures creating a dislike for writing or is it necessary for students?
ReplyDeleteI too had the same feelings about my early school years when reading this chapter. I don't remember having writing centers but I do remember participating in many group and partner writing projects and peer editing. I feel I learned more from this than I did when I was given the chance to write creatively. I never knew what to write and felt working in a group, it was great to bounce ideas off of each other. As a future teacher I hope to incorporate an interactive and inviting writing center for my students to give them the opportunity to creatively write.
ReplyDeleteI too had the same feelings about my early school years when reading this chapter. I don't remember having writing centers but I do remember participating in many group and partner writing projects and peer editing. I feel I learned more from this than I did when I was given the chance to write creatively. I never knew what to write and felt working in a group, it was great to bounce ideas off of each other. As a future teacher I hope to incorporate an interactive and inviting writing center for my students to give them the opportunity to creatively write.
ReplyDeleteI too agree with the idea of peer evaluation, it is so important that students see their mistakes. It is not to discourage them but to help the new information or corrections stick rather than us just telling them what they did wrong. I also believe it is important for the child to see their growth in writing. Show them writings/pictures they created at the beginning versus the end of the school year.
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