Blog 8: "To Bless, To Address, To Press"

One of my favorite parts in writing is when it can be shared.  I think that it is important that we as teachers give our students time that they are able to share the work that they are doing. Tompkins states that sharing is an important part of writer’s workshop. She adds “After the reading, classmates clap and offer compliments. They may also make other comments and suggestions, but the focus is on celebrating completed work writing projects…” (Tompkins, 2019, p.27).   In fact, Hicks encourages peers to respond to each other by saying “To bless is to simply offer praise.   To address means to ask specific questions about the ideas.  To press is to ask critical questions in order to help the writer move toward a stronger version or the writing or a clearer explanation of his/her opinion. (Hicks, 2009, p. 83).

There is a classroom that I will spend a lot of time in so to help out and I’m always so impressed by the amount of people that want to share their writing. They have ELA centers every day and one of the centers is usually a free write where they can choose what they want to write about. There’s always usually two or three people that want to share their writing at the end of the day because they are so proud of the work that they did. Not only am I taken back by the students wanting to share but also the way that the rest of the class reacts. At first they will all clap and say something that they really liked (To bless), then they ask specific questions about what they wrote (to address) and then they will add some suggestions of small things that they could change (to press).  I love seeing how great their classroom community is and that they all support each other along with wanting to help them grow.

As I was reading through all my peers’ blog posts, there was one that really stood out to me. I really Kristina’s blog entry about providing feedback.  She talks about how by proving feedback to the writer, the reader and the writer are communicating. They are talking about the piece by saying what they like and what questions they might have. One thing that she said that stood out to me was “The reader is a fresh pair of eyes for the writer, they are able to provide an unbiased opinion of the writing piece and give critical feedback that will help the writer make improvements to their writing” (Wells, 2019). I couldn’t help but think back to one of my blogs that I have written where I talk about feedback. I love when I get another set of eyes to look over something that I have written and give me feedback on how to make it stronger.

Another idea that I loved as I read the blog post, was the idea of having student- student conferences to talk about their writing. I know that the kids I work with would much rather meet with another student to talk about their writing rather than meet with me.  However, I always run into the issue of making sure that they are staying on task.  I would love to ask Kristina how she would implement these conferences in her classroom. What do you do to model them and how do you make sure the students are focused on what they are supposed to be doing? I definitely want to make sure that my students have the time to share their work with their peers and receive feedback on how they can make their pieces stronger.

Hicks, T. (2013).  Crafting digital writing.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.

Tompkins, G. E.  (2019). Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (7^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Wells, K. (2019, February 22). Entry 5 [blog post]. Retrieved from https://kristinawells-lted618-spring2019.blogspot.com/2019/02/entry-5.html