Blog 12: Growth through the semester

This class has made me think about my experiences in elementary school a lot over the semester. It has made me think about not only how I was taught to write but what we would write. After reading Tompkins and Hicks, it amazes me the experiences or lack of I should say, that I had. I remember that we would do a lot of writing as our end of unit project to show what we have learned however every writing piece would either fall into the narrative genre or the descriptive genre. I was taught about some of the other genres however I never had the chance to write in them.

A poster with some of the genres written on it

Throughout Tompkins book, she mentions multiple different writing genres. She goes on to explain how each genre can be taught and used within elementary classrooms. When I was asked in the beginning of this class what genres I thought I knew pretty well, I immediately wrote down narrative and descriptive because that was all I knew. Even though I knew about the persuasive genre, poetry genre, nonfiction genre, and bibliography genres; I wouldn’t say that I knew them well enough to present on them.  I think that there is a strong focus in schools to teach the narrative genre to students. I felt like while my teachers did teach the other genres, I didn't really learn anything about them because the unit was so fast.

I was assigned the nonfiction genre to do a presentation on as an expert which was very beneficial as it helped me to get a deeper understanding of the genre. At first I thought the nonfiction genre was all about information and being able to recall certain information from the story. The only time that I would read nonfiction was when I needed to do research for a project in school. I was never interested in reading a nonfiction book for fun, but I think it had to do with I never really knew how to read the genre. Through my research, I learned that there are specific text features within the genre that when you take the time to look at them, they will help you to understand the book that you are reading.

One genre that Tompkins talks about that surprised me was the letter genre. I didn’t even know that letter writing was a genre. I thought that letter writing was a type of writing activity that falls in the narrative/persuasive genre.  Even reading the chapter on it, I was surprised to learn that letters can be broken down into three type; friendly letter, business letter and simulated letters (Tompkins, 2019). Even though I feel like letter writing is straight forward I would say that it is still a genre that intimidates me. I just don’t know all the aspects that go into to it. I am excited to hear Michelle’s presentation on it and see how I can use it in my classroom.

Along with talking about the genres in class, we spent a lot of time talking about different aspects of digital media and how one can ‘digitally enhance’ (Hicks, 2013) their writing. I am terrible with technology and so everything was brand new to me however now that I know what to do, I actually find some of the aspects quite simple to use. I learned how to create digital web texts by including pictures and hyperlinks to engage the reader as they are reading. At first I didn’t know how to create a hyperlink within the text but now I do it every blog post. The aspects that still intimidates are creating both video and audio texts. I feel like I don’t know that much about the software’s that would be needed to put a clip together. I would love to learn all the different steps that it takes to create video and audio texts because those are great activities to have my students do in the classroom.

After reading both Tompkins and Hicks, I now know what I teach in my classroom when it comes to writing. I have to make sure that I am giving my students the knowledge that they need in order to and time to write in every genre.  Tompkins says “Students need to experiment with a wide variety of genres and explore the purposes and formats of each. Through reading and writing, students develop a strong sense of these forms and how they’re structured” (Tompkins, 2019, pg. 7).  Since we are in such a digital world, students need to be able to interact with technology while they are writing. The students love when they can write in a different form and incorporate digital media because that is when their creativity shines through.

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.

Blog 11: Student Learning Outcomes

When I first saw that I was going to create a blog and write posts throughout the semester, I got a little nervous. I knew nothing about blogging. Even though I would read some occasionally, I had no idea how the authors went about setting theirs up and deciding what they should be writing about. I always thought of writing in college as formal papers that had to be sophisticated and filled of academic language. By having this assignment to create a bog and write these posts, I was able to practice writing in a different way. It took me some time but I finally realized that in order to write these blog posts, I had to change how I write.

Each week there would be a different prompt for me to respond to that went along with what we were learning about in class. These blog posts helped me to think critically about the concepts and reflect we were talking about. I was able to take the ideas that Tompkins and Hicks were talking about and connected it with experiences in my own life. I was able to take away the big ideas from the books as well as our class and think about how I would implement them in my future classroom. During one session, we talked about how to incorporate writer’s workshop in our classroom. When I got home, I was able to think about all the ideas that we talked about and write a post talking about which ones I would use in my classroom. I now can use this blog as a reference for when I am ready to implement these ideas in a classroom of my own.

Students blogging in the classroom

When looking out the learning outcomes of this class (LTED 618), I can see how I was able to meet them by keeping up with a blog each week. By writing a blog post each week, I grew as a reader and a writer.   These blog posts helped to show me the relationship between the writing and the reading process. I will admit that I originally thought that the reading process and the writing process were two different processes that never mixed. By learning more about each process and actually working through the process, I can see how they work together and can be mixed. Tompkins adds “Linking reading, writing, and thinking improves students’ literacy learning and their content area learning” (Tompkins, 2019, pg. 119). These blog posts let me connect what I was reading with what I wanted to write.  As I was writing my blog post each week, I would look for outside articles that I could hyper-link into my post. I would in the middle of the writing process but have to stop to switch to the reading process as I wanted to include research that backed what I was writing about.

Another outcome that this blog has really helped me to understand, is knowing how readers and writers can use different genres to communicate. Throughout the semester we spent time learning about the different genres people can write in. After learning about the genres, I realized that I do most of my writing within the narrative genre. I would say that most of my blog posts would fall under the narrative genre as well however there were a few posts that I did write that were in form of a letter and would be in the letter genre. I learned a lot about how writers try to communicate with their reader. A persons blog site might be set up in a certain way depending on the topic that they are taking about and how they want to communicate with their reader.

Going along with different genres and communication, another outcome that the blogs really helped me to understand better is the role of purpose and audience in writing. In order to write these blog posts, I had to switch the way that I normally write. Tompkins always talked about how you always start with thinking about what the purpose of the piece is and who the audience is before deciding what genre it will be. Blogs are more personal since the writer is trying to connect with their audience. When you write a blog, you have to write it in a way that you are having a conversation with you readers. They have to be engaged with the topic and excited to read every word. While looking at the “habits of mind”, I realized that I had to change my writing so that it was more open and creative. I needed to learn how to write in a way that it felt like I was having a conversation with anybody that was reading it. This was a hard thing for me to do since I wasn’t used to it.

Writing these blog posts truly allowed me to make sure that I was reading with importance but that I am also writing with expression. It allowed me to experiment with all the digital features that can be added to text to help make it ‘digitally enhanced’ (Hicks, 2013) since we are now living in a digital world.

Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of  Teachers of English, & National Writing Project. (2011).  Framework for success in postsecondary writing.  Retrieved from http://wpacouncil.org/framework/

HelpTeaching.com. (2015, November 10). 5 Benefits of blogging in the ela classroom. [blog] Retrieved from http://blog.whoosreading.org/5-benefits-of-blogging-in-the-ela-classroom

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.

Blog 11:Student Learning Outcomes

Blog 10: "Bless, Address, and Press"

As I was reading my peer’s blogs this week, there was one that really jumped out to me. Even by looking at the title, I could tell that I could relate to what was going to be talked about in the post. Anna’s blog on Creating a Supportive and Respectful classroom really jumped out to me because that is what I strive to make my classrooms that I work in. When you have a supportive and respectful classroom, then the students are excited to come to school and are engaged with the different activities that are planned.

I was really happy to see that she started off her blog post by talking about what she would do in her future classroom to make it more supportive and respectful. She gives the example of how she would post student work around the room so that the students can see their accomplishments. I think that this a great idea! I know that the they students I work with love to share the work that they have been doing and so they would absolutely love having a space in the room that was just devoted for their work. Not only would students fell pride for their own work but then they would be able to celebrate the work that their peers did by offering nice and positive affirmations. Along with sharing pieces of work, I think that a key component to creating a supportive classroom is having the student be able to work with each other. Tompkins adds “the layout of furniture, equipment, and supplies should facilitate collaborative workshop activities” (Tompkins, 2019, pg. 33). By having everything in one place so that it is easy to grab, students will be encouraged to work together and help each other.

Students are sitting in groups and collaborating as they are working on the task at hand

One thing that really stood out to me in her blog is when she talked about her role as a teacher. She said “My role as an educator will be to teach all students to the best of my ability as well as encourage high expectations of learning, to help shape both academic and social aspects within a classroom” (Jackson, 2019). Later on in the post she adds “As a teacher, I will grow by accepting my student's cultures and languages that could affect their reading or writing” (Jackson, 2019). Both of these quotes stood out to me as they really showed how Anna is devoted to her students. I definitely agree with her about accepting our student’s culture and language because it can affect how they read or write. As a teacher, we want to make sure that every student in our classroom is successful and sometimes that means we have to modify the work that they are doing. I loved how she found a statement from Tompkins that supported her thinking but then she made sure to include examples of how she might differentiate in her classroom.

Overall, I loved reading her blog and connected with a lot of the information she said. I really loved how she gave so many examples of what she would do in her classroom. It gave me some good ideas of what I can do in my classroom.  I did have a few questions about how she might set up her differentiated instruction or how to implement having students have the choice of what they want to write about? Where do they write? Do they have to check with you about their topic beforehand? How do you assess their writing/ Do you assess their writing? How do you introduce giving differentiated instruction in reading and writing?

One thing I would change was that her font for the first paragraph did not match the front for the rest of her blog. When reading it, the first paragraph felt very open and fun while the rest of the post wasn’t as open. I loved reading the first paragraph because I could almost her saying those words to me. I would recommend her to keep using ‘I’ statements while writing her blog and to strive for the open and fun voice. I know that it can be hard to write it that type of voice (I struggle with it) but it makes the text so much more exciting for the reader.

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

Jackson, A. (2019, April, 3). Entry 9 [blog post]. Retrieved from https://jacksonsp18writing.blogspot.com/2019/04/blog-9-creating-supportive-respectful.html