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