Blog 6: Dear Dr. Jones

Dear Dr. Jones,

I can’t believe that we are already half way through the semester. It feels like the weeks are flying by. I’m even surprised at how fast the actual class goes by each week.

I was a little nervous for this class at the beginning of the semester. I’ve never been really good at writing and always get nervous when I see that a class has a bunch of writing assignments. Having writers workshop incorporated in class each week has helped me to be less nervous. It gives me time to work on all the different writing assignments and to think about all the ideas that we discussed in class. I expected that the class would be about writing in the different genres but I didn’t think that I would be writing little pieces in each of those genres. I love the fact that I am able to learn how to write in all these different genres because I never really knew how.  I tend to write the same way for every piece of writing. I now know that you need to shift how you are writing based on what the purpose of your writing is and who the given audience is.

In elementary school, I was taught that writing was always just responding to a given prompt. My teachers always told me that writing had to be written in a formal manner. While reading The Framework for success, I was able to see that there are multiple habits of mind that affect the way students approach. The article identifies eight features “Curiosity, Openness, Engagement, Creativity, Persistence, Responsibility, Flexibility, Metacognition” (Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of  Teachers of English, & National Writing Project, 2011, p. 1). By writing theses blog entries every week, I have had to work on my openness and engagement mindset. Writing a blog entry is different than writing a formal paper because you are writing to a different audience in a different style. With writing theses entries, I have to make sure that I’m writing my ideas in a way that is engaging for the readers and open enough for the readers to see what my thoughts are.  I have developed a stronger rhetorical knowledge and now understand that who you are writing to and why you are writing, should drive determine how you write.

One thing that I absolutely love, is the idea of journaling and free writing. While reading Tompkins, I was able to see that there are so many benefits to having students write in journals. Journals can be used as a way for students to record their thinking as they are learning a new subject or they can be used as a safe space for students to write what they are feeling. I definitely want to make sure that I give my students the chance to journal and free write during the day so they can write creatively.  I can definitely see how my writing is benefitting from having writers workshop as the second half of class every week so I plan on using writing workshop within my own classroom.  One instructional strategy that I would want to use is having a chart of the all the writing stages with clips that the students can move to show what strategy they are on. I think it is important to give the students the time that they need for each stage but also remind them that they go through each one as well. Another activity that I think is very beneficial is giving the students the time to share their writing with their peers. Tomkins says “After the reading, classmates clap and offer compliments. They may also make other comments and suggestions, but the focus is on celebrating completed writing projects, not on revising the compositions to make them better” (Tompkins, 2019, p. 27). It’s important to give the students a space where they can celebrate all the hard work that they put into their writing.

Ways to be motivated to write

One struggle that I am having with our genre writing project, is thinking of what I want to write. I’m struggling to determine who I want the audiences to be for my three pieces and what genre I want to them write in. When it comes to writing, I struggle with finding the motivation to write. Ever since I was younger, I never liked writing and I struggle with figuring out the perfect word order. I need to keep reminding myself that it is okay if my writing is not perfect in the prewriting stage, since that is the stage I’m just starting to get my ideas down

 

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/

Hompkins, G. (2017). Journal writing every day: Teacher says it really works! [Web page]. https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr144.shtml

Sun, T. (2017). 30 little ways to motivate yourself to write, right now. The writing cooperative [blog page] https://writingcooperative.com/30-little-ways-to-motivate-yourself-to-write-right-now-9982e80c408d

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

Blog 3: Journal Writing

I can still remember the first journal I had when I was little. It was pink with a cut out heart on the front cover and a small key lock to keep it closed. Even the pages on the inside were tinted pink and had small hearts on the boarder. Even though I did not write a lot, it was a space that I could doodle or make my to-do lists. I loved having a space that I could jot down anything that was in my mind. I feel like every child should have a place that they could write down their thoughts or feelings.

A journal can be used in multiple ways both in and out of the classroom. Tompkins (2008) talks about what are some of the purposes of journal writing within the classroom. She says “Children use journals to record personal experiences, explore reactions and interpretations to books they read and videos they view, and record and analyze information about literature, writing, and social studies and science topics” (Tompkins, 2008, p. 98). She goes on to add that there are multiple different forms: personal journal, dialogue journals, reading journals, learning journals, double entry journals, and simulated journals.

I always loved the idea of having learning journals or creating double entry journals while you are learning. It’s nice for students to have one place where they can jot down what they are learning and what questions they might still have. During my undergrad, I had to do double entry journals with readings that we would do for a class. On one side of the journal we wrote down quotes from the reading that stood out to us as we read and on the other side we would write down why we picked it or what questions we had about it. I loved doing them because it was a fun way for me to interact with the text that I was reading.  

One idea that Tompkins gave that I really like, is the idea of having a different space for each type of journal in the classroom. A personal journal is a space where students might write personal things that they don’t want the rest of the class to know about so those should be placed in a spot where no one can get to and is tempted to read anybody else’s journals. Learning journals are where students are recording what they are learning so those should be stored in a place where it is easy for students to get to. You want to make it so that the students can grab them when they have free time and jot down what they are learning. By having each journal type be a different type of journal or a different color it is easy to know what type of writing the students are doing and where the journal should be placed afterwards.

While I was student teaching, I had a student in my class that would use a dialogue journal to share information with his family about his day. We (all of his teachers) would write little notes about what he learning and how he did during the day in the journal. He would then take it home to his family so that they could read it and respond with any questions or concerns they might have. It was a great way to have an ongoing conversation between his family and school. Tompkins (2008) says that a teacher could easily do that with a student as well. Teachers can write comments in student’s journals while they are reading them to help guide their writing. Students then can write back to their teacher about what they had originally wrote.

When I have my own classroom, I will definitely make sure that my students have sometime each week to have some writing that they can do. Each student will have a journal that they will use when we do free writing. I think that it is important that when I give my students free writing time in their journal, that I am also free writing in my journal. I will then give students time to share out loud anything that they wrote about. I think that it is important to have a have a safe classroom where students will feel comfortable to share what they have been writing about. I will help create this by sharing some ideas that I wrote about.

Example of double-entry journals from level 40. [image] http://homepage.usask.ca/~dul381/common/dejlevel40.html

Gonzalez, J. (2016). How dialogue journals build teacher-student relationships. Cult of pedagogy [blog post] https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/dialogue-journals/

Hompkins, G. (2017). Journal writing every day: Teacher says it really works! [Web page]. https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr144.shtml

Tompkins, G. E.  (2008).  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (5^th ed.).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.