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 1: "Teach the writer, then the writing"

Writer’s workshop is a great way to teach students new skills while still giving them the chance to free write. Tompkins (2019) introduces us to the five stages that are writer’s workshop. She states that the 5 stages are: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing (Tompkins, 2019).  Each one of the stages is important as it helps to guide the students through the writing process. However I do think that when it comes to teaching students new ideas, that it should be done in either the prewriting, revising or editing stage.

 

In the prewriting stage, students are brainstorming ideas of what they want to write about. This is where they think of what their topic is and what audience they are writing to. The prewriting stage is the stage that they start setting up what their writing is going to look like. This would be the perfect time to teach a mini lesson that might affect their writing. As a teacher, this would be the time that I would do a mini lesson on the different types of writing or how the writing should look like. For example, the prewriting stage would be the best time to teach a lesson on what a persuasive writing look like. It would allow the students to learn the skills they would need to write that type of piece before they actually started to write.

While in the revising and editing stage, students are able to go back and look at what they wrote and what they might want to change. The revision stage is for making any changes to the writing such as adding or deleting details, while editing is correcting any mistakes that were found. Both stages can be the perfect time for teaching students new skills that have to do with what they already wrote.  The students already have a product written and can use it while you are teaching them the new ideas and skills. For example, the revising stage would be the perfect place to do a mini lesson on how to organize your ideas to make them flow. The students can listen to the mini lesson and then look at their work to make sure that their ideas flow.

I knew that talking the time to prewrite and draft your papers were important, but I never realized how important they are. Tompkins (2019) mentions that “Writers participate in these activities during prewriting: Choosing a topic; Considering a purpose, audience, and form; Generating and organizing ideas for writing” (p.5). I never realized how important it is to think about what the purpose is of the writing that you are doing and the audience that you are writing for. The way you write differs depending on who you are writing for. Drafting is a great way to have students start the writing process. I feel like a lot of students get nervous to write because they think that their first copy has to be perfect. I love the idea that Tompkins (2019) mentioned about having the students skip lines while they are writing in this stage. It gives the students room so that that they can go back and make revisions within their writing. She also added “Similarly, they write on only one side of a sheet of paper so that the paper can be cut apart or rearranged during the next stage” (Tompkins, 2019, p.8). I really like that idea as it helps to show students how ideas can be moved around in the paper. By incorporating these ideas, my students would be able to enhance their ability to plan what they are writing. They would be able to write in a way that they are able to make changes and revisions.

My biggest challenge with running a writers/readers workshop is that every student is in a different stage with their work. I would always have a hard time remembering which student was in which stage and how I could help them. One of the recommendations Tompkins (2019) gives is to have a chart with all the stages so that the students can either clip their name on what stage they are in or put their popsicle stick in what stage they are in. This would allow me as a teacher to quickly see what stage everybody is in and give me a better idea of how I can help them individually.

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

Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Preston, C. Writer’s workshop clip chart. Organized classroom, less stress more effectiveness for teachers. https://organizedclassroom.com/writers-workshop-clip-chart/

(2011). Prewriting strategies. KU writing center. Create. Compose. Communicate. http://writing.ku.edu/prewriting-strategies