1. For me, it is essential that students have a safe writing environment and feel that they can write honestly and openly. I believe that when students have a safe place, they will be able to write more and be more detailed in their ideas. It is also essential that students have meaningful writing experiences and believe that the topics they are writing about not only relate to their lives but also provides connections for them for better understanding and learning. It is essential that students have multiple opportunities to write and practice their writing skills throughout the day. This not only shows students how writing and other subjects are intertwined but also how much writing is used in their lives. Lastly, in relation to Writing Essentials, it is essential for students to have an audience for who they are writing for. This is important for student growth, purpose of writing and writing development. Here students will be able to write for and address specific groups of people and be able to share the hard work that they had been working on and hopefully get positive reinforcement.
2. My students write a lot everyday but I would consider their writing to be at a surface level, seeing they are only first graders. Here, students are beginning to develop skills like how to form letters and where to place capitals and periods. During their writing, they often need lots of help with spelling. To help their spelling, we can only help them stretch out words or help them sound them out which often frustrates them even more. Similar to the chapters in Writing Essentials, we also believe that it is important for students to have words and thoughts written down, rather than focusing on correct spelling. Though this is something that will be important as the year goes on, students are still learning how to format their writing, find writing strategies that best helps them write and the basics for writing. Students have used a writing “think” chart which is divided into four parts: people, places, events and things. Here students were to draw four different things within each topic. These four things had to be important to them and be something that students would be able to write a good detailed story about. Not only does this build story thinking but students can also refer to these charts if they become stuck. In my classroom, students are provided three different writing journals: a poetry, information and daily journal. Students are asked to first draw a picture of their topic. After the timer goes off, students are asked to turn their drawings into written work. This provides them quality writing because they can first gather and organize their thoughts and then use their pictures to help them extend even further. Not only do students write during literacy or writing time, students also write a lot during math. Our math lessons require students to write complete sentences about a problem or a solution allowing students to develop more critical mathematical thinking and developing better writing skills.
3. One student in particular, D.O. seems to have difficulty writing. During writing instruction she seems to fool around and not pay much attention, but when it comes to the pre-drawing part she is quite active and attentive. When it comes to putting her pictures to words, she struggles greatly. I find that she is struggling because she still hasn’t developed a mastery for writing and forming letters. Not knowing how to write many letters of the alphabet with confidence, denies her the opportunity to write as she often gets caught up in formation and correct spelling. On top of this, she often has letter-sound recognition issues, which also stops her from thinking and writing fluently and smoothly. Next time working with this student or trying to help her, would be to use the strategies and visuals located around the classroom. For example there are several alphabet and sound charts located around the room, along with an alphabet located on her name tag on her desk. If she doesn’t know which letter she is trying to use, I would ask her to sound out the word and try to spell it the best she can. In agreement to the Writing Essentials chapter, I believe it is really important to encourage writing and provide positive behavior to anything good that a student can do. By praising something D.O. did good or tried, can encourage her to continue trying as she realizes that she is doing it correctly and that the teacher will acknowledge this type of work and behavior towards writing.
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