Week 3

1. For me, it is essential that students have various daily opportunities to be involved in writing, that writing is meaningful to students, and that they … I believe that it is important for students to see the value of their work and that they write for a meaningful audience that will be reached by the writing. I feel that teachers of writing should give students guidance but also opportunities with freedom to choose how and what they write. I also believe that teachers should integrate writing across the curriculum so that students have the opportunities to write for different purposes.

2. I have really liked all of the writing I see in my classroom. To begin, each student was asked to bring in a 1-inch binder for their writing binder. We keep all of these on a shelf in the back of the room, but they are used daily. We have developed a couple different lists that the students keep in their writing binders, the first of which was a heart. They wrote inside a heart all the things they could think of that are in their hearts, things that mean a lot to them. So, sometimes we will ask them to pull out their binders and write something from their heart. Since they have this list, they don’t need to spend a lot of time picking topic. They also just made a list of favorite places that they can write about. We are focusing on topics that they know a lot about so that it is something they can write about; with a beginning, middle, and end. I feel like students are engaging more deeply with this writing than just a writing prompt. My mentor also uses a lot of explicit demonstrations and explanations, which Chapter 8 of Writing Essentials mentions as part of a set up for a successful writing environment (pg 176). She models her own writing on the Elmo using strategies mentioned on pages 169-172, especially writing aloud. The book also says to “teach sensible planning strategies” (pg 179). Our students have been practicing writing with a beginning, middle, and end, so before they write they draw on the top of their paper a BME chart in which they draw pictures of their beginning, middle, and end.
I have also noticed that since my second graders are still developing their writing, many are very concerned with spelling every word correctly – they want to ask how to spell every word. My mentor has reassured them by reading the book “Ish” that their writing doesn’t need to be perfect, just “perfectish.” This means that they need to be trying their best and that they should at least know what their writing says, so they could read it to someone else. Chapter 7 in Writing Essentials says to “limit dictionary and thesaurus use” because overconcern slows writers down. Also, the end of chapter 8 says to “do more publishing” (pg 204), and this is something I was really excited to see in my class. We are in the process of making our own “Important Book” after reading “The Important Book.” They followed the structure of the book and we typed what they wrote and they also made an illustration which will all be bound in a class book!
The majority of writing is done during the writing time (about one hour) during the day. However, writing is done throughout the whole day. In the morning, many times their morning work is some sort of quick-write. Also, I was very happy to see that my mentor stresses the importance of writing in math. (My CT last year didn’t have her students do any writing in math). I think it is really important for students to be able to explain the “why” and “how” in the math that they do, even if it’s all spelled phonetically and it takes them a while. Also, in social studies, this year is all about the local community. So, we have incorporated writing with that as well. Another idea that I really like is the conversations journals that the students each have that they write back and forth with my mentor.
Finally, they also have poetry journals that they write in. We have an “extra writing” time at the end of the day. On one page there is an example of a poem style or theme, and then the next page has lines for students to practice writing similar to that poem. They don’t follow the poem’s structure, but it is a really great way to introduce them to poetry!

3. One particular focus student that I think of with writing is P. He is the type of student that is really smart, but we have a hard time motivating him. He likes to write one sentence and then say he’s done. I thought that writing about things that he really liked would motivate him more. We don’t want to give a minimum number of sentences that they need to have, but that’s one of the only things that has gotten him to write more. Chapter 8 mentions writing for an audience and I think I’d like to try this next with him. Maybe if he knew someone important to him would be hearing or reading it, it would mean more to him. Even in other subjects during the day it seems that he doesn’t put much effort into his work just so he can get it done and turn it in. I would say maybe he is bored, but to be bored I feel like he would at least have to be getting through what’s assigned. He does like to talk a lot, so we could also try discussing ideas with peers as a type of prewriting more often (Writing Essentials, 179).