Entry 4: Increasing Students Exposure to Writing on a Tight Time Schedule

Every school across our nation, even nations worldwide face the same troubling commonality: TIME. When acquiring an important life skill, like having the ability to read and write, I do not think it is fair that time compromises the learning process. Reading and writing provides individuals assess to supporting themselves, their families, the chance to acquire power, and perform societal expectations. Often teachers have discovered there is not enough time to properly address all of the required standards in addition to adapting instruction, creating lesson plans and fulfilling the multiple other roles an educator performs. This is not to say that teachers are unable to do these things, in fact, many educators go above and beyond. There has often just been a recognition that time feels to be on the opposing side of school environments. I personally have felt the concern of how do I address everything during the hours provided in the school day? This leads me to think of how certain subjects are often not fully taught (Science and Social Studies) or require an adequate amount of prepping and scaffolded learning, building on the notion of time, to effectively teach, such as writing. 

Calkins and Ehrenworth (2016) describe how "all writers... engage in the process of writing... [to] collect and organize; they draft, they revise, they edit" (p. 7). This process does not occur overnight. In fact, even when these various writing skills are acquired, it can often take more time and practice to feel confident in ones writing voice. As I mentioned previously in another journal, my own confidence with feeling like I understood the writing process took a long time for me to acquire. It is also important to recognize what knowledge is needed for various writing tasks. Last class, I internally took away the importance in knowing how journal writing (or any writing genre) can be confusing if we do not teach students the type of writers voice they are using, the audience (who usually reads a journal/etc.) and what topics can be addressed. These are all factors that I never personally think about, because I have it automatically known internally to just apply the journal writing skill, or any other skill. In fact this reminds me of how last semester and during the week at Midlakes (for the Clinical Assistantship program), I am always being reminded of how hard it is to teach learning to read, because I already have the skills and they are so automatic that I do not have to think of how I execute them or retrieve information. I acknowledge that I have been learning a lot in regards to how we learn, the best teaching styles and that it will be time for me in the future "to make the leap from theory to accomplished practice" (Calkins and Ehrenworth, 2016, p. 15). It will require practice, and not only telling students but providing examples of work that they can apply their learnings and understandings with in the process. 

How I feel that we can provide students both insight and guidance into writing is not just to give them the time to write, but also allow them to create and work towards their own "crystal-clear goals and receive feedback on their progress" (Calkins and Ehrenworth, 2016, p. 8). Just like our college level course work where we are moving ahead in our learning with self-set goals and guidance from documents to refer too, students need the same type of support. Often for students "what looks like trouble with writing is really trouble with a student's command of the subject" (Calkins and Ehrenworth, 2016, p. 9). This is where I feel mentor texts can come in, just with our class experience last week with how we got to see and read, feel, first hand what it was like to immerse ourselves in the style and purpose(s) for journal writing. Being able to understand the authors thinking will help students identify how they can command their own subjects in the future as they keep writing. 

With time playing such a huge factor in how we can instruct students, it will be important to create more focused lessons that do not just teach the definition but show students how to identify genres and how to identify and apply the skills. All the while modeling and supporting students with feedback during the writing journey. 

References

Calkins, L. & Ehrenworth, M. (2016). Growing extraordinary writers:                Leadership decisions to raise the level of writing across a school and a district.    The Reading Teacher, 70(1), 7-18.