Dear Dr. Jones,
I am grateful that I am learning how to approach teaching writing, because by taking this course I realized that I really never had a solid grasp of how to do so before. Becoming a new teacher, I am constantly trying to find the answers to how to teach to meet my students needs. I am both storing away those answers and having the chance to physically engage in understanding how to teach them at the same time.
It is amazing that concepts such as drafting, revising, etc., or genres like narrative writing, journals, etc., have so many intricate layers. My initial understanding of the course has changed, because I have seen how activities such as the Card Strategy Lesson (Kucer & Rhodes, 1986), gathering mentor texts and creating class status charts are writing/reading activities that can be adapted for our future classrooms. This class requires more active participation and at the same time, asks for us to engage as adults and complete much work independently. This in my eyes is to provide room for us to explore with our own hands-on learning of the writing process and how to write in different genres, with the flexibility to reflect on our topic when ideas come to us, versus being rushed to provide work of our efforts on set time frames per say (as I am talking about the Genre Pieces Project).
As a literacy teacher, it is important to have a multitude of reliable resources at my fingertips. I have really liked the Tompkins (2012) text, for the step by step detailed descriptions of different processes, ideas for engagement activities and mentor text graphs (which are my favorite part!). I feel that I often get overwhelmed thinking of both how to teach, as so many options exist, that it can be even more hard to also pick out WHAT to teach too.
What I discovered has really stuck with me was learning about "dollar words" which are "more descriptive [precise] words" (Tompkins, 2012, p. 72). I want students to consonantly be aware of the words they are choosing to use, and how multiple meanings/versions of a word exists. Part of the writing process that is never fully recognized for its power is the practice of rereading. Rereading in my eyes mainly needs to be taught to students in the manner for them to "appreciate the voice they've crafted... [learning] writers run out of ideas... [thus] it helps to generate more ideas and details" (Tompkins, 2012, p. 43). When I teach students how to write, I have to show them the importance, point out what makes an average story or average writer versus an extradentary story or extradentary writer. I have to ingrain (allowing students to feel) my belief that all of my students are scholars within our writing workshop. We will recognize the importance of how reading and writing going hand in hand during multiple parts of our day, not just one set time!
As a reader and writer I use to see both practices as separate terms, not two terms that should be combined together. To me the end goal was the product, when I was writing English papers, or when creating my only writing lesson during student teaching. The reason that was the case from my understanding is because I thought of writing in a narrow scope. Now I am coming to see how texts can drive instruction, how our students identities can be reflected in their genre pieces and texts (as Gholdy Muhammad pushes educators to recognize the importance and the needed benefit of growing self-advocacy), and how children can operate together and become builders of their knowledge base. Experimentation is important, especially with writing. Yet, what I was missing before, was teacher strategies that fostered how kids can experiment and learn with guidance.
Reflecting on how I am doing in this class, I feel pretty good. I do recognize that I often go over on the Blogs (for the word limit), which I'm sorry about! I have a hard time narrowing down my own thoughts and text connections. I have currently been focusing on the Genre Expert Project as I am in Group 2, and have not been diving too deep into my pieces project, but intend to do more soon. This project is mainly on our own, and I was wondering if I could send you my draft pieces or one piece of writing to make sure I am meeting assignment expectations along the way, as no length requirements are present/any voice, purpose and audience can be chosen? In regards to the Genre Pieces Project, I am still a little confused about the mentor text bibliography. Are we finding mentor texts for every genre, or only the 3 writing piece types we are writing about?
Thank you! I look forward to gaining more insight about how to teach each writing genre and learning about more great mentor texts to use.
Sincerely,
Kayli Krossber
References
Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986). Counterpart strategies: Fine tuning language with language. The Reading Teacher, 40(2), 186-193.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating Genius: An equity framework for culturally and historically responsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Kayli, it has been a pleasure to hear your weekly reflections in this blog. I am not so concerned with you going over the word count in some of your entries. I just want to reiterate though that you don't have to discuss *every* concept you found interesting. I powerful entry can also select a key concept that perhaps was discussed in Tompkins.
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