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I'll start with what really stood out to me during this topic. The Writer's Workshop really pulled my attention as a teacher, as I find that many students suffer from a weak foundation in both reading and writing.
I'm sure every teacher can relate. As I'm sure you guys remember, the writer's workshop has three main parts.
1) Focus Lesson: from what I recall, the teacher demonstrates and gives students different aspects of writing. The students learn about providing constructive criticism for their peers while being respectful and kind. This section is sort of a precursor and is important in getting students in the correct mindset for writing.
2) Writing Time: I'm sure you guys would agree but this is the most important section of the workshop. Students are actively engaged in different parts of the writing process. Here is a link that I found helpful when it comes to explaining the different steps in the writing process (https://www.teachwriting.org/blog/2019/8/24/tackle-the-writing-process-one-step-at-a-time)
This is when we can roam the classroom and learn a lot about our student's current writing levels and how they can become better.
3) Sharing: I will be honest this section of the writer's workshop was very informative for me. I never really saw the value in students sharing their finished writing pieces and I hope to utilize this when I return to the classroom.
I would really like to get feedback on what you guys thought about the writer's workshop.
The group presentations that we did this week were both educational and fun. It's always refreshing how teachers can act like their students. The presentations based on different aspects of the writing process were innovative and just between us I intend to borrow some of these ideas for my classroom. It is important for us as teachers to allow our children to write and give feedback. As a child, I enjoyed writing my own stories based on my life and the people around me. We should let our students know that writing is something that is both important for life and also beautiful. Just between us, I am currently working on a book inspired by my favorite author Eric Jerome Dickey. Let us grow together so that we can further assist our students to become better writers. What other strategies would you recommend to help our students with their writing?
One big takeaway for me as both a teacher and a student were the use of graphic organizers. Graphic organizers provide many benefits like:
1) Help to visualize and construct ideas
2) Organize and/or sequence information
3) Plan what to write
4) Brainstorm
5) Help when gathering points for compare and contrast/ Cause and effect
Ms. Quinn mentioned a lot of different graphic organizers during class and the example for comparing Covid-19 to influenza was excellent. Here are some graphic organizers that I found interesting and intend to use for my class when I return to the classroom. Let me know what you guys think.
Classes went really well this week but I would have really liked if we had done a quick step by step demonstration as a class. What are your thoughts on class?
That first statement did indeed strike a nerve as I can never wrap my mind around why students struggle with reading and writing. That is indeed the foundation for any and every other subject they do in school. It now has me thinking if a student does poorly in reading and writing in the lower grades if they should be promoted or not. No matter how you look at it, the student WILL struggle in the other subject areas if they are not capable. I agree with what you said in the students sharing their work. I usually allow maybe 1-2 students to read their piece to the class. However, seeing the various ways to display the pieces, I am also ready to implement them within the classroom. Agreeing with what you said, I am also planning on using some of our classmates' ideas when I return to the classroom.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I am enjoying learning about the different components of the Writers Workshop and the other elements we’re going to cover. I do recall a few other group demonstrations pending so that is definitely something to look forward to.
A few strategies I would utilize when dealing with students writing are
-Picture or sentence prompts
-Discuss/Share Ideas
-Whole Class free-writing
I was also thinking of using musical chairs as a writing warm up. The twist would be writing about a specific topic on a blank piece of paper until the music stops. They would then leave their piece on the chair and move to the next one, continuing the writing from where the previous student left off. The only downside I can think of is students not being able to read their classmates' handwriting. I like your take on the graphic organizers. I find that the more creative we are, the more our students will want to write.
Cheers!
As a teacher myself, I strongly agree with Demante when he says, ‘that many students suffer from a weak foundation in both reading and writing.’ For I have seen it myself, and hence it is why I think that the Writers’ Workshop along with other scaffolding methods taught by our lecturer within this course of Lit102 and presented by our colleagues are great techniques in improving these weak areas where the students may be struggling with. Trust me I too will be using some of these mini-lessons/ presentations in my future classes as well, for they were really good.
ReplyDeleteI couldn’t help by commenting that my favourite author was also Eric Jerome Dickey (RIP), he was indeed an awesome writer, for he makes writing very visually in the way how he uses his words and expresses himself in each character of every book he has wrote, and its something I too as a class teacher would like seeing coming from our students. All in all, classes did go very well this week, they were many examples, both visually and orally that solidified everything for me, only thing was that everyone was not able to do their mini-lesson last class because of time restraints but those that did present were good.