The readings this week made me think a lot about the importance of writing in the classroom and the amount of time that has to be dedicated to it. I think that we all realize that as teachers we are going to have units that deal with writing a 5 paragraph essay, developing arguments, etc. However, most of these articles and chapters have discussed the need to have constant and dedicated time for students to write each week. In the Atwell chapter, he suggested dedicating 3 days per week on the sole act of writing. The entire classroom was set up in a way to accommodate this writing process and he found time to meet with the students on a daily basis. When reading this, I thought that it sounded wonderful. I would love to have the time and space for that in my classroom. But how realistic is that?
I do think that more emphasis needs to be given to the writing process in the classroom. Students need to be able to explore their own personal interests and genres, as they are given more freedom and time to write what they want to write. For this reason, I think that I am going to steal an idea that was discussed in the Dornan book about dedicating the beginning of class to writing in a journal. I think that this is a great way to give structure and flexibility to the classroom. The journal can adapt to the needs of the day or lesson. Sometimes students can write about whatever they want, sometimes I can give them a prompt, sometimes they can even use the journal to do grammar work or respond to a mini lesson that I give in the beginning of class. My cooperating teacher plays with this idea a bit as she frequently gives the students little writing prompts to respond to. She has the students write their grammar notes and responses all in one daily journal that they turn in several times a semester.
When doing this journal, I also think that it is important to respond to the students. I would often have them fold down pages that they especially want me to read. I would also give them the option to mark pages that I should not read. I think that it is important to have this be an accessible form of communication. Sometimes, I might even have them write a letter to me that I will respond to. It may be a lot of work, but I think that it should be done a few times throughout a semester.
One other thing that I think was important from our readings is the idea of response. Obviously it would be fantastic to be able to individually talk with the students on a daily basis about their works. However, that may be a bit idealistic. While the Atwell chapter stated that students fail to even read the comments that are written on papers, I still do not know if I am going to abandon this process. Sometimes this is just the most efficient way to communicate with students. However, I do think that when the students are working on larger writing projects, it is important to dedicate class time to individual workshops. These readings for this week gave many pointers for this process as they talked about the need to look at the students, not the paper, ask the students questions so that they can discover their own issues and things to work for, and also to give the students many options when they are stuck about how to move forward, so that the writing is still their own. These one on one meetings are very important to give a feeling of ownership and reflection to the students so that they can truly revise their work effectively.
Resource for the Week
For the resource for the week, I chose to find a site that looked at the writing process, especially prewriting activities and peer workshops. I think that these are two of the hardest things to make work in a classroom. Often getting started is the greatest struggle. I found a great resource from the writer center website at the University of Minnesota. Attached is a site with more prewriting activities created by Todd Arnold. I found many of them to be innovative with rich possibilities!
10 Tips for Effective Freewriting
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