Entry 6: A Letter to Dr. Jones

 Dear Dr. Jones,

    This letter is to provide you with feedback regarding the first half of the semester in LTED 618. Overall, I believe that the class is going fantastic and I am learning a lot about the connection between reading and writing so far. I think this class is what I expected, and I am not very surprised at how I've been asked to engage in learning or by what I am learning. I am pleasantly surprised by the blogs though and it has been one of my favorite ways to express what I have learned in any college class. There are a few instructional strategies or learning activities that I plan on using in the future after learning about them in this class. The first activity is the Card Strategy for brainstorming topics and organization during the writing process. I enjoyed that activity and I could imagine my students enjoying it as well. Second, I plan on using the listing attributes strategy that Tompkins mentions and the Double Journal Entry Strategy. Third, I would like to use either personal journal writing or blogging in my classroom in the future. I also really enjoyed learning more about think alouds, interactive writing and interactive read alouds, process assessment and five-senses clusters. I plan on using all of these activities or strategies during my future teaching and I have really enjoyed learning how to create an effective writing workshop which I am passionate about. 

    I think that the blogs, freewriting, brainstorming activities, and the genre pieces project have positively influenced me as a reader and a writer. I believe that the writing activities in this class have influenced my writing knowledge and fluency. I also believe that the reading activities in this class have increased my knowledge of the connections between reading and writing and have increased my reading fluency. Also, learning new mentor texts in each genre have increased my knowledge and depth of reading possibilities for students. I am not sure if I have any struggles pertaining to this class but I suppose that I have to read the directions for assignments multiple times. I often get the assignments mixed up because the names are very similar. I think I will feel better about the genre presentation after I meet with you this Tuesday. I would like a little more clarification on the genre pieces project though. Other than that, I am loving the class because I have always loved writing and the writing process. 

                                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                                Kerrigan Walters  

Entry 5: The Card Strategy

 

    Following the card strategy lesson from class, that modeled the card strategy from Kucer and Rhodes (1986), it made me reflect on my previous brainstorming. In class we were provided with 20 index cards and we wrote one word on each card relating to our topic of interest. We then picked 7-11 that fit together well for our first piece. We ordered them based on how we might organized our piece and then numbered them 1-7. We then got with a partner and traded sets of index cards, which we ordered how we might order it if it was our topic without looking at the numbers. Then we explained our thinking of why we were arranging them how we were. After this was done the original person explained why they numbered them how they did. My previous brainstorming has been a little bit similar but mainly different from this strategy that we learned about. My previous brainstorming had been creating a word bubble cluster, freewriting about the topic and talking with peers about how to go about writing this piece. I would also make an outline of the project and write ideas under each section of the outline. 

    Based on the cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies in Chapter 2 of Tompkins I used a couple of them while using the card strategy. I used narrowing, organizing, goal setting, elaborating, and generating. I used narrowing when I selected the 7-11 cards, organizing when I grouped my ideas and sequenced them into order, and goal setting when I thought about my pieces end goal and who my audience was. I used elaborating when I came up with my words and explained them to my partner and during freewriting after and I used generating when I came up with my words for each card, my overall idea and then my idea for the 7-11 cards and when I talked to my partner. I plan on using the card strategy for when I do the next two pieces of this project and when writing other assignments in the future. I think it helped to talk with a partner and have a partner organize my thoughts and explain why they would order the topics in a certain way. It was helpful to see the big picture of all of the cards and then narrow them down for the one piece of the project. 

  Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986).  Counterpart strategies:  Fine tuning language with

    language.  The Reading Teacher, 40(2),186-193.

Entry 4: Writing and Reading

 

    This week I am going to talk to you about how reading and writing are similar in many ways. Before I read Tierney and Pearson (1983) I didn't really view reading and writing as similar processes. Tierney and Person (1983) start their article by saying that "reading and writing are essentially similar processes of meaning construction. Both are acts of composing" (p. 568). It is now clear to me that while reading and while writing you are focused on the meaning of the information and on creating meaning. I now am able to see that people use very similar processes to read and to write. One factor that is extremely important is background knowledge while reading or writing. The reading or writing process will look different based on the level of background knowledge a person has on the subject being read or written about. Readers and writers both plan before reading or writing, readers might get mentally ready to read, get a highlighter or paper to take notes on and a writer gathers ideas, gets out materials or does research. Both are also setting goals and objectives for themselves during planning. 

    Readers and writers also both draft in which a reader might start thinking about the ideas in the text after the first read and the writer might get all of their ideas onto the page. I also liked learned about alignment in which the reader or writer take a stance, this is something I did not think about. Next, while revising, the reader and writer reflect about the information, critique, and analyze the material before them. Finally, I also liked how the authors mentioned monitoring in the article because it helped me understand this concept. Monitoring is evaluating what the reader read and the writer wrote. I liked this article because it helped me see how parallel reading and writing actually are. I never made this connection before reading this for class and I am glad that I have.  

Tierney, R. & Pearson, P. D. (1983).  Toward a composing model of reading.  Language Arts,

60(5), 568-580.

Entry 3: Thinking About Previous Students and Future Students

 

    There are multiple lessons that I wish I would have used to enhance the instruction of my former students. For my fourth graders this year I would have enhanced our conversations about ideas and about voice. I would have used minilessons, mentor texts, guided practice and independent practice on ideas and voice. I have done read alouds but not as many interactive read alouds as I wish. I also will do more with folktales with my future students after reading about comparing familiar folktales and the many versions of them. I would chose like the Gingerbread man and read the other versions like the Gingerbread Boy or Girl, etc. I also might teach lessons about picking an idea that is interesting to you, about someone you know, about one of your pets and model this for the students. I would also like to in the future complete minilessons on voice through informal journal entries, modeling award winning texts, videos on storyline online of authors reading their books, and providing students lots of opportunities to write. I would also do minilessons on perspectives and how perspective can impact the authors voice. 

    In Richards and Hawes (2011), the authors mention including questions like "how does the author develop the topic and expand on one" and "where do you think the author got the idea for the text-imagination or memory" in minilessons. These kind of questions are ones that I hope to include in my interactive read alouds, minilessons and when talking with students about idea development. Through reading this article and in Tompkins, I have gained a greater appreciation for mentor texts and the skills students can learn through them. I think "easy readers" can be useful for talking about the many elements of author's craft and it is more effective through these texts. I plan on using mentor texts for many parts of my literacy instruction. I plan on using mentor texts for teaching the six traits of the writer's craft, the writing process, writing strategies and for content knowledge. I also plan on using mentor texts to increase students excitement and motivation to read, as well as fluency and oral comprehension. I think mentor texts can also be used to teach content like history, science, math, lessons on main idea, sequence, etc. and social and emotional awareness. Teaching students about their emotions, how to engage with other classmates socially, about historical events and about science content are all ways I plan on using mentor texts. 

 

Richards, D. & Hawes, S. (2006).  Connecting reading and writing through author’s craft. The

    Reading Teacher, 60(4), 370-373.      

Entry #2: Writing practices of a K-12 learner and teacher of writing

     In my own K-12 learning process there were a few elements of a successful writing program. It was evident in my own learning that the culture of the classroom valued learning and writing. It was also evident that there were elements of explicit instruction of writing skills and strategies. We had a set time where writing instruction took place and we would learn skills or strategies specific to writing. We had this time but we didn't have a ton of individual writing time, it was more instruction than individual writing time. I appreciated the specific instruction time because I struggled as a writer in the early primary years and this time did help me. I do wish that I had more time to use these skills in my own private writing time though. I also really appreciated that learning was valued and writing was valued even though we didn't always get as much time to write as I would have hoped. As I continued throughout my writing journey in K-12 I had more of an appreciation of writing because it was valued when I started writing. 

    As a teacher of writing, I have had experience with a couple of the elements and there are also elements that I am working on implementing currently. I have had experience with creating a classroom culture that values writing, explicit instruction of writing skills and strategies and having clear goals. I have always made sure that students understand the goal of their writing and the audience of their writing. This goal can be to persuade the school to let us have a class pet, to write to a child during colonial times, or to create a fantasy story using descriptive language. In my classroom I have tried my hardest to create a community that values writing by having a specific time each day for writers workshop, by going through the process of meeting with your writing partner to share your stories and by having an author's chair to read your story to the class. Some of the strategies or skills that I have taught students have been paragraph and essay structure, indentation of paragraphs, painting a picture with words, sentence and paragraph meaning, and components like punctuation, spelling and images to go with a story.

    One element that I wish I had used more with students in the past is feedback. I am currently working on this right now with my students during our writers workshop and it is something I see as very vital to the writing process. I think it is important for students to receive peer and teacher feedback throughout the writing process. Clear and specific feedback is how students improve as writers and understand their writing and others writing more. I am using writing rubrics to help give students feedback as well as giving them verbal feedback during peer meetings, one on one meetings with me and small group meetings about their work. I have been working with the students on giving 2 compliments and one area of growth during their meetings. Out of all of the elements this one is the hardest for me but I think it is worth my time and effort.