Logan Pearsall Smith once said, “Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each other’s fur.” All be it an overwhelmingly disgusting image, Smith’s words are true when it comes the art and science of putting pencil to paper. In the classroom, students should be able to be vulnerable, honest, accountable and “real” in their writing so that they may grow to become better writers. It is the responsibility of the teacher to insure a quality learning environment that is conducive to these three factors. Observing the writing process and identifying the experiences within, be them personal, direct or indirect, contribute to how the educator teaches students using best practices.
Using Writer’s Workshop, as articulated by Ralph Fletcher and JoAnn Portalupi, focuses on the space of the writers in the classroom. One of the key focuses is developing a quality learning lab environment. “You will need a gathering space large enough for your entire class to meet. You will gather here for minilessons and whole class response sessions. (Fletcher & Poralupi, 2001, p. 16) The writing area must be conducive to free interaction with peers and the teacher. Students should have the freedom to explore their space and “nest” into it, so that they may engage in their writing. The learning environment should be encouraging to the writers so that they may have their own space and have a sense of ownership throughout the entire writing process. Earlier practices that do not reflect best practices may have only included the needs of the teacher in the set up of the classroom. Desks were seldom put into clusters to insure peer conferencing and the teacher’s actions would commonly be to manag...
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...e of environment should include routines and expectations, a sense of community and accountability of the teacher to model writing. These practices challenge those of the past by establishing students as writers and encouraging them to develop their writing skills by practicing writing frequently. Students should be allowed to be in an environment that fosters their continued growth as a writer, and encourages them to engage with their peers and instructor, to pull up side by side, and sort through their areas for improvement, change them, and proudly move forward to find new “fleas” to remove, and groom the fur that develops into a fluid bountiful coat that is the product of independent work mixed with the tenacity of all of the people around them.
Works Cited
Fletcher, R., & Poralupi, J. (2001). Writing workshop: The essential guide . Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
How can you nurture and support the confidence of all students and help them forge unique writing identities? Through writing, people can understand themselves and other people better. We are all constantly reviewing and assigning meaning to our life experiences and putting those experiences into words—whether through self-talk or telling stories to other people. This ‘language’ is a way ‘we’ understand, organize, and relate to, making the chaos of our communities and lives coherent. In a writing environment that is loose and for the most part free we can slow down this articulation process in order to become increasingly and critically conscious of the meanings we assign to our experiences and communities in which we belong. It makes people think more about what they want to say and how they are saying it.
Thinking about a topic to write about is not always easy, and sometimes the process of writing can end up being difficult. Jennifer Jacobson discusses strategies to overcome the struggles that young writers can encounter while writing. I was interested in her book No More “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades because I feel like as a future teacher this could be a frequent problem among students. From reading this book, I hoped that I would learn useful strategies that I could use to help students overcome their problems with writing. After reading this book, I do believe that Jacobson has provided me with plenty of methods to use. I was surprised at the depth that she goes into in her text. There is a vast amount
Experts believe that writing workshops are an excellent way to get elementary school children interested in writing and setting the stage for a lifelong joy of writing. Lucy Calkins developed Writer’s Workshop which was based on many positions taken by her mentor Donald Graves (Feinberg 2). She identified six major components of the Writer’s Workshop, which make it so successful. The six components are: predictable structure, free choice, useful mini-lessons, daily independent writing time, conferencing with teachers and peers and modeling good writing.
In his essay, "Teach Writing as a Process not a Product," Donald Murray outlines the major difference between the traditional pedagogy that directed the teaching of writing in the past and his newly hailed model. Traditionally, Murray explains, English teachers were taught to teach and evaluate students' writing as if it was a finished product of literature when, as he has discovered, students learn better if they're taught that writing is a process. For Murray, once teachers regard writing as a process, a student-centered, or writer-centered, curriculum falls into place. Rules for writing fall by the way side as writers work at their own pace to see what works best for them.
...eading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2008. 709. Print
There are various ways writers can evaluate their techniques applied in writing. The genre of writing about writing can be approached in various ways – from a process paper to sharing personal experience. The elements that go into this specific genre include answers to the five most important questions who, what, where, and why they write. Anne Lamott, Junot Diaz, Kent Haruf, and Susan Sontag discuss these ideas in their individual investigations. These authors create different experiences for the reader, but these same themes emerge: fears of failing, personal feelings toward writing, and most importantly personal insight on the importance of writing and what works and does not work in their writing procedures.
A sword is no more than a sharp piece of metal, but a pen has power. A pen can argue; a pen can unravel complexities; a pen can persuade; a pen can teach; but most of all, a pen can create worlds. The gifts writing brings are almost innumerable. On par with every major study, writing – both persuasive and creative – is an incredibly valuable skill that all students should be pressed to learn, to love, and to enjoy. To allow some to find their voice while allowing others to discover who they truly are, while still generating a far more intellectual generation is certainly a necessary teaching.
Being back in grad school has been an amazing experience because it has put me back in touch with my own process of writing; I am conscious of how I write in comparison to the way in which I expect my students to write. I find myself using the information that I share with them, although at times I feel the pressure that I must earn all A’s on my papers because if I haven’t mastered the process of writing, then I must be a bit of a fraud to be teaching it. But then I have to remember what I have learned about my own process, and what I continue to learn about my own writing process. I keep in mind the epiphany I experienced in graduate school, and I seek to share this information, for current or later use, with my students in the classroom.
During the transition from a high school writer to a collegiate writer, my strength at understanding the basic principles of good writing has remained consistent. I grasp the ...
Powell, Cheryl, Harms, Susan, & Barry, Thomas. (2006). The process of writing. New York: St. Andrews.
I argued that in order to help students we must develop their skills in writing through a process genre approach. “Given that writing is a process and that what we write is heavily influenced by the constraints of genres” Harmer (2004:86). It’s imperative that these elements are included in writing activities. I argued that without the ‘drafting and redrafting’ students are unlikely to improve. Moreover, “Teaching and learning are joint enterprises involving both teacher and student in a partnership” White&Arndt (1991:2). Both must fulfill their roles in this partnership, and though essay writing will continue to be challenging, I believe both teacher and student can become more motivated and see writing as communicative, rewarding and
The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill; it is usually learned or culturally transmitted as a set of practices in formal instructional settings or other environments. Writing skills must be practiced and learned through experience. Writing also involves composing, which implies the ability either to tell or retell pieces of information in the form of narratives or description, or to transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing. Perhaps it is best viewed as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspects of “writing down” on the one end, to the more complex act of composing on the other end (Omaggio Hadley, 1993). It is undoubtedly the act of
Crème, P., & Lea, Mary R. (2008). [PDF format]. Writing at University (3rd edition.), McGraw Hill Education. Retrieved from www.kantakji.com/fiqh/Research/ti134.pdf.
Many of our students are just learning to "trust" themselves as writers.Most haven't had the opportunity in high school to explore what writing can do for their thinking; they have been taught that "writing" is a product produced for a teacher.Student-centered pedagogy seeks to de-center teacher authority, and has moved away from traditional methods such as the lecture format to more group discussion.
The writing class session I observed is a packaged program in which the students have been participating in for 5 months. They all know the routine of the reading and writing workshop and understand “the Daily 5.” The student’s movements are purposeful and there is little time wasted in transitions. The books used by students become more complicated as the students ability strengthens. At the end of the workshop, Mrs. Rammond praised those students who used their time efficiently during “the Daily 5.” She spoke directly to the students who wrote in their journals and asked them to share their entries. The students learned some new trivia about insects, practiced writing and then had some time for art.