One piece
of advice Routam offers in Chapter 7 is to introduce the writing process as a
whole, rather than step-by-step. This may seem odd as several of our other
Language Arts instructional strategies involve mini-lessons focusing on one
concept then banking these concepts which build off one another. She justifies
this by noting there is not research out there supporting the use of drills or
worksheets. Rather, having the whole presented to the student at once allows
them to learn more easily with more meaning. For this example, it is key for
the teacher to know each part of the writing process fully and be able to model
using each part rather than telling the students about each part. I have found
that this idea of showing rather than telling is successful, but sometimes hard
for me to carry out. When my students are not understanding a concept and I
have run out of ways to show them or
have them notice something that I want them to notice, I turn right to direct
teaching; I will tell them. While I
believe that student discovery is more authentic than me just lecturing to
them, it requires a special set of teacher-skills that develop with practice
and restraint. I am trying everyday to focus on providing opportunities for my
students to be discoverers. What are some strategies that allow students to
learn authentically without me telling them what to learn? Is there anything in
particular that works for you and your students?
Another
key piece of advice Routman suggests is to make writing meaningful to the
students. While not a hard concept to grasp, or even disagree with, finding
ways to do this take practice and thought. How can you help students chose
meaningful, but also worthwhile topics to write about? My mentor teacher helped
scaffold this very idea in my student’s writer’s notebooks. She took a page,
divided in into 4 sections and had them write down some things that 1) they
liked, 2) they didn’t like, 3) scared them, and 4) were some of their hobbies.
This allows students to have a reference for when they need to write about
something and can’t think of a topic. Routman suggests in Chapter 8 to allow
time for students to share their writing with peers. As a teacher, we need to
discuss with students how to listen to their peers and respond with
constructive comments and how to ask questions. What are some ways to
facilitate this in a productive way?
My students have a hard time with constructive peer interaction when it comes
to writing or any other content area. They have a difficult time knowing what
to say to their peers. Usually they take turns reading their writing piece and
sit to talk about irrelevant topics. Are
you seeing your mentor teacher provide opportunities for your students to
compose authentic writing? If so, what and why do you think it works?
There
are several opportunities to ‘finesse’ the literacy instruction in my classroom
as described in the Kersten/ Pardo article. I am seeing my mentor teacher do it
every day. We have several curriculum programs for language arts: DWA, DRA,
Making Meaning and Word Study. In each, my mentor teacher puts her own little
twist on the instruction to make learning meaningful and personal for our
students. How can a set curriculum fit each and every student? There are always
little tweaks that need to be made and accommodations that need to be accounted
for. I know for Word Study, the activities going along with each unit are do
not take a lot of effort on the student’s part and do not challenge their
thinking; sometimes, not even requiring the students to know the meaning of the
word they are studying! In order to accomplish the missing goals from the Word
Study curriculum, I could incorporate an activity that applies the learning in a new context. For example, asking the
students to write a sentence or paragraph using several of the words. I would
be looking for correct usage, as well as spelling accuracy. This way students
are studying for a purpose and will be able to extend their learning after the
spelling test at the end of the unit. What are some ways you see your mentor
teacher deviating a tad from a set curriculum? I know my mentor teacher and her
co-teacher have some strong feelings about some curriculum and have no problem ‘finessing’
their instruction. Do you feel comfortable as a beginning teacher to do the
same or do you think being able to do that come with experience and reputation?
Emily, I thought you made a number of valid points in regards to what you’ve been seeing and experiencing in the classroom and the readings. Reflecting on the few lessons that my MT has had me do the past two weeks, I can DEFINITELY relate to the feeling that if the students just aren’t getting it, the easiest thing to do is to just tell them. I have found that I have resorted to this because of one key factor – time. I think that everything would be jolly and merry if we had could take all the time in the world to teach our students which would allow us to spend more time on the concepts that they weren’t getting, but the reality of this is time is limited. During an arts and crafts type activity just this past week, I noticed that time was running out and I found myself telling students “that’s fine, just hurry up” more than I would like to. Although I have not practiced what I hope to improve this issue in regards to authentic learning, I think that problem solving would help with this authentic learning dilemma. In order for this to be effective, however, I think that enough time must be set aside so that as a teacher, you won’t feel pressured to rush your students through a learning experience that could turn out to be quite beneficial.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read the Kersten/ Pardo article initially, I immediately thought of my MT. When I was helping my MT set up the classroom, I noticed that she had huge tubs labeled with the month that were filled to the brim with teaching “stuff”. She explained that each class she teaches is different and requires different teaching and supplies. She believes in never doing the same exact thing year-to-year because every group of students is different and has a different feel. Throughout these first few weeks, she has been applying this same mentality to the literacy curriculum. While preparing for the MEAP test, we gave our students a diagnostic test to see where they struggled with literacy and used the results to plan for the first month of literacy instruction. Instead of sticking to a strict curriculum, we have been finessing what we have been giving to better suit our students needs. In addition, my MT has given me the responsibility of taking on Making Meaning. She told me that tweaking it and making it my own (in some ways) is completely okay and she encourages me to do so. This mentality of “finessing” is something she encourages and stands by. At the same time, however, my MT has been teaching for over 15 years and has built a good reputation in the district. If I was being completely honest, I’m not sure I would feel as comfortable “finessing” in my own classroom right off the bat.
I like the idea of teaching students the writing as a whole then breaking it down for them. It gives the students a clear goal in mind as they are working on the smaller parts of the writing process. As of right now i have not seen any writing instruction in my class, currently the biggest focus in the class is MEAP practice. One dilemma that I will probably have with teaching in this way is that it is different than the way I was taught. I am going to have to really plan out everything to make sure that the students have a clear idea of writing as a whole before moving on. I think I might also get impatient just teaching the bog ideas about writing before getting into the smaller more detailed parts. Personally, I have no problem with telling students what they should be getting out of a lesson. I know that when I am a student I get frustrated when I do not know the goal of a lesson. I think it is important to tell students the objective of a lesson so that they can keep their own learning on track. That does not mean that every point needs to be made for them, just the overall goal.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that making writing authentic is the best was to get students motivated to write. The challenge is finding ways to make writing authentic, especially about fiction topics. But, a teacher could make the assignment where the students get to share their piece with younger students or make a class anthology of everyone's writings. A teacher needs to instruct students on how to review and critique a classmates work. The best would be modeling this by thinking aloud while making constructive comments about one of your own papers. A way for students to have topics that interest them, is for the students to brainstorm ideas, and as Routman stated this can simply be a list. Then the teacher would go and either approve or decline writing topics, that way the student picks them but the teacher still has some say.
Right now the students have not done any writing in class most of what they do are worksheets. Writing instruction has been mostly about the different type of statements, such as compare/ contrast and cause/ effect. My MT does have Making Meaning, which I usually do with the students. Through that the students are able to talk about their reading lives, something they like because it actually relates to them. My room has a set of dictionaries and the students would use those when writing, for practice and to show the importance of spelling. Yes, I know you need to know the spelling to use one but a student can always try sounding out a word. It also emphasizes the importance of spelling because if a student wants to use one to see if a word works in their paper they need to know how to spell. I think a way to finesse Making Meaning would be for the students to write more with it. For example, the students could write their opinions about a book, or they could write a sequel/prequel to the book.