Teaching and Conferencing

This week’s reading continued to encourage us to let the student lead the learning process – reminding us to teach them from where they’re at and build upon it gradually.  Lucky for us, Ms. Hale gives some thorough and realistic examples of how to teach craft lessons and use conferencing effectively.

            I enjoyed the challenge of the guided practice for researching craft in the appendix, but wish we could have been given a little more background on each student.  While I could find positives to point out in each piece, it’s hard to know what the next steps should be when you don’t know what the previous steps were!  The idea of teaching students how to reflect on their own writing so that they can make the most out of conferencing seems like an ingenuous way to give them more ownership in their education.  I can see where a student will be less resistant to new ideas when he/she has been given the ability to be a part of the decision-making.

Ms. Hale’s advice on introducing one thing at a time seems to be common sense, but I can see where it could be tempting in some situations to try to teach too much at once.  I like the thought of allowing the students the opportunity to try out each newly-learned craft to see how it fits with their own personal writing style.  Also, having each student create a sample of each craft in their writing journal is a great way to not only reinforce the lesson but also to give the student a reference to turn to when they need a little more inspiration. 

While I’ve not had my own personal writing journal for years, I’m definitely ready to start one now!  I would hate to not have my own samples to share when I ask the students to do so.  As an added bonus, I will have written documentation to show improvements in my own writing style as I continue to do more research on crafting.   Since I don’t really have much of a creative writing background, I feel like I need to catch up and start collecting as many crafts as possible!  It might be interesting to have students review my writing as I progress and see if they can pick out strengths and learning opportunities. 

 How nice of the author to give us some additional sources to refer to, such as “Wonderous Words” by Katie Wood Ray and “How’s It Going? A Practical Guide to Conferring with Student Writers” by Carl Anderson, but the book I’m most looking forward to reading is “Do You Know Enough About Me to Teach Me?” by Stephen Peters.  His concept of “capture, inspire, teach” seems to be repeated in all of our textbooks, and I really do believe that many students just need someone to show a little faith in their abilities to motivate them to try harder.  I know that there will be times when a particular learning situation will look daunting, so it will be comforting to have this resource to fall back on to remind me of positive ways to continue to connect with students. 

One of the things I like best about “Crafting Writers K-6” is the personal tone in which it is written.  Doesn’t it seem like we’re sitting in the room with Ms. Hale while she’s explaining these crafts and techniques to us?  It’s as if we’re getting the opportunity to tour yet another classroom!  The fact that she uses the words “I would probably” several times on page 156 is so reassuring to me, showing that, although she has taught creative writing for years and even written a book about it, she’s still continuing to learn and to adapt to whatever the needs are at that very moment.  There aren’t any absolutes in this profession we’re embarking on, so we need to do what we can to try to be prepared for whatever needs arise.

Feeling Slightly Overwhelmed (but in a good way!)

Anyone else feel a little intimidated about writing about writing knowing that everyone who reads your post has just read ninety-three pages about how to write well?  There are so many fine points to comment on from this week’s reading that I’m struggling to decide which ones to write about.  The whole process of writing is such an art, with each piece representing the unique voice of its author.  The first six chapters of “Crafting Writers” really opened my eyes to the analysis of what makes each voice unique and how to inspire young writers to find their own voice.

Elizabeth Hale has compiled a great collection of examples for us to draw from and to share with our future students.   While I feel that I’m capable of recognizing writing that I find enjoyable, I’ve never actually analyzed what it is about the writing that really captures my attention.  Ms. Hale’s process of gathering craft has helped clarify how to identify those specifics that will encourage students to expand their writing capabilities.  I especially appreciate that she includes the reasoning behind each craft because I’m as a bad as any kid when it comes needing some good rationale to convince me that something’s worth doing!  Reading the examples with the “why’s” clearly shows the various nuances that different writing crafts can add to a story. 

I also like that Ms. Hale encourages us not only to help our students find their own writing voice but also for us to find our own teaching voice.  By identifying crafts and developing our own craft names, we get to take ownership of that craft, hopefully in a way that will resonate with our students.  It seems like too often in life we’re trying to find the “correct” way to do something, but Ms. Hale is showing us that, when it comes to writing, it’s not necessary to “show the student a better way to compose, just a different way, so that he or she now has more choices as a writer.” 

As I said earlier, there are so many wonderful ideas contained in what I just finished reading- ensuring that children are using words that they can identify with, introducing the creative writing process one (or two) crafts at a time, building upon each student’s individual abilities, supplying multiple examples that are meaningful to the students, using sentence lengths to add variety, etc.   I feel I could write endlessly about this topic but must move onto completing my reading for math.  Somehow, I doubt that I will find it to be quite as inspiring . . .

Seeing the Good Through the Mistakes

This week's readings have made me even more excited about getting back into an elementary classroom.  When I was working with K-2 students as a remediation aide, I generally followed the plan laid out by the classroom teacher but rarely received any rationale behind the lesson.  My position was similar to a "grandparent" role:  I'd stop in and have the kids "show off" for me while I oohed and aahed at their hard work, then leave the serious stuff for the classroom teacher to figure out.  This activity may seem a bit frivolous to some, but I am a big believer of the importance of simply giving a student individual attention to boost their self-esteem and confidence.  My cheering encouraged the student to feel more free to write and read more, which in turn gave the teacher more information to make an educated assessment.  "Every Mark on the Page" confirmed my belief that encouragement, rather than correcting, is necessary to motivate a student to keep creating. 

The article ties in nicely with our readings from "Sound Systems" to give us some insight into how much should a child be expected to know at what age and how to assess that knowledge.  I agree with the author Ms. Cusumano that it's important to convey expectations to parents in order to keep them involved in the education process and give them some parameters of what's considered "normal" for their child.  While I was absolutely fascinated by everything my students did with me in my aide (grandparent?) role, I didn't have the same emotional connection that a parent would.  While I would try to guide the students a bit to keep them on task, I honestly didn't know enough about what was considered right or wrong in their writing assignments, so I just considered all of it to be wonderful!  Our readings this week further confirmed for me that, yes, it's okay to just let the creativity flow because a good teacher will be able to see the good through the mistakes.

I love that Ms. Cusumano stresses finding what's right with a student's work, rather than what's wrong. What a great idea to take a five-year-old's paper, which initially looks, well, like it was created by a five-year-old, and point out all the learning that is expressed in so many ways.  I mean, come on, the child put a period at the end!  How great is that?  I'd love to go back over all the K-2 writings I've had the privilege to read and be able to assess them properly and look forward to showing the parents of my own students some day all the things that their kids are doing correctly.

A Deeper Dig . . .

I've spent the last few days reading other classmates' posts regarding the Community Literacy Dig, along with re-reading the assignment instructions and blog rubric.  Obsessing?  Maybe a bit, but I felt the need to see how to connect my observations with reading and writing.  As I read the blogs of my other team members (Tina, Amy, Julie, and Paige), I realized how much my observations related to theirs.  The one thing that stands out the most is that the people I saw at this store were from a pretty homogeneous group, and the apparent literacy examples (or lack thereof) reflect that fact.

What I feel I've gained most from this assignment, though, is the exposure to the various ways that different classmates chose to present their information.  I have read some beautifully crafted creative-writing pieces, a wonderfully organized article with subtitles and photos, and an intriguing investigative report while learning a bit more about the great diversity we have in our cohort.  Anyone else seeing a multi genre connection?

Literacy Dig Interpretations and Connections

Our team performed our literacy dig at a grocery store at 10 am on Labor Day Monday, and my assignment was to observe the people and activities.  There weren't many customers in the store at that time but quite a few employees, most likely wondering why this small group of women was walking around their store with notebooks and pens in hand!  I saw three people stocking shelves, the store manager arranging merchandise, the floral department employee creating an arrangement, the meat department employee helping a customer, two bag boys and two cashiers greeting customers and talking to each other.  All employees were wearing store aprons; the manager was in a shirt and tie.  Most of the customers were well-dressed, older couples.  There was also a dad with two preschool-age children riding in his shopping cart, an older couple helping an elderly woman with her shopping, a woman in her twenties shopping without a cart.

I'm not exactly sure how much of this is to be interpreted, so I'm going to choose one person - the young woman.  My interpretation is that she was in a hurry to get in and out of the store (hence, no cart).  She walked in, read the signs above the aisles, went down an aisle and read (or maybe just recognized) the label of the item she wanted to purchase, maybe checked the price printed on the store shelf, greeted the cashier, read the amount due on the cash register screen, paid, and thanked the cashier as she left the store.

I'm hoping that others have posted their blogs so I can see how they have completed this assignment because I'm not sure how to answer the "connections" part in regards to how observing people connects to literacy activities.  Is it the step-by-step interpretation of the customers activities itself or should I be trying to dig a bit deeper here?