For this entry I read thought a few of my peers blogs to
find something to “Bless, Address, or Press.”
I found an entry in Gretchen G’s Blog that I wanted to bless, address,
and press. Her entry #9 was very
interesting and I wanted to start with her opening statements. She said:
“When
I was doing research on the expository genre for my genre presentation next
week, I found myself questioning if I did enough instruction concerning
expository reading and writing in my own classroom. Did my students even know what
the word expository meant? Did they know what type of books would be considered
expository? Have they ever read an expository text? Have they ever written an
expository piece before?”
I
wanted to stop and both bless and address this statement. I love how she took the time to reflect on
her own teaching as she prepared for her genre presentation. It shows that she is really learning and
applying the content in this class to her teaching, which is the ultimate
goal. I then wanted to address that the
new common core places a much bigger emphasis on the use of expository text in
all grade levels. I have witnessed thought-out
my career as an educator that many more expository texts are being used in the
classroom now, as apposed to when I first started working in classrooms at the
beginning of my undergraduate career.
Gretchen
continued on to reflect on the answers she found to those questions and how she
used this genre in her classroom. I
wanted to point out that she said that some students knew what the expository
or non-fiction genre was, but did not know the name. I think that this is a very great
observation, as many first graders do not know the word “expository”. This is a great teaching moment when they can
learn a new word for this genre. I also
liked how she went further than discussing the differences between fiction and
non-fiction and also discussed the various text features of the genre and their
purposes. This really shows that she
holds her students to high standards and values the expository genre in the
classroom.
Lastly,
I loved her activity of what they learned and what they wondered. I would like to press her to then use those
post its, to have the students create their own expository piece. They can use their learning as the backbone
for the piece and do research to find the answers to their wonderings. They can then use the information to create
their very own expository piece.
