This class has made me think more and more about how I interact with the writing process. I have found that I think more critically of each step and come across many of the problems that are mentioned in the book. I have also used some of the techniques in the book to overcome the challanges that I face and to persuvere in my writing. As I begin to complete my genre pieces project, I find myself doubting my wriitng ablities. Now that I am reflecting on this feeling of self doubt I am shocked. I feel very confident writing research papers and other various papers that are required for my masters portfolio. I came to think about it more, and I can not remember the last time that I wrote a piece that was not informative or reflective. In addition, I can not remember the last time that I have written a piece that was not about education in some way.
After I came to this realization, I realized that I was just out of touch with other genres. I also realized that I need to practice my skills writing about topics other than education. I used this opportunity to read widely, in regards to different genres, different topics, and pieces regarding my topic: thousand island park. Once I because a more diverse reader, I began to feel better about the writing process and started to generate ideas. The activity we did in class with the index cards, helped me decide what I wanted each of my pieces to focus on. After I found my focus I started to write. This is where I encountered another problem. When I faced this problem, I turned to both my writing partners and my teacher for advice. I felt that my piece would be confusing and incomprehensible to others beside me. My wonderful teacher reminded me of the crucial step of identifying your audience. At this point, I stopped my writing and took a step back. I identified the different purposes and audience for each piece. After this step, I decided that my inital piece was not going to serve my topic well, and put it aside. I started again and this time, with a much more complete idea of how I wanted my first piece to be. I have now realized the importance of brainstoroming and pre-writing in the writing process. I will remember these skills as I continue to work on my assignment.
Now that I have worked out the kinks of my starting phases, I predict that I will be much more successful. I will remember as I continue to draft my first piece that I will need to edit and revise my piece. I will utilize my writing partners to help me with grammatical errors, as well as for ideas to improve my piece and send my message more effectively. I will remember that the writing process is flexible and to use it as a guide. I will also use the reading from the class as a resource and will apply what I have learned about teaching writing to my own writing process.
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reflection. Show all posts
Monday, October 15, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Entry #6
The reading I did this week focused on assessing and responding to writing. I was very glad to read about this topic, because assessing student writing is not one of my strong suits. In my experiences student teaching, I have graded various writing assignments. It is a process that I feel uneasy with, because unlike a test it is never right or wrong. However there are some strategies that I have used to help me grade student papers. I have utilized rubrics and found that they are very helpful when grading writing. I want to make it clear though, that if you are going to grade writing with a rubric, you must give a copy to the student when you introduce their writing assignment. It will help the students to see what is expected, and the meet those expectations. I have also used the technique of holistic scoring in the past. I found both to be helpful and help to make sure that my assessment is fair and valid.
Tompkins (2012) offers many more strategies in Chapter 4 of Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Tompkins stresses that "the most effective assessment combines process and product measures to evaluate students' growth as writers and the quality of their compositions" (p.89). I will remember her advice and use both process and product of writing assessments in my classroom. Some of the strategies that I found helpful and will try out in the future were anecdotal notes, checklists, assessment conferences, and primary trait scoring.
I found Sommers (1982) article on responding to student writing both shocking and very true. I thought of all the times I have received feedback on my papers, and most of the time I received the vary ambiguous comments they spoke about in the article. This happened mainly in elementary and high school. Now that I am in college, I have had experiences on both ends of the spectrum. I have experienced times when my professors have given me specific and helpful feedback, and other times when I have received just a number on the top of the page. I also thought of the times that I provided feedback on students papers and was ashamed to realize that I am one of the teachers who have used "comments [that] are not text-specific and could be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text"(152). Now that I have read this article, realized my faults, and learned strategies on how to effectively assess student writing I can go forward and improve my teaching.
Tompkins (2012) offers many more strategies in Chapter 4 of Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Tompkins stresses that "the most effective assessment combines process and product measures to evaluate students' growth as writers and the quality of their compositions" (p.89). I will remember her advice and use both process and product of writing assessments in my classroom. Some of the strategies that I found helpful and will try out in the future were anecdotal notes, checklists, assessment conferences, and primary trait scoring.
I found Sommers (1982) article on responding to student writing both shocking and very true. I thought of all the times I have received feedback on my papers, and most of the time I received the vary ambiguous comments they spoke about in the article. This happened mainly in elementary and high school. Now that I am in college, I have had experiences on both ends of the spectrum. I have experienced times when my professors have given me specific and helpful feedback, and other times when I have received just a number on the top of the page. I also thought of the times that I provided feedback on students papers and was ashamed to realize that I am one of the teachers who have used "comments [that] are not text-specific and could be interchanged, rubber-stamped, from text to text"(152). Now that I have read this article, realized my faults, and learned strategies on how to effectively assess student writing I can go forward and improve my teaching.
References
Tompkins, G.E. (2012). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
Sommers, N. (1982). Responding to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 33(2), 148-156.
Entry #5
Dear Dr. Jones,
I am writing you this letter to share with you my feelings on how this class is going so far. First I will start off by saying that I am a bit overwhelmed! My responsibilities in my student teaching placement have increased a lot in the past weeks and my capstone portfolio is pressing on my mind at all times. In conjunction with the assignments for this class, I barely have time to breathe! However, I keep reminding my self that in 3 weeks I will be finished student teaching and will have much more time to devote to my school work.
This class has made me more aware of the connections between reading and writing. I notice it all the time in my student teaching placement during writers workshop, ELA, and my intervention groups. I have noticed that it is very seldom that reading or writing used in solitude. Barbra Eckhoff (1983) discusses this connection by noting the direct relationship between success in writing and reading scores (p. 607). She also claims that "the findings of this study clearly showed that the writing of the children studied contained features of their reading texts" (p. 615). This shows that students use what they learn in their reading and apply it to their writing. I have seen this in classrooms before and am starting to really look for it.
The writing I do for this class, as well as my other classes, allows me a time to really reflect on my learning and come to terms with it. I would say that I think when I write 95% of the time. During this time I really think hard about the topic or assignment. It always suprises me that I do not fully understand something until I am trying to write about it. Prior to the writing experience I feel confident, however I see the limitations to my knowledge once I am put on the spot and try to write about it. This is not a bad thing, however. This little set back lets me know what I need to look into and learn more about. This shows how writing really helps me as a learner. There are some writing pieces that I chose to think harder about than others. This means that I read and reread these pieces over and over again. I edit them and think about my message, my voice, word choice, and audience. These are really long and important pieces that many people will read and will have a large impact on my life. Other pieces that are not as weighted, I chose to think less about them. I still think about them as I am writing them, but only reread them once or twice to check for my effectiveness. One thing that I would change about the way I read and write would be to ignore the misspellings and typos until the end. I get very distracted by the red squiggly lines on the page and often loose my train of though as I go to correct a previous part of my piece.
I think that this class has really prepared me to set up and implement a writers workshop in my classroom. I have thought about what aspects of writers workshop are important to me and how I would like my writers workshop to to look, sound, and feel. This class has also prepared me to use many digital resources, and taught me the benefits of using these resources. I will admit that prior to this class I did not think much about incorporating computers and technology into writers workshop, but now I know that they can add a whole new dimension to the process. Lastly, I have learned how and why to incorporate various genres into teaching.
I feel pretty good about this course. I have not thought much about my genre pieces project, but I hope to have lots of time to devote to it when my student teaching placement is complete. I will also continue to work with my writers group on this assignment and hopefully will have something in the works soon. The only thing that I could ask for, would be to see a example of complete genre pieces project.
Sincerly,
Lindsey Vay
I am writing you this letter to share with you my feelings on how this class is going so far. First I will start off by saying that I am a bit overwhelmed! My responsibilities in my student teaching placement have increased a lot in the past weeks and my capstone portfolio is pressing on my mind at all times. In conjunction with the assignments for this class, I barely have time to breathe! However, I keep reminding my self that in 3 weeks I will be finished student teaching and will have much more time to devote to my school work.
This class has made me more aware of the connections between reading and writing. I notice it all the time in my student teaching placement during writers workshop, ELA, and my intervention groups. I have noticed that it is very seldom that reading or writing used in solitude. Barbra Eckhoff (1983) discusses this connection by noting the direct relationship between success in writing and reading scores (p. 607). She also claims that "the findings of this study clearly showed that the writing of the children studied contained features of their reading texts" (p. 615). This shows that students use what they learn in their reading and apply it to their writing. I have seen this in classrooms before and am starting to really look for it.
The writing I do for this class, as well as my other classes, allows me a time to really reflect on my learning and come to terms with it. I would say that I think when I write 95% of the time. During this time I really think hard about the topic or assignment. It always suprises me that I do not fully understand something until I am trying to write about it. Prior to the writing experience I feel confident, however I see the limitations to my knowledge once I am put on the spot and try to write about it. This is not a bad thing, however. This little set back lets me know what I need to look into and learn more about. This shows how writing really helps me as a learner. There are some writing pieces that I chose to think harder about than others. This means that I read and reread these pieces over and over again. I edit them and think about my message, my voice, word choice, and audience. These are really long and important pieces that many people will read and will have a large impact on my life. Other pieces that are not as weighted, I chose to think less about them. I still think about them as I am writing them, but only reread them once or twice to check for my effectiveness. One thing that I would change about the way I read and write would be to ignore the misspellings and typos until the end. I get very distracted by the red squiggly lines on the page and often loose my train of though as I go to correct a previous part of my piece.
I think that this class has really prepared me to set up and implement a writers workshop in my classroom. I have thought about what aspects of writers workshop are important to me and how I would like my writers workshop to to look, sound, and feel. This class has also prepared me to use many digital resources, and taught me the benefits of using these resources. I will admit that prior to this class I did not think much about incorporating computers and technology into writers workshop, but now I know that they can add a whole new dimension to the process. Lastly, I have learned how and why to incorporate various genres into teaching.
I feel pretty good about this course. I have not thought much about my genre pieces project, but I hope to have lots of time to devote to it when my student teaching placement is complete. I will also continue to work with my writers group on this assignment and hopefully will have something in the works soon. The only thing that I could ask for, would be to see a example of complete genre pieces project.
Sincerly,
Lindsey Vay
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