Chapter 6 Thoughts

The reading and writing connection is so important. One thing that stuck out in chapter 6 was the quote, "Children who read literature - well-written folktales, narratives, and trade books - become better writers than children who primarily read basal reading texts. Our school district adopted a "basal", Imagine It a few years ago. I hate that it limits the amount of text it exposes kids to so I was glad when we got the go ahead to add in other text, guided reading, etc.

The purpose of writing in response to reading is to deepen the students comprehension. Some great activities to for this are: book review, book blurb, author profile, interview with an author, literature response, letter to an author, or readers theater script.

One strategy that I learned to be very helpful was when I went to the KAGAN training and when the trainer was up there speaking not only was she taking notes for all to see but we also had fill in the blank notes that we were also taking making us alert and listening at all times. I have found this to really help my students focus and take-in what we are learning about.

Chapter 5 Thoughts

When I thought about shared writing I thought about the teacher in control of the pen while the kids helped come up with information for the story. Last year I had our literacy coach come in and demonstrate a shared writing with my third graders, I really don't feel like I am a great writing teacher still but I think that it helped. The kids loved coming up with a trickster tale with her and actually wanted to go write their own. The only problem that I have had is that it seems to take so long and I feel like I am taking away from them. Maybe I just need to break it into more chunks. I really liked the framework checklists that this chapter gives. I thought about typing some up and putting them behind the chart paper board and by my SMART board. I think that these would be handy references to look at while I am modeling or we are doing a shared writing.

Chapter 4 Thoughts

This chapter was all about the teacher raising his/her expectations for students and their quality of work. I was actually happy to read that all those long and extensive research reports are really not the best way to teach writing but instead learn what it means to explore writing in depth.

I especially liked what it said on page 54, "Competence leads to confidence, which leads to wanting to write."

I am not really a worksheet fan, I think that they are meaningless to the students and therefore the students don't put forth their best effort. Routman says that worksheets foster mediocrity so instead teachers should find lessons that students will find interesting, relevant, and challenging.

I love to let my students have free write everyday but I have found that they are always whinning that they don't know what to write about. According to the book giving students choice for free writing everyday foster endurance and fluency to pass writing state assessments. This is something that I would like to make a part of my class time everyday.

I also agree that something has to be done with the quality of students handwriting. If I can not read what the student read and they can't either there is definately a problem. My students form letters in the weirdest way slowing their writing down because they are spending time forming the letters.

Something that stuck in my mind after watching the video about the English teacher is that without trust from the students, it's impossible to teach.

photo from: http://www.randomhouse.com/kids/junieb/favorites/favorites.html