Chapter 10 Thoughts

State Assessment writing in 5th grade = :(
Testing kids on one paper that was probably timed to be written in 30 minutes or less is absolutely not a good way to evaluate anyone's writing. I give the KELPA to all English as a Second Language students and there is a writing part. The students are only given 20 minutes to write either about a picture or a prompt. I couldn't imagine being those kids having to come up with an idea and then actually try to write something that makes sense and is considered adequate. Together all ELA teachers meet on one given day after the window for the test has ended and we score the tests on vocabulary, sentence fluency, grammar, mechanics, organization and development. Some of the stories are actually surprising and very good and then more often than not there are the ones that are absolutely terrible! What can we expect when we only give the kids that much time and we are only looking at one sample from them? I like the idea of using rubrics when the kids are writing something required but don't want to overuse the rubrics and give the students more choice but also have a guiding criteria.
I thought that it was important to remember this and so I typed it into my notes:

1. Schedule writing every day. Try for 20-30 minutes of silent sustained writing.

2. Time your minilessons. Limit yourself to between 5-15 minutes and teaching that take place improve the quality of students' writing.

3. Don't shortchange the time for whole-class share. The celebration and teaching that take place improve the quality of students' writing.

4. Announce the time frame at the start. You will have twenty minutes to complete this piece.

5. Announce when students only have a few minutes left to write. You have five more minutes. Finish up where you are and reread.

6. Make sure the topics students are writing about are relevant to their lives and interests.

7. Do a great job of demonstrating and frontloading. The more prepared students are to write, the more easily they write.

8. Use quickwrites (pg. 179), also called freewrites, regularly.

Schedule writing every day or at least on consecutive days

2. Limit the use of prompts that have no real audience (such as, "Write a letter to the author telling him one thing you would change about the story").

3. Provide more choice of writing topics. Students write more easily about something they are interested in.

4. Integrate test preparation.

5. Teach basic skills in context.

6. Teach students to revise and edit as they go; this saves time later on.

7. Expect high-frequency words to be correctly spelled. This saves correction time and aids speeding of writing.

8. Expect legible handwriting. This saves time for your students and for you.

9. Encourage invented spellings within reasonable, agreed-on-guidelines. This speeds up writing and encourages broader use of words.

10. Use parents as final editors in the classroom.

11. Tell students why - make writing purpose understood. Students will invest more in their writing.

Photo from: http://www.midlandisd.net/1768209159539277/cwp/browse.asp?A=3&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=66840

Chapter 9 Thoughts

Conferencing with students is something that I feel very insecure about. I am not really sure what to actually ask them and guide them. I really like the roving conferences idea that it only takes no more than 5 minutes and involves:

Note who needs help getting started

            - Affirm students' efforts

            - Encourage students to continue writing, reread, check spelling

            - Teach on the spot

            - Assess

            - Offer specific guidance

            - Take brief notes

The idea of whole class conferences is exciting to me, what a great way to involve all students and do on the spot teaching. Each child can learn and benefit from whole class confences. Whole class conferencing would be very easy for me to incorporate into my lessons and the kids would feel valued that we want to hear their stories and give them feedback. Currently my students will listen to each others work and say that it is great, nothing needs to be changed. Yikes, don't take a look at it because most of the time it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Editing conferences must come after the content conferences. I now realize this. I was trying to do way to much all at once and when I was helping with the editing mistakes, I wasn't really helping at all with the ideas. I am actually excited to incorporate conferences with students. I think that if I was to first feel comfortable with whole class conferences that one-on-one's will be much more useful to the students.

Photo from: http://www.midlandisd.net/1768209159539277/cwp/browse.asp?A=3&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=66840

Chapter 8 Thoughts

Chapter 8 had some very insightful ideas on how to organzie a day with writing. First and foremost was to find a time for DAILY writing. This is something that if I didn't have enough time, I skipped. Now I realize that I am doing more harm to my students by not giving them the opportunity to write each day. Even when I do have the time I am spending too much time teaching (isolated skills) and not allowing enough time for the actual writing. :( As I think to next year I am going to definately schedule in time every single day for writing for at least 45 minutes to an hour. I want my students to become confident in themselves as writers. Chapter 8 gave some great information about doing more freewrites to build endurance and confidence, something that I have been reading about in The Daily 5 for reading. Students must build their stamina in order to be able to sustain for long periods of time and they need long periods of writing time to actually get information on paper.
As I was reading I was typing notes of information that I thought important (wish I had done this for all the previous chapters) and this was something I thought was important to refer back to:

Suggested Time Frames for Daily Writing

Demonstration or minilesson based on student's needs and interests as well as curriculum requirements	5-30 minutes Typically 5-15 minutes
Sustained writing - Students writing (uninterrupted, quiet) -Teacher may also be writing (on same topic as students) -Students having a one-on-one content or editing conference with the teacher -Students conversing and conferring with each other	20-40 minues
Whole class share	10-15 minutes

As with anything new, students must be taught how to do something, it must be modeled correctly and incorrectly. The teacher must model exactly what is expeced like writing on every other line and why, dating each entry, writing on the correct side of the paper and more. We can't expect our students to do these things on their own without any demonstration.


I really connected with the idea of writing more short stories, I am the teacher that gives long projects for the students to do like their autobiography. Instead next year they are going to make glogs for their autobiographies. I am also excited about the idea of the beginning of the year doing the example about writing a snapshot of each student and publishing in a book. What a creative and cleaver idea to get to know each of the kids and use for future students, visitors, and staff.

Chapter 7 Thoughts

As I was reading this chapter I kept thinking to my own teaching of writing. I am guilty as charged, I know that I have been isolating the skills. My knowledge of teaching writing has been next to nothing and so I ventured out on my own last summer to read some literature. Still, I have not shown the growth that I wanted to in teaching writing to my students and instilling the love of actual writing. I realized that what I was having my students write was not what they were interested in and they had no real auidence. I did however gain a little confidence when my second graders wrote their fairy tales. Although they were all based off the Three Little Pigs just with different characters and such, they were energetic in wanting to write them and stayed with them. We were able to take them all the way to publishing and they turned out really great. After that, I haven't had much success with motivation from the students or quality.
Reading I have realized the students need to write about something they care about adn for a reader who really matters. I liked teh sampling of minilessons that were provided on pg. 155. I am never really sure what I should teach and when, I realize that you have to do what your students are ready for.
I have a word wall in my room that has all of the words that K,1,2 students have been introduced to and should know but you would be amazed at how many 3rd graders still don't know them. I always tell them to refer to the word wall or they own personalized dictionary that they can add words to. This word wall was put up before they ever start school. I think that this year I am going to take down the whole thing and start fresh. I will keep some of the common words that are misspelled but not put up the easier ones like "a". I will not put up the words until I have reintroduced them and add more meaningful words that come up in our reading and writing.

Photo from: http://www.faculty.uoit.ca/

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