Learning Log Entry #7

Lately, this is what I’ve been thinking about:

·        Now that we have read and learned about the journal, narrative, and poetry genres, and looking ahead to the biographical genre, I am wondering how to expose students to all these genres.

·        I am thinking even more about the connections between reading and writing, and how reading is a model for writing.

·        I am also thinking about new literacies, as discussed in chapter 4 and 5 of Hicks (2009), and how they will fit into the traditional genres.

·        Are new literacies their own category of genres?

·        How do we change the audience for students when writing in different genres?

I think exposing students to different genres must include meaningful activities as described in Tompkins (2008). Because of the time restraints put on teachers and students with the amount of material to cover, engaging activities are essential. According to Tompkins, it isn’t enough to just tell students about a genre. Students must analyze genre examples through reading, but also compose pieces in those genres. Some of the activities I think would accomplish this are simulated journal entries, writing narratives, writing poems in different forms, and creating “Me” Quilts (Tompkins).

When thinking about the connections between reading and writing in a particular genre, I think back to Eckhoff’s (1983) study. This study showed that students use their reading as a model for their writing. Tompkins (2008) stated students use their concept of story in both reading and writing. Furr (2003) also discussed the connections between reading and writing in his article about struggling writers. Furr found students are more comfortable writing expository text because of their experience with guided reading. In this case, the expository genre acts as a model for students to draw specific grammar usage and spelling from. It also gives students a bank of vocabulary words to draw from. If students are given a certain type of genre repeatedly, it makes sense to me that students would feel most comfortable writing in that specific genre. Based on Eckhoff, Tompkins, and Furr, I believe struggling writers require more exposure and opportunities to analyze texts in different genres.

I wonder what happens when students are not exposed to multiple genres. It seems as though many students I work with only read narrative and expository texts. I wonder how this affects their writing skills when asked to write in genres they don’t have experience with. Actually, now that I am thinking and writing about this, I realize that students are typically asked to write in a limited number of genres, too. Most students at my school write in the expository genre, and sometimes, the narrative genre. On the state exam students are usually asked to write in the persuasive genre.

I do believe new literacies fit into their own genres. What genre is a podcast considered? What genre is a photo-essay? Is it “really” an essay? These are questions and ideas that will be explored and debated for years to come by educators.

Hicks (2009) discussed how teachers have tried to change the audience for students are writing for introducing activities like author’s chair, pen pals, and class anthologies. Hicks continued students increase their ability to share with the world when they are engaged with newer technology. I believe the audience has changed somewhat, however, in the end the audience is still the teacher. The teacher designs the rubric and grades the final project.  Ultimately, no matter how removed the teacher is from the grading, he or she is still the final audience. I am not sure how to change this or if it’s possible. I wonder if implementing peer reviews and online comments into the grade would possibly change how students view the audience. 

Eckhoff, B. (1983).  How reading affects children’s writing.  Language Arts, 60(5), 607-616.

Furr, D. (2003). Struggling readers get hooked on writing.  The Reading Teacher, 56(6),  518-525.

Learning Log Entry #6

While reading Sommers’ (1982) article I thought about the habits I have when assessing students’ compositions. I often correct mechanics, spelling, and grammar and then make a comment about the student changing the entire sentence or develop the paragraph more thoroughly. As discussed in the article, teachers’ comments are often times interpreted as mechanics are more important than meaning.

After reading this article, I realized when I instruct my students to fix mechanics, grammar, and spelling, I send the message that the meaning is subsequent to mechanics. I have thought about this over the years, as I sit and grade paper after paper repeatedly making the same comments. I would often imagine my students working to fix the all mechanical, spelling, grammatical, and stylistic errors in their compositions, and thinking, “Huh? Now I have to rewrite that entire paragraph.” I now realize how wrong this was to do to my students. I was sending the wrong message, encouraging them to edit, then revise. I shouldn’t wonder why my struggling writers were more resistant to writing!!

As discussed in Sommers’ (1982) article, teachers’ comments on students’ compositions need to be written in a manner that prompts students “back into the chaos, back to the point where they are shaping and restructuring their meaning” (p. 154). I now understand the importance of allowing students to work through their first and second drafts, focusing solely on what meaning and message they want to convey. In the future, I will use comments that instruct students to fix organizational problems, clarify the purpose, or mark confusing parts.

Sommers’ (1982) discussed the amount of time teachers spend commenting on student compositions. As I thought about the amount of time spent, I believe teachers feel compelled to respond to their students’ written work. I then asked myself, “Why are teachers spending all this time when they are doing it wrong?” When completing the revision step of the writing process, teachers should only focus on revising-not editing. As discussed in Sommer’s article, this is where a lot of the confusion happens between students and teachers. If teachers followed the correct process, the amount of comments needed on each student’s papers would be reduced. When students are focused on purpose and meaning while revising instead of mechanics, their writing will be more powerful and easier to edit. Editing should be the last thing students are concerned with. If all teachers taught writing in this manner and followed the correct procedure, I think the amount of time commenting would be reduced immensely. Assessing student work should focus on the message first and mechanics second.
           
While reading chapter 4 in Tompkins (2008) on assessing student work, I thought about the organization needed to track each student’s progress. Of the assessment tools discussed in Tompkins, I think anecdotal records are the most time consuming but offer so much data and historical information on the students’ progress. I also think implementing writing process checklist for students, as discussed in Tompkins, would also cut down on the amount of comments needed on students’ compositions. Primary trait scoring guides are also useful tools for assessing students’ progress and focuses student attention on the most important part of writing, the overall meaning.

While sitting down to write this blog, I was interrupted by my stepson and asked to correct an essay on why he thinks education is important. I resisted the urge to read it and correct the errors I saw. I asked him, “Did you read it aloud to be sure it says what you want it to.” He proudly returned a few minutes later and told me it was perfect and sent the message he wanted. I told him to read it aloud to me. He found a few errors while reading aloud and corrected them. There was still some work to do on the overall message and meaning of the piece but as he went off to take a shower, I resisted the temptation to fix the spelling, mechanical, and stylistic mistakes that were glaring at me. I thought to myself, “Now, Liz, this is just what you are reading and blogging about. Don’t do it!!!”  We worked more on the overall message and purpose before working on the mechanical, spelling, and grammatical errors. Editing in this manner seemed less arduous then when we edit the typical pieces he composes.


Sommers, N. (1982).  Responding to student writing. College Composition and
Communication, 33(2), 148-156.

Learning Log Entry #5

Dear Dr. Jones,

Class is going very well for me! How is class going for you? I am learning so much about writing and technology. I love it! I like having time to write during class and the genre project is exciting to me because we were able to choose our own topics. I chose to write about becoming a stepmother. It is the newest role I have taken on in my life and there is plenty I have to learn about this new role. I think it is wonderful we are learning to write by using technology. The number of tools available is amazing compared to just a few years ago. Are you learning a lot about technology from teaching this course?

Since starting this class I have a deeper understanding of the connections between reading and writing. In Eckhoff’s (1983) study of the connection between reading and writing, there was evidence students model their writing after the structure of what they read. I now understand the importance of exposing struggling readers to texts with more complex vocabulary and sentence structures because the texts students are reading is used as the model for what they write.  

Furr (2003) also discussed the connections between reading and writing in his article about struggling writers. Furr discusses a student who is upset about her writing because “her work doesn’t sound like the writing she’s heard, and with its multiple spelling errors and grammatical snafus, neither does it look the part” (p. 520). This student is disappointed because her written work does not have the same appearance as the models she sees when reading. Furr also discusses the idea that students are more comfortable writing expository text because of their experience with guided reading. If students are given a certain type of genre repeatedly, it makes sense to me that students would feel most comfortable writing in that specific genre. In this case, the expository genre acts as a model for students to draw specific grammar usage and spelling from. It also gives students a bank of vocabulary words to draw from.

I spend about four hours a week writing for this class. Of the four hours I spend writing, I would estimate half is spent fully transacting with the text. Fully transacting with a text, thinking when I am writing, is most easily done in my blog. I think the blog’s space feels more open and free for me to write and learn. I find when bogging the writing flows more easily because there are less restrictions placed on that type of writing. I think when I engage in other types of writing, I am too concerned about following the requirements to really think about what I am learning. The writing in my blogs demonstrates a high degree of interaction with the text and shows more learning than any other writing I complete (for any class).

I think in order to fully engage while writing, the reading/writing habit I need to change is focus. While reading for this class, I am preparing in my head the blog I will later write. I begin to have questions and ideas “churning” in my head. When I sit down to write I am able to focus on what I learned through the reading and refine, question, clarify, synthesize, and reconsider my thinking. If I engaged in that type of “reading/writing thinking” and focus all the time, I would more fully engage while writing. When I am fully transacting with a text, I learn more and have a deeper understanding of the content.

From this class I have learned the importance of explicitly teaching and modeling writing skills for students. As discussed in an earlier post, I plan on introducing science journals in my classroom. I have learned that as I introduce the journals, I must support students by explicitly modeling writing pieces for their journals. Furr (2003) found students need foundational skills, such as planning, drafting, revising, and editing, before beginning to writing on their own. I think it will be crucial to explicitly teach my students what to write and how to structure their journal entries before expecting them to write independently. I think this instructional strategy also increases confidence in students as writers. I also plan on using the card strategy discussed in Kucer and Rhodes’s (1986) article. This is another strategy that builds confidence in students as writers. Providing students a list of major ideas to write about, and allowing them to modify and collaborate about those ideas, students can focus on the meaning of their writing, opposed to the mechanics. Learning about digital writing workshops has been beneficial to my work as a literacy teacher. I understand the importance of teaching students not only about new literacies but also through new literacies. Learning about blogs, wikis, RSS readers, social bookmarking sites, digital videos, and photo essays has enhanced my understanding of the changing nature of literacy.

The biggest struggle I am having with this class is finding enough time to complete the assignments. I think the solution is better time management and sticking to the schedule I create each week. Another struggle I am encountering is finding books for my genre project. I need some help locating a few genres. I will come to your office hours for help with that. Thanks for taking the time to read my letter! Talk to you soon:)

Thanks!!!

Liz LaPierre

One of your fav 618 students

Eckhoff, B. (1983).  How reading affects children’s writing.  Language Arts, 60(5), 607-616.

Furr, D. (2003). Struggling readers get hooked on writing.  The Reading Teacher, 56(6),  518-525.

Kucer, S. B. & Rhodes, L. K. (1986).  Counterpart strategies:  Fine tuning language with language.  The Reading Teacher, 40(2),186-193.

Learning Log Entry #4

As I read Tompkins (2008), Furr (2003), and Kucer and Rhodes (1986) I thought about the similarities between the students discussed in the readings and the students that I teach everyday. My students resist writing, struggle with mechanics, and often complain they have nothing to write about. My students would be described as “novices” (p. 55) by Tompkins and are similar to the student Jack discussed in Kucer and Furr.

The questions I am thinking about after reading Tompkins (2008), Furr (2003), and Kucer and Rhodes (1986) are:

How do I change my novice writers into capable writers? Which characteristics of a capable writer do my student already possess? Which characteristics do they need to develop?

Which strategies do my students currently use when writing? What writing strategies do my students need to learn and apply when writing?

How do I increase my students’ writing skills? Most of my students struggle with writing mechanics and spelling. How do I move past this and get them to write?

Are some characteristics, strategies, and skills more important than others?

My students possess characteristics of a novice writer. My students struggle with writing and often compose short, illegible sentences. My students struggle the most with editing because they “are more concerned with mechanics than with ideas” (Tompkins, 2008, p. 56). When engaged in writing assignments, my students frequently stop to ask how to spell words and ask me if their grammar is correct. They often produce a minimal amount of writing. My students also struggle with audience, purpose, and form. When given assignments, the form is always the similar, the purpose is unknown, and the audience is always thought of as the teacher. The students I work with are not goal oriented with their writing and just want to get something written on the paper (Tompkins, 2008). My students would answer the questions on page 188 in Kucer and Rhodes’ (1986) exactly like Jack.

I believe that my students could become capable writers, if given opportunities with built in success and time to develop their skills. I plan on implementing science journals in my class and after reading Furr’s (2003) article, I thought, “why aren’t I doing that?” I should be explicitly modeling writing for my students. As I introduce the journals in science I will model exactly what students should be writing in their journals, overtime I will decrease the level of support. Eventually (in February or March) students will be working independently to complete their journal entries.

To teach my students audience, purpose, and form I will develop different types of journal entries to address all three. In order for my students to become more focused on the meaning of the writing and saving the editing for last, like capable writers, I will encourage students to write for a sustained amount of time without stopping to ask about spelling or mechanics. I think this will increase their ability to see the bigger picture and save editing until the end of the process. In order for my students to feel more goal oriented in their writing, I believe they need more exciting things to write about. I plan on developing RAFT type activities around science topics, so there is choice and flexibility in assignments.  

My students struggle with all the strategies listed on page 58 in Tompkins (2008). They struggle the most with monitoring, organizing, and proofreading. When working with my students on writing, I feel that these three strategies would be the most appropriate place to begin because they are all related and present the most difficulty for my students. 

Teaching my students writing skills in a daunting task. Many of them struggle with writing mechanics. Sometimes they cannot reread their written work. I believe practice is the answer increasing my students’ abilities in this area. During home base each day my students complete a “hand writing” practice sheets. After reading Kucer and Rhodes (1986) I plan on implementing the card strategy to teach writing to my students during home base.

I do believe some skills, strategies, and characteristics are more important than others. For example, there are some skills that are needed for all writing events. Handwriting skills and mechanical skills are needed for most writing, while reference skills and computer skills are not. Some strategies are also more important than others. When composing written work I believe organizing, monitoring, and proofreading are more important strategies than visualizing and playing with language. Although these are important, I do not believe they are a necessity. 

I think the most important thing I can do is provide my students with the opportunities to write. I think building in success and choice are the most important aspects of Furr’s (2003) and Kucer and Rhodes’ (1986) articles. Students were writing about topics important to them and also given explicit instruction on the writing process. I am excited to start writing with my students. I know they have a lot of work ahead of them, but with consistent support, practice, and success, I think they will begin to fall into the category of capable writers.