UNITS 5&6

We are at the end of our journey and I do hope you had fun reading these blog posts about our semester. We have been speaking about Promoting Writing in the Primary Grades and what a great time we've had!!

This week we looked at some approaches and activities which can be used as a means of self- expression and communication as well as a source of pleasure and relaxation. Before writing, one must know why they are writing the piece (purpose), who will be reading it, how to appeal to them (audience) and how to structure the writing and the content to include (genre). 

 

We also looked at these six genres: story (narrative), informational (expository), descriptive, poetry, letters and journals. In each genre we identified the style, purpose, audience and gave an example(s) of a teaching/learning activity for each genre. Then, in groups of three we chose a genre and provided and explained some activities that can be used for each. 

Before this class, I never knew that there were so many activities we could use to help students improve their writing! I was shocked and they were fun and easy too. For example, my group chose journals and our activities were to have students write gratitude journals that allows them to keep a record of all the things they are grateful for and another activity was to revisit old journal entries and reflect on them.

One of the most amazing things I learnt in this unit is that each genre can take on one or more style. Style is the way the writing is dressed up or down and is reflected by the choice of words, sentence fluency and the writer's voice. So a piece can be frozen eg. The Bible, formal eg. business letters, consultative eg. sonnets, casual eg. some stories or intimate eg. love letters. 

AMAZING!!

The highlight of the end of the semester was going into a primary school to see first hand a student engaging in the writing process. The experience allowed me to see both what I would do when I go back into the classroom and what I would not do. It seemed as if most teachers still use the traditional approach to writing i.e give a topic and allow students to write on it, they mark it and that is the end of it. That will definitely not be my approach upon returning to the classroom. My students will interact will books, their peers and use technology during writing while I provide feedback and use different trends to help them develop their writing skills.

Here is a link to my observation of Tekiya. 

My Writing Philosophy

MY PHILOSOPHY OF TEACHING WRITING

The following is a one-page document on my philosophy of teaching writing. Writing is defined according to Michigan State University (2002) as “a form of communication that allows students to put their feelings and ideas on paper, to organize their knowledge and beliefs into convincing arguments, and to convey meaning through well-constructed text. Learning to write occurs in steps whereby students move from scribbling to writing words, writing sentences, writing paragraphs and developing great stories and other publications. At each stage the teacher is a guide that facilitates the gradual progression between stages and to sharpen the skill of writing. This skill sharpens when students are given the opportunity to write daily. Routine writing helps students improve their writing as they are allowed the freedom to write.

Using a writer’s workshop, the teacher would teach and model effective writing. The teaching of writing includes the step by step teaching of the writing process (prewriting, writing, drafting, revising, editing and publishing) to include many strategies that students can use as they go through it. Furthermore, teachers should model writing by writing different genres so that the students can use it as a guide. It is also a great way to teach students how to be critical in their writing. There are several trends in writing that the teacher can choose from and different ways to combat challenges faced by students in writing. 

          To help with learning, teachers must give students many strategies and activities for writing and provide one on one feedback. The six traits of writing (Voice, Ideas, Presentation, Conventions, Organization, Word Choice, and Sentence Fluency) is a way of teaching, modelling, and assessing the instruction of writing. Moreover, teachers are to encourage much reading as this too helps develop students’ writing skills and allow them to see the connection between reading and writing. In addition, technology should be integrated into writing for example, digital storytelling, blogs, and wikis as a means of publishing and distributing writing. This will cause students to feel like their writing has a purpose rather than to be left inside an exercise book.

My goal for my students is to have them recognize that writing is just an expression of their thoughts and ideas organized in a well- structured manner. It is also my goal to have students appreciate different genres of writing and become critical writers. Furthermore, my ultimate goal is to have my students become good authors and publish their own pieces and/or books. Therefore, to help my students reach these goals I will first create a literacy rich environment containing a writing center, use best practices such as strategy instruction, peer assistance, prewriting activities, process writing approach etc. as well as have writer’s workshops and use technology for the writing and publishing of students' work.

Teaching Writing and the Reading-Writing Connection

It's SO nice to see you again! I have lots of things to share with you this week so I hope that you've got your pens and papers at hand! What I am about to share with you will absolutely blow your mind!

Prior to this class, I had been taught through a different course that Reading and Writing are connected and that a good reader is a good writer. However, this week's class really created that aha moment that I needed. 

So the lecturer comes in with many small reading books and I wondered what on earth are we gonna do with these? I was excited though because the weeks prior, language classes were so fun. We each got to choose a book and read it to ourselves. I looked for a book whose cover and title looked interesting and animated. I found a book that was entitled "Leo Goes To The Library" and there was a huge orange cat on the cover. Certainly, it could not have been that cat who was going to the library, I thought. 

The title and picture caught my curiosity so I chose that book.

The book was a short but interesting read and I could see children loving this story about the huge orange cat. After reading, the teacher asked us a strange question. She asked us to look at each sentence and see what lessons in grammar that could be taught from the book. 

Puzzled I began to go through each sentence and I realized that from this less than ten (10) paged book I could teach so many aspects of language. I could teach compound sentences (eg. When Leo wants to eat, he knows where to find food.), I could teach adjectives (eg. Leo is a huge orange cat, birds screech, pet shop), I could teach synonyms (eg. huge orange cat, big orange cat), I could teach literary devices (eg, purrfect), I could teach compound words (eg. inside, catnap, weekday) and many other things.

I was completely blown away by this discovery!

The one thing that I have taken away from this class that I will certainly do is to have reading books at EVERY CLASS! From this activity students can then write responses to these books in journals, summarize the books, improve on the different genres of writing. Reading helps students to learn different text structures and vocabulary and the use of language which would in turn help them to transfer this knowledge to their own writing. I strongly urge all teachers to include reading books into every language class and generate lessons from them. Furthermore, allow students to see the connections between reading and writing so that they themselves will see the importance of reading in order to become better at writing.

Writing as a Stage, A Process and A Trait

Guys! Guys! Gather around! Cause YOU my language scholars have GOT to hear this!

So I know you've just been dying to hear what I've learnt this week and I'm as eager to share. But, did you know that writing takes on different forms?

 

Yep! And I was just as surprised to find out! Writing is in stages, it is a process and it has 6 (plus 1) traits. Well since you never knew I'd be more than happy to inform you. Then I'm gonna tell you how this weeks' lesson went!

  Great! 

So let's begin....

I learnt that there are four stages in writing: the emergent stage, early stage, transitional stage and the fluent stage. Each stage has its own unique attributes and children  move from stage to stage smoothly. Each stage is just as important as the other and the stages are not bound to specific ages or grades. However, specific activities  should be given to help them move on to the other stage(s).




Awesome! 

So let's move on...... Writing is a process. The first part to writing is PreWriting, where you brainstorm and generate and explore ideas on what you are going to write. You can even use pictures  and other tools such as a graphic organizer. The next stage is called drafting whereby the writing is put together as a coherent whole. I love that in this stage there is no need to focus on spelling and other mechanical issues. YAY! After drafting is revising. Here we were introduced to an easy way to help our students remember how to revise their work, using the acronym ARMS.

A- Adding
R- Removing
M- Moving
S- Substituting

Pretty cool huh!  

The next stage in the writing process is editing and to help students remember how to edit we used another acronym called CUPS.

C- Capitalization
U- Usage
P- Punctuation
S- Spelling

    OH YEA!!!!

Now its time to publish or share our final copy which is the last stage in the writing process. The way it is published or shared is entirely up to you.




After looking at the writing process we looked at the characteristics of writing. The Six Traits of writing are Ideas, Organization, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency and Conventions. These traits create a guideline for teachers to use with students so that students would become familiar with the terms used in writing and help both the student and teacher identify the areas of writing that the student needs work at improving.

So what is the +1?



The “Plus One” trait is the presentation of the writing piece. This is the trait that is considered for all writing, but not specifically or directly taught as the other traits are.

NOW, let's get down to business.... how did I become such a master teacher of writing you may ask. Well, after the week's lesson I became an expert because we were asked to demonstrate the writing process. 

A picture was placed on the board of a familiar scene...The Beach!

 Students were engaged in a whole class discussion about what they saw in the picture while making real life connections to their own experiences on the beach. Afterwards, students began to write freely about a day at the beach. 

 

The above prewriting checklist was used to help students to ensure everything is included in their story. I personally like this checklist because it would grab the students' interest and imagine the students asking themselves, "Did you remember to use farts?" Besides them getting a 'kick' out of using the word farts IN CLASS, they would certainly use it as a point of reference and in the long-run this will ensure that students think about all the things a good story needs to have when they are writing. 

After the students wrote and edited their stories it was time to share. This was done orally. Teachers can use author's chair to have children share their stories. This gives our students a voice and allow others to celebrate and critique their writing. 

The writing process should not be taught all at once. Students should be allowed to master each stage of the writing process and perfect the traits of writing. Many activities should be given to cater to this. One strategy I believe I would use the most is peer-editing. Peer- editing would allow students to not only recognize weaknesses in another students' writing but would also help to strengthen that students' writing as they become more aware of good writing.

Comment below if you've enjoyed this post and remember there is no wrong or write in writing! 

Unit 5 & 6

okay so BOOM !
Today we're merginggggg 2 units instead of having two separate blog posts.

Basically in Units 5 & 6 I learned about approaches and activities for promoting writing in elementary school as well as designing writing assessments and assignments for elementary school.

We looked at the different genres of writing as well as the purpose of the writing as well as the audience in which the writing is designed for. We examined in detail each aspect fo the three previously mentioned so that we'd have a clear understanding of each and we did just that, well I definitely did lol.
We also looked at various tools that can help to promote this same writing, for example students can use: Journals, portfolios, poetry, songs, short stories, dialogues and much more as a means of assent of their writing. teachers can use these different tools to test the genres that students are more comfortable with and actually understand.

Developing a writing philosophy for teaching.

• “If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” – Toni Morrison

This quote is so powerful, often time there a books students want to read or wish they could find but no one has written them yet. I think to myself what if they stop looking for books that people have written and start create books that others would never think of. They become their own authors and the things they look for as readers they will definitely find as they would cater to their needs as well as children or adults all over the word. 

Personally, I think children learn to write not by just learning the process or the aspects of writing but by first reading. When I was younger, I read a lot of books. 

Well for me they were lol. 

I learned how to write by reading how others wrote. Smart right?

So yes, children do learn how to write when we teach them the steps to producing great pieces but reading great pieces is a major element of becoming a great writer. We must not only write our work but we must read the work of there great writers in order to grow. Teaching students the process of writing and allowing them to be exposed to various genres of writing expands their vocabulary, their imagination, the development or various writing skills and so much more. 

As an instructor I will do just that. I will teach and practice with my students, allow them to learn from their mistakes as well as teach them how to not make these mistakes again. As an instructor I will provide my students with opportunities to read various genres so they can focus on their preferred style of writing as well as know how to write in any genre that may come their way. 

I have many goals for my students as writers, some of which are: 

Help Students Find Their Voice

Help Students Articulate and Follow Their Values

  Increase their motivation to write. 

  Help students to Independently write great pieces.

They keep to accomplishing this goals is to do what I previously mentioned above as well as use the strategies that I have learned to help my students become the great writers I know they can be. These strategies will make writing easier for them allowing them to be more relaxed and comfortable thus causing their love for writing to grow rather than seeing it as just another aspect of learning. Writing will become a part of them, something they love, a way of expressing their feelings, their opinions, a way of being THEM.

TWRWC

T - Teaching
W - Writing
R-W - Reading-Writing
C - Connection

Okay Guys so today we're talking about Unit 3. In this class we were presented with a number of books for children. We were instructed to take any one of our choice.
Ms. Quinn chose a few volunteers to read their books and of course I was the first.

At first I thought she just wanted to know the books we chose and wanted us to share with the class but little did we know that was not the intended purpose. After everyone shared we were asked to take note of the things that we could teach from the books we chose. I was so amazed when I realized the many topics of Language that can be taught from a simple story. You could teach punctuation, capital letters, subject and verb agreement and so much more. These little story books were like mini teachers. CCCRRAAZZYYYY

Afterwards we were given guidelines tips to writing narrative stories. Narratives are actually my favourite time of stories so I was quite excited. Ms. Quinn gives 15-20 minutes to complete our story and boyyy was I ready. 

The minute my pen touched that paper I was goneeeee. I ended up finishing my story that class even before the time was up. Unfortunately I did not get to read my story to the class that did but I knew it was a good one. 

We also dealt with different genres and split up in groups to write pieces from these genres that catered for a particular grade. That helped us to focus on the content and make sure it was age appropriate. That day created great awareness in me that books are more than just pieces of paper with words. Everything has a purpose. 

Writing - I am a stage. I am a process. I am a trait.

Okay, so today we are talking about Writing.
There are four stages:

  * Emergent Stage - At this stage some of the characteristics are scribbling, tracing drawing, developing fine motor skills, developing speech, developing ideas orally etc.

* Early Stage - This involves, writing via invented spelling, telling their own stories, adding more structure to their thinking, spell words by analogy, learning to make comparisons etc. 

* Transitional Stage - This involves spelling words correctly, writing in more genres, greater control over capitalization & punctuation, developing ideas and organization & more.

* Fluent Stage - At this stage, conventional spelling, greater control over their ideas, critique their own writing and that of others etc. 

There are five processes:

                                    Me:    Can you guess what they are?

Y'all:

Alright, Alright, I got you.

They are: 

 * Prewriting - Generating and brainstorming ideas.

* Drafting - Writing ideas as a coherent whole.

* Revising - Reviewing and refining ideas. 

* Editing- Conventions; word choice, spelling, grammar, punctuation. (CUPS)

*Publishing - Sharing the finished piece. 

Last but not leastttttt 

THE TRAITS

 *Ideas- Overall message and meaning.

*Organization- Structure of the writing.

*Voice- Writer's passion can also be style.

*Word Choice- Parts of speech writers choose to convey.

*Sentence Fluency-The way sentences sound to the ear, grammar, phrasing etc.

*Conventions- Making writing connect and understandable. (spelling, capital letters etc.)

*Presentation- How the writing appears. 

Using this new knowledge my group was given the task of choosing a trait to develop using one activity/strategy.

We chose drafting & editing & focused on Ideas.

We had an entireeeee birthday party  OKURRRR ! 

We demonstrated each element and our classmates were able to understand what our trait was and how we implemented it.

I suggest that teachers do as we did, sometimes students feel overwhelmed while they are learning and new information are more effective if they are not thrown at students all at once. Teachers could pick one trait to focus on which will allow students to master it and become familiar and comfortable as well. Teachers can also teach these traits to students in an engaging exciting way. usually when students are having fun during lessons they learn a lot more and don't feel as though they are being stifled by information which in the end allows the information to settle more in their memory when they are able to make real life connections and not just pencil to paper.

THANK YOU FOR VIEWING !
SEE YOU NEXT TIME

Approaches and Activities & Assessment and Assignment

Everything you don't know is something new you can learn.

Hey guyssss, Welcome Back !

I am so excited to share unit 5 and 6 with .


Oh ok Here we goooooo
In unit five I learnt about approaches and activities which would promote writing in the primary grade level. Writing has different purposes for the different genres. For example: the purpose of descriptive writing it to encourage students to become careful observers and choose precise language when they use description.

Also, activities such as a wah dat dey, character sketches, comparisons, descriptive paragraphs, descriptive sentences are activities which could bring out the purpose of descriptive writing.


Teachers should prepare the classroom environment for writing by including tools for revising their writing such as scissors, tape etc. They should also include teacher-made charts, reference materials and materials for book marking. Implementing this material would support students writing efforts.


Also, collaborative activities can be used to have a strong impact on students writing.This could encourage them to make suggestions and use examples from one another work. Also, teacher should ensure students to publish they writing it could be on a Word wall, wall of frame, author's chair, blog or even podcast.
Also, I learnt abut the four revising strategies teacher should use,which are: adding (pushing in ), Replacing (trading), Re-ording( cutting and sorting) and Revising while you write.

Overall, unit five was an beneficial to me because I personally know writing is very difficulty however, I learnt ways in which I would encourage students so they can learn to write. In the future, I could ensure to prepare the classroom environment to encourage students in their writing and involve collaborative activities to develop students writing skills.

Now ! on to Unit 6

Unit Six is about Designing writing assessment and assignments for the primary grade. I learnt that it is important to test students writing performance by observing them to gain information so that I would be able to make instructional decisions.

Also, after completing a group assignment which involve observing a student writing process, we learnt about the student writing such as what she knows,having challenges with and so on. We were able to identify her strengths and weakness and formulate recommendations to help her improve.

 I learn also that rubrics helps teacher answers questions about the pieces and the purpose of the three types of rubrics. For example: I learn that the Primary Trait Scoring Rubrics vary with the writing purpose and audience.

Overall the knowledge I have learnt in unit six was beneficial to me as a preservice teacher. In the further, I could utilize the knowledge learnt by observing my students writing process so that i would be able to make recommendations to aid their weaknesses. Also, having learnt the purpose of the different rubrics I would be able to use them appropriately.

I suggest that teachers utilize approach and activities to encourage students in the writing process. Also, I recommend that teachers utilize the appropriate rubrics to aid the students final writing that they have publish to them.

Writing Philosophy

Writing Philosophy

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go. (E.L. Doctorow)

Writing is a activity or skill which involve composing text to publish. As a pre-service teacher, I believe students learnt to write from frequently practicing and development of their fine motor skills. At the early stage for child development, children will learn to  write with the use of sand box, play dough and the tracing of letters so that they can have  practice and develop  their writing skills. Also, they will use paper scissors, rubber bands, buttons to develop their fine motor skills which would aid them with their writing process. As the child get older there begin to practice to write cursive. Then their will learn to write independently and also learn to write different types of writing such as narrative, descriptive,persuasive ,poetry and expository as they go thru the different grade level. This involves frequently practicing to get a better understanding of the writing, also feed back from they teacher is also important so that they could improve every time they are engaged in the writing process.

I could be apart of the writing process by utilizing different strategies and activities to aid students in their writing. Also, I could give students steps and guidelines when completing the different types of writing styles. For example narrative includes characters and setting, literary techniques, chronology and a moral to the story. Also, the I could use activities such as original short stories, personal narratives and retelling of stories to aid the students in the writing of stories. These activities would aid students to bring out the purpose of narrative writing which is to encourage students to retell familiar stories.

As a teacher I expect my students to become good writer in the different types of writing styles, as I read their different pieces I am being inform, persuade, a picture is drew in my mind and they are expressing themselves in their writing. Also, I want my students to have a passion for writing, as I am reading their pieces the words are jumping out at me. 

As a teacher in the future, I would ensure to give students alot of practice and give them a lot of feedback to help improve in their writing in the future.The more practice students are provided with the better they would become because they will be able to work on their weakness and improve. Also, I will ensure to motivate them by creating an environment to bring out their creativity and I will also use activities to aid the different genre. 

Writing and reading Connection & Philosophy of Writing

Time to Share!

Today, I will be sharing unit 3 and 4  with you guys, which are  Teaching Writing and Reading Connection, & Developing a Philosophy of Writing for Teaching.

In Unit 3: Teaching Writing and the Reading Connection, I learnt that reading books could help aid teachers in teaching grammar in Language Arts lesson. After completing an activity I learnt that reading books could be used to teach lesson such as grammar. For example I had selected a book "Look at that !" This book could be used to teach Punctuation and vocabulary. I find that this information gained is beneficial to me as a pre-service teacher because I could use the information learnt into my classroom in the future. 

Then we were giving some guidelines for writing a Personal Narrative. I was given the opportunity to write a story catering for students in the primary grade level within 15 minutes. I wrote a story about "My 10th Birthday Gift", some of my classmate shared their pieces and I really enjoyed them. As they were reading and feedback was giving to them I was able gather more ideas to insert in my writing piece and insert certain aspect in my story. Basically I used they feedback as a guide for me to complete my piece.

After, I completed my story at home I gathered my primary age group cousins and neighbor to hear my story that I had created. They enjoyed it, I had to read it over and over for them, they had a good laugh. After reading my story to them I would say that I had achieve my purpose of my story which was to entertain them.

I like the fact that we could use dialect in our story, I felt like the dialect helped in grabbing the students attention. I recommend that teachers allow the students to use dialect in their narrative pieces to encourage them to express themselves in they writing. While I was reading the story for these students they began correcting me stating that it is  incorrect because I have dialect in it and so on.


Overall, the purpose of my narrative piece "My 10th Birthday Gift" is to entertain the students because it is a real life story of a incident that occurred which would aid the students with a little laugh.

 Also, I was engaged in a activities in which I learnt that on topic can cater for different purpose. We were giving a topic "Sex Education" my group members and I had to complete a writing a piece in which we had to entertain grade 5 and 6 about sex education. It was a bit difficult because we had to be careful of words we selected and we have to actually bare it in mind while writing the piece.  Few times we have to correct the story so that it could cater for the students.

However, after sharing with the class they enjoy it and it was perfect for the grade level and the purpose. At first I thought the topic was not appropriate, however after hearing the different pieces catering for different purpose and audience. I was amazed to see that the topic "Sex Education" could cater for different purpose and age group.  

This information is beneficial to me because, I would be able to apply the knowledge learnt into my writing pieces  by ensuring that  I select the appropriate word choices and the length.In the further, I would ensure to be mindful of my word choices when writing pieces for primary grade level.

NOW ON TO THE NEXT UNIT !

In Unit 4: Developing a Philosophy of Writing for Teaching, we did Genre, Styles, Purpose, Audience and Teaching and Learning Activities. I learnt about the writing styles for six Genres and their purpose. For example I learnt that a Story has writing styles such as frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate writing styles. This is important because I would be able to encourage and help my students in practicing different writing styles in different genre in the future. For example I could have them writing letters in casual form, consultative and more. This would benefit the students because they will become aware of the different ways letters could be used for.

    Also, my group members and I were engaged in activity. We had to find six activities for teaching Poetry and explained them to the whole class. As a group we worked together and research two activities individually to get a total of 6 activities. I found Poetry close read which guides students to create a poem by giving steps and  Music to teach poetry this involves having the students pick they favorite song and  share the lyrics in the way they would read a poem.

    After, my other classmates share information on activities for other genre, I love all the activities which are display in front of me. I think these activities would benefit students because they will be learning at the same time while having fun also using activities would help the students remember. I recommend that teachers should utilize these activities to aid the in completing the different genres.