Manifesto

Future Classroom Literacy Manifesto
Furniture should incorporate artistic, hygienic, and educational not just for listening.
It is important not just to teach students skills but make sure they know the reason behind learning these skills and why they are important.
As a teacher you must guide the students to get to a GOAL that was predetermined.
Teachers shouldn’t teach writing as a formula but as a strategy.
“If we name and define the craft techniques we see by the work they do in the text, then this will help us understand more clearly the situations where this technique might work for us or for our students when we are writing.”
Schema, making connections. (I learned, I wonder, Wow!)
Sticky notes! Allowing children to write down and mark important ideas in books and on projects.
Display work! Students will be proud and want to show others. MOTIVATION!
Students have the freedom to choose topics they are interested in and they get to research and explore these topics on their own.
Word walls for new vocabulary and teaching tool.

Givens in class writing

23. Assigning writing, marking, and grading it, then returning it is not teaching writing. Teaching requires explicit instruction, repeated modeling, frequent feedback during the writing process, multiple opportunities for writing in a variety of genres, both formal and informal, and practice over an extended period of time.

I agree with “given” because I feel for myself and other students that when we revise and go over papers numerous times you come up with a better product then your first draft you started with. When a teacher hands back and paper and has red ink covering it then I feel discouraged about my writing and not confident for the next writing assignment. If a teacher goes over the paper with students then that gives the student an opportunity to realize what they did wrong and what skills they need to work on to improve their writing. Getting feedback while in the process of writing tends to help students so they are continually making the same mistakes over and over again throughout their paper. This also gives the student an opportunity to ask the teacher questions and advice if they need help with something. Going over a paper several times allows us to catch mistakes when wouldn’t ordinarily make if we just slowed down and analyzed our writing.

Reflection of Ladybugs

Ladybugs, Tornadoes, and Swirling Galaxies is a great resource for the classroom not only for ELLS but for any classroom. They emphasis the use of sticky notes and building schema. This book had many great ideas for setting up the classroom with low tables, the use of rugs to designate areas, and having an abundant amount of supplies for the students. I also liked the idea about how students have the freedom to choose topics they are interested in and they got to research and explore these topics on their own. The idea of the teacher being their for guidance and not just telling you what to do really stuck out to me and think it would be beneficial in any classroom. Some ideas in this work I feel would be difficult to do in a classroom but if you put in the time I think it would be worth it for the results you will gain from it. The idea of displaying work around the classroom is an awesome idea because students will be proud of their work. I know whenever I go into a classroom and the walls are covered with students’ work it such a more welcoming and exciting classroom. I really did like the sticky notes idea because this allows for students to write things down in a book that they find important or interesting. I know when I was in school it was very frowned upon to write and put anything in the books. I learned, I wonder, wow! Is a great concept for investigation and research and I find it would be a good format for students to have and can be very helpful to improve their skills. Word walls are fun and think would be a great way for students to learn new vocabulary and as a teacher you could use these on a daily basis. This book is all about inquiry and how the classroom is centered around the students and the teacher is their to guide them to the discovery of new ideas and topics and I think this is a good plan for a classroom. This is a book I will go back to after this class to use some of the ideas and implement them in my own classroom one day.

Presentations on April 11th

The first group to present was “Nonfiction Matters.”  this group did a great job I really liked how they focused solely on writing a story in the beginning. This allowed for students to actually think about what they were writing. Then they had the groups draw their story that they came up with. This allowed for students to be creative and work together. This activity incorporates a lot of different learning styles which is great for the students. They can show their strengths and learn new things from other students. I did feel that this group spent a lot of time on talking about the book and was a little dry but then we did the activity and it was fun and got everyone on the same page. I presented in the second presentation and feel we were a little unprepared but I feel the activity really worked well and it seemed like everyone had a good time. We brainstormed many ideas but we felt that if students got together in groups and got to create a story then act it out that it would really get everyone involved. We were hoping the stories would be fun and entertaining and they defiantly were. Overall I feel that a group did a great job on our presentation.

April 9th Presentation Reviews

Overall both groups did a wonderful job. They both had new and fun activities that got every student involved. The technology group had a great idea on focusing on the writing first then using the technology that we had available to illustrate the story we had written. This allows for the students to be able to focus on what they are writing and not just use the technology to help improve their writing skills. This activity also works on different students’ strengths. Some are more creative than others so this allowed for others to work together and create something fantastic. Students got to work together and I feel that allowed for the stories to become more creative and unique because students got to bounce ideas off one another. The Readicide group had a very fun activity. I feel everyone in the class really enjoyed it. I like how you had a recording reading the book which made the story more entertaining then just reading it aloud. Also incorporating activities throughout the short story kept everyone involved and focused on what was happening throughout the story. This group used a lot of different types of activities that built on each other which was great. They went from drawing a picture, to writing down our own personal fears, to describing the ending of the story, and finally with writing a short poem. This was a variety of tasks that used many different skills all in one lesson.

Wiley Class Discussion

Schaffer’s formula is used to teach writing and make it the process that seems messy more organized and easy to manage. This will allow students to have a guideline on how they can effectively write. Schaffer says, “No matter what the task, if students follow the recipe, the final product will satisfy all appetites.” I find there are different ways to writing and you don’t always use the same format to get to the final product. When asked to follow a specific format students over think and find writing more challenging then when they are just asked to start writing a response. Also when using a format it can take away from the creativity in your writing. You wouldn't write a science investigation the same way you would write an English paper. Guidelines are helpful when writing but that’s what they are guidelines not a specific format that you have to follow. When asked to start writing and pick a topic sentence I just froze because its hard to figure out is that one sentence the best I could come up with? It has to caught the writers attention and then I critic myself and doubt my own writing ability. Also I have found that when you ask students to follow a specific format they end up being more worried about the format than the content that they are writing about.

Formulaic Writing

The main problem today with teaching writing is that teachers don’t have the necessary resources they need in the classroom to effectively teach students how to do formulaic writing. The Jane Schaffer Approach to teaching writing identifies and defines key terms that teachers and students must memorize so that they share the same language when discussing writing. Schaffer provides diagrams and examples of papers to help students and teachers with the format of a paper. Also there are prewriting activities that should occur like rubrics to guide the students in the right direction when writing their paper. Another prewriting activity that is helpful is drawing diagrams to help students organize their thoughts. Schaffer’s method is appealing to teachers because it gives them all the necessary tools to teach writing such as lesson plan and worksheets that they can use right away. Teachers shouldn’t just teacher writing as a formula but as a strategy. When we teach students that it is a formula we are saying that all writing is the same and you can use the same format for any type of writing but this isn't true. There are many different types of writing and if students look at writing as a strategy they will benefit much more. When teaching writing Schaffer’s method should be one of many different strategies you use to teach writing. Finding strategies for writing will be helpful for both the teacher and the student.