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. 

Book Club

For the book club choice I chose the book Wondrous Words: Writers and Writing in the Elementary Classroom. I found that this book to be interesting because it focuses on elementary school aged children and that is the age group I want to teach in the future. Also from different reviews I have read this book shows the teacher new and exciting ways to teach students to read like writers. This book is a guide to helping teachers teach writing and teach the students how to read like writers. This book can also help with first year teachers and help them learn their “craft” for teaching. I’m not the strongest writer so having a resource that can help me improve my skills as an individual then it will greatly benefit me as a teacher. This book would be a great resource for a teacher and her students because it has many examples of how to teach writing in the classroom. This book shows ways to make writing fun and I think that is what is needed in the classroom.

In Class Writing: Feb 5th

In Class Writing

In the Dewey article he explained that as a teacher you must guide the students to get to a goal that was predetermined. This is related to outcomes are both aimed for an emergent. Outcomes of activity cannot be completely known of prescribed in advance; although there may be prior agreement about the goal to be aimed for, the route that is taken depends on emergent properties of the situation-the problems encountered and the human material resources available for the making of solutions.   Students will reach a goal in their own way. The child will realize their own impulse through recognition which is educative. When a student has to work through a problem on their own they  learn better then when you as a teacher just tells them what to do and how everything is suppose to work without them figuring it out for themselves. The child will go through processes to reach this goal and with the guidance of the teacher can learn to recognize the thinking process they went through. This type of learning is more effective students have the help of the teacher if they don’t understand the material but they still get to figure it out individually and work at their own pace. The child will first express their impulse and then go through criticism, question, and suggestion bring him to consciousness of what he has done, and what he needs to do, and the result is quite different. This result will allow for the child to look over their work and figure out where the problem occurred or how they reached their answer. This is teaching them to think about thinking.

Szwed's "The Ethnography of Literacy"

In “The Ethnography of Literacy” by Szwed he explained literacy and how we can study and improve it. The quote from the article “The capacity to read and write is causally associated with earning a living, achieving expanded horizons of personal enlightenment and enjoyment, maintaining a stable and democratic society, and historically, with the rise of civilization itself” I find very interesting and true. People want to be able to read and write to better benefit themselves in their lives. It is shown that being illiterate is thee single root cause of poverty so its very important to gain these skills in life. The cause for the failure of literacy can be blamed on several different things such as poor teaching, over-sized classrooms, competition with the new media, and society. All of these circumstances I feel you can see in your everyday classroom and need to be worked on and improved. Also people as a whole don’t fully understand what literacy is. It is entirely possible that teachers are able to teach reading and writing as abstract skills, but do not know what reading and writing are for in the life and future of their students. 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. If we don’t teach students why these skills are important they wont be interested in learning them and wont feel it is necessary to continue working on these skills. The goal of education is to produce a society of people who are equally competent at these skills but there is yet to be a society who have effectively reached this state. So we should reevaluate what we are doing in the classroom in order to reach this. Not only do we have problems with defining literacy but we also have problems defining the activities of reading and writing. Definitions of reading and writing must include social context and function use as well as the reader and the text of what is being read and written. A reader is more motivated to read something that they find interesting to themselves. There are five elements of literacy which include text, context, function, participants, and motivation. All five of these elements are needed to become competent in literacy. There are two groups of literacy public and private literacy. This is the difference between what one reads and writes at work, at school, and elsewhere. If there is a gap between these two domains there can be serious consequences. People need to be continually working on their literacy in order to become good at it. When you leave a classroom and don’t take anything from it into the real world then there is no point of even going to school. As an individual you need to take what you learn in the classroom and use it in your everyday life in order to keep learning and gain new skills. Ethnography is a study where there is a need to keep literacy within the logic of the everyday lives of people, to avoid cutting these skills off from the conditioned which affect them in direct and indirect ways. When using ethnography you use real cases and individual examples in order to gain the strength of evidence that comes with being able to examine specific cases in great depth and complexity. I wonder if this would be the best way to do our research to help people understand literacy.

Mallory Alves
ENGL 333
05 February 2013

Reading Response for Dewey

While reading Dewey I found many points to be very interesting. I liked the example they used when talking about furniture and desks in the classroom. The main functions for these desks and furniture is solely based on listening and doesn't incorporate artistic, hygienic, or educational. These characteristics are what we need in the classroom not just listening. I also found it interesting how the classroom is evolving in which it should be. In earlier education the gravity in the classroom was not focused on the child individually but  the group as a whole. But nowadays that is changing and the child is becoming the center in which the appliances of education revolve. I feel this is the way I classroom should be centered. It should be centered around the child’s needs and ways the learn best. The children in the classroom should be able to express themselves on their own but they need someone to guide them and that’s the role of the teacher. We can direct the child’s activities but still letting them end up with their own solutions and paths which was explained in the reading. Children have the simple desire to “mess around” and imitate others and this is a way for them to express what they see in their lives and what they are learning for others. This is why children need time to outside of the classroom and not just sitting in a desk all day. I have helped in a preschool classroom and if you want the children when they are playing during free play they will be imitating parents, teachers, and other older people in their lives. They are learning through observation just like we do.  Children learn through social expression and this is a key concept that we need to incorporate in the classroom. Children learning better in social situations then just sitting in a desk and listening to a teacher. For example children using their imagination allows for them to express new ideas and use objects in their environment to act out different situations. Imagination is key in a child’s learning and we shouldn't take that away. We can set guidelines to help the children understand how and where they came up with theses ideas so they can see understand their own process of thinking.