Saturday, January 24, 2009
Writer's Notebook Ch. 5&6 group b 4pm
View the first sample chapters (available on line) Using the Writer's Notebook in Grades 3-8: A Teacher's Guide at (http://www1.ncte.org/library/files/Store/Books/Sample/35006chap1-2_x.pdf) and begin your writers notebook then post entries on Class Blog. Engage in an online discussion group on our class blog. Please read designated chapters and 1)propose “meaty” fat questions to discuss, 2) make connections to your teaching and work with students, and 3) make connections to your work as a writer (ie Keep your own notebook and share your response to it), 4)Please respond to two of your classmates’s entries in your study group, 4) Consider how what you have learned from this book might support the work of your integrated language arts unit.
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Hi Allison and Heather,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading chapter 5 and felt like I learned so much. I absolutely loved how specific this chapter was and gave such great examples of actual literature to use for certain topics. So many times, I feel I read things that tell me what to do when teaching, but rarely ever give me actual suggestions of how exactly to get there! I haven't really used any of the specific literature that they recommended in my classroom, but got some great suggestions. Have either of you used those titles of literature, or recommend other titles to use for memories, cultures, special places, friendships, or other topics?
Some of the titles and topics that I feel I can implement in my class is the friendship book Rosie and Michael, and then using sentence starters, have my students write about a friend. I can also use this as part of our "friendship group" that I do where my students practice social skills and learn how to have conversations and topics of friends.
One of the other books that I can use is Always Wear Clean Underwear! and Other Ways that Parents Say I Love You. I think that I can use this book more as a reference for language learning, and how to interpret what people mean in a conversation.
I was thinking that I can use the topic writing about school in my Unit on sequencing. I can read a book about a school experience, and then ask my kids to brainstorm something they learned in school. I can then have some of them try and write down the sequential steps that they went through to learn it. It may require a lot of prompting for them, but I feel it is worth a shot.
What about you girls, do you find that using literature in your classroom helps inspire great writing, or do you think that actual experience and discussion can do just as well? I'm sure both do, but I'm wondering when you find it's more useful for you to use literature?
In chapter 6, I thought it was so important that Elliott states, "If I skip sharing, I lose 50 percent of my teaching and learning potential". This quote totally stuck out to me, because although I knew sharing was important for motivation, confidence, and editing, I never realized what an actual HUGE part it is. Do you guys ever find yourselves skipping or cutting down sharing time because your students are so concentrated on their writing? If so, do you see it making a big difference?
Hi Allison and Tiffany!
ReplyDeleteTiffany I agree 100% with what you posted about Chapter 5, I really appreciated the titles also. I found that some of the books that were listed are ones I already use in my classroom for other purposes. This year we have been focusing on making text connections. So far we have read Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco twice to talk about text-to-self connections. I never thought to then extend the book and their connections into longer writing pieces. It seems like such an obvious thing now that I read it in this chapter, and it is something I plan on doing in the future.
As a class we also read part of The Circuit: Stories from the Life of an immigrant child, and The summer my father was ten as parts of the Making Meaning series we have. When we do read these, I will now plan to work on memoirs in writers workshop to show the students how memoirs can be so different. I also like the book Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street as a way to get the kids to look at what happens around them everyday and notice what they could write about.
I think making personal connections to what you are reading and then writing about them will play a vital part in my unit. As the students focus on what it was like for the pioneers to move, and leave everything they knew behind, I want my students to really connect to that and think about how they would feel if they had to do that. The way that they will do this is through writing in journals or creating some representation of how they would feel. I think giving them options of how to express what they think the pioneers felt will be key for some of my students in order to be successful.
The quote about cutting sharing out really struck me also. I find myself cutting that a lot, and I feel bad about doing it, but time just flies while they are writing. We are doing a poetry unit right now, and I'm trying to give them time each day to share, and they love it. If I know we're not going to have time to share what I try and do is let the students talk more during workshop, so they are sharing and celebrating with one another while they write. I love to listen to them talk while they write, because they take it so seriously, and love getting feedback from one another.
Tiffany, I'm interested in how you would approach publishing with your class. Are any of your students able to use the computer to type any of their writing? even if it is just the completion of a sentence starter? Allison how do you approach this with your class? I used to have 4 computers in my room, so it was easier to have students publish when they were all in different places. We have a laptop cart now, and 1 computer in the room. The trouble I have is when I get the laptops out they all want to type no matter where they are in the writing process and are publishing things that are not ready. Any ideas/suggestions?
Hi Tiffany and Heather!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading your entries because I felt like we all really took the same concepts out of these two chapters. I will start by answering your questions - Heather, we actually have a publishing center at my school which parents volunteer at the beginning of the year to be a part of. They are trained to type in a specific format, and teachers send their student's work to them to be published in a book. Then in May we have a Publishing Center Fair where all the books are put around the school for students and their families to browse through. It is really an awesome experience for them. We also have a computer lab, and in my classroom I have Alphasmarts which the students LOVE because they can type their own stories and then print them. They are like mini-computers that are very small and portable.
Tiffany - unfortunately I definitely find myself cutting sharing because of time constraints. I hate doing this because I know how valuable it is to have your students share their work to take ownership of it, but when it is time for a special or lunch we just have to stop. I always promise students who want to share but didn't have time to that they can share at the end of the day before dismissal. I also do pair-share where students share their work with other students or a small group so they still feel like an author even though they are not sharing in front of the whole class.
I really loved how chapter five delves into the different roles a writer's notebook can play in the classroom. I find that the suggestions are very practical and exciting. I was really intrigued by the Name Stories because I had never thought of that before! My students have also read Thank You, Mr. Falker, which is one of my favorites, but we did not respond in our writer's notebooks, just our reading journal, which I guess can be the same thing? I think kids really will really like all of the topics suggested by Elliott because they like to talk about themselves, and all of the topics are really centered around the child's lives. It also creates a spring board where students can use the ideas or "seeds" they put down to enhance their writing in the future. I also feel that it gives them an outlet. Elliott suggested having the students write about their feelings and moods which is very therapeutic for many students. Yesterday I had the students write about their worst day ever, and then we shared our stories and laughed so hard at what each student had to say! It was a blast. Before this lesson, though, I read Alexander and the No Good, Horrible, Very Bad Day - one of my favorites! I think it is so important to incorporate literature into writing because it helps kids get more ideas, and it is a good model to show kids how to write.
I am curious how you guys go about editing because it is an area that is really an issue for me. I try to help them kids out with editing, but I want them to realize their own mistakes and correct them. How do you guys approach editing in your classrooms? Do you find that it is a struggle to get your students to really reread their own work? My kids don't like to reread their work because they feel that when they finish, they are completely done. Any advice???
This chapter was also perfect for my unit because I am going to have the students write in their journals about their feelings regarding traveling west in a covered wagon. I really want them to feel empathy for the pioneers, and I feel that this is a great way to get them to understand what it was like to walk across the country!
Hi Allison and Tiffany!
ReplyDeleteAllison- that publishing center sounds wonderful! I wish we had that. I also have Alphasmarts in my room, we have to load the stuff onto a computer before we can print off them. The kids don't mind using them, but I don't like them. When we go to transfer the stuff onto the computers a lot of the time the spacing gets really messed up, and it takes a lot of time and it very frustrating to fix. With our laptop carts now it's making publishing a bit easier, but only when everyone is ready to publish at once.
As for editing, I wanted to focus on that this year as my students are of the same mindset as yours, when they are done they're done it doesn't matter how it may sound. We use some editing checklists that they use both independently and with a partner to edit. These seem to catch some of the errors. This summer I read the book Writing Essentials by Reggie Routman, and she had the great idea of having "No Excuse Errors" in which the class has a list that they have created and agreed upon of errors that need to be self-corrected. If they come to a teachers editing conference with a certain number of no excuse errors not corrected they are sent back to complete their part before the teacher will do hers "for free" I would like to try this in my room and may impliment it soon, but I just had too many other things to focus on earlier in the year.
I read Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street with my kids today as a way for them to realize that everything that they write doesn't have to be the whole truth, and that they can easily write about their everyday lives with a little flair.
Hey guys,
ReplyDeleteSo I just wrote a whole response to you guys and then went to click something and lost it all. So bare with me, if I am not as clear as I intend to be in my response.
Allison, I think that is so amazing about your publishing center at your school. That is such a great idea and I think that I may even mention it to my principal. In Cheshire, we always have parents who want to volunteer and that would be really benefical to have them working on publishing.
As far as my students' publishing goes, most of them are able to use the computer. Most of them need a lot of support during it, but about two of them can type independently given a model. Those two can understand and take pride in publishing a written piece so I do have them type up any written work when able, so that they can be proud of it when showing their parents, and understand how important the writing process is.
As far as editing goes, we do errorless teaching in my classroom, so it's completely different from what you guys use in your classrooms. I like Heather idea's of the students using the checklist while they are writing. Allison, do you do mini-lessons on editing a lot? If so, when the students write, do you try and make sure their writing reflect what they have learned in the mini-lesson only, or everything that they have learned in lessons up to that point?
In my journal, in response to these chapters, I wrote about people's different reactions to different pieces of literature. Recently a lady from work and I were both reading the same two books. One was about a drug addict and his account of what happened to him, while the other was written by the boy's father and was his account of what happened to his son. It was pretty incredible to read both points of view. The lady and I discussed the books after we read them and it was so funny how we had completely different reactions to them. I had loved the boy's account more, and the lady thought it was way too disturbing. Interesting how people feel differently about things.
Hi Heather and Tiffany!
ReplyDeleteHeather I absolutely love the idea of the no-excuse checklist. I am going to implement that as soon as possible! I am tired of reminding the students over and over to capitalize the first word in a sentence, and put commas in the appropriate places. One of the things that drives me crazy is that we do proofreading activities almost daily for morning work, and the students are able to correct all of the mistakes in the worksheet I give them. When it comes time to doing the same thing in their own work, they just don't apply those same strategies!! I have done many minilessons with the students about editing work, but I think I need to definitely reinforce some of the things that I previously taught because I want to use my writing time for more then just conferencing to fix errors. Hopefully the checklist will work!
Tiffany - I think that is so awesome how you compared the books you were reading with your friend. That sounds like such a great idea! I never really thought to write about the books I am reading in my writer's notebook, but that is definitely something I want to do. We always make our students reflect on what they read, and I find that I need to do the same thing. I used my writer's notebook as a way to vent this week! I have been under so much stress from school, as I am sure you can both relate, with report cards, conferences, planning, and just having time to breath that I needed to write about it. Someday I really want to write a book about a teacher's life because I feel like people who are not teachers really do not understand what it is like to be a teacher. I love my job, but it does require a lot of work and effort both inside and outside of school. I wrote in my writer's notebook about all of the things that were on my mind in a sort of list fashion. I felt so much better just getting my ideas in my notebook to free my mind and let out my frustrations!! Do you guys ever do this?? Enjoy your weekend!
Hi Tiffany and Allison,
ReplyDeleteAllison-I'm glad that you liked the idea of the checklist, if I think of it I will grab a copy of it from school and bring it to you tomorrow so you can take a look at it. It's really simple I think my grade level partner actually found it online and modified some of it to fit our more specific needs (no need to reinvent the wheel!)
I liked the idea of reacting to what we're reading in my writers notebook, as you both said we expect our students to do this all of the time and it's probably something that would be beneficial to us as well.
After reading these chapters and thinking about the memories I began writing in my writers notebook about memories from 10 years about and how my life is so different now than it was 10 years ago, but at the same time some of the same people who played such an important part in my life are still there, but in different ways. The best example is my husband 10 years ago he was one of my best friends in high school, and now we've been married for a little over a year and a half. It was nice to look back and see how much has changed and what I've really accomplished in that time, I think we all get caught up and distracted by the little day to day things we forget to look at the big picture.