401 Extra Credit Post 3/20

The first article is by Linda E. Martin and Shirley Thacker and is called "Teaching The Writing Process in Primary Grades". Thackerville was created as a writing program in a first grade classroom. Thackerville has soft music in the background, a rug area, and a rocking chair to share stories. There are word walls and children's stories. I really like this idea because it separates reading and writing time and shows how enjoyable it can be for the classroom. "My first goal was to create a classroom environment that invited children to write." (pg. 31). Thackerville does exactly that. There also should be an established routine for young students, such as family time, and writing time. Mini-lessons help to develop specific needs and are only 10 minutes long to keep everyone's attention. It also models proper writing skills. Young authors should develop topics, plans, edit their writing, and reflect during conferencing. It is important to be patient with the students, to create a flexible writing environment, and connect writing and reading together. The next article was called "Writing Workshop and Children Acquiring English as a Non-Native Language" by Katharine Davies Samway. There was a sixth grade class that was English/Spanish bilingual. Ms. Ramirez, the teacher, reads some poems and made copies so that students can build up their poetry anthology. During her writing workshop time, she briefly meets with the children who understand and speak little English to evaluate their work and help them with new teaching and learning strategies. At the end of writing time, the class comes together to talk and reflect on what they have learned that day. The classroom shares several characteristics such as "write on a regular basis for extended, predictable periods of time, responsible for selecting own topics, confer with each other and with adults about their writing goals, processes, products, problems and accomplishments, write for many audiences, read a great deal and have many opportunities to talk about reading and writing" (pg. 89) and so on. These traits all keep the classroom on task and focused during writer's workshop. Writing should be a meaning-making process and be active and personal. It should also be a recursive process, meaning that it is not just a simple, linear process. As a developmental process it needs to have a variety of quality and quantity. As a process for children acquiring English it should just be aware that they are still emerging readers and writers and it is only harder that has not yet been mastered. Classroom set up for writer's workshop should be both solitary and social so the room needs to be set up to accommodate both functions. An editing center will also help out to refine mechanics and writing. An illustrating center can contain a variety of art materials and a publishing center will contain papers of different textures and qualities as well as writing utensils. The teacher will be a fellow writer and a mentor. Mini-lessons throughout the days will help to refine certain specific skills. Writing conferencing will help encourage writers to continue to write. Finally, assessing should be done so that the teacher can talk about the child to parents, teachers, and administration. The last reading was in the book "Writing Workshop" by Ralph Fletcher and Joann Portalupi. Chapters 3 and 4 both focused on writer's workshop. Short term goals should be "getting students to love writing time, establish a safe environment so that kids can take risks to their writing, and set up a workable management system to handle the flow of papers, folders, and so forth." (pg. 22). Student choice is also important because it drives the writer's workshop to success. Negative comments do not create a safe environment, so stick to specific praise, let primary children draw, read aloud from "from-the-heart" pieces of writing, use writer's notebook, and write with the students. A finished box is a place to put their work in a box without interrupting any possible conferencing with other students. Once it comes time to launch the writer's workshop, allow children to tell stories. "Storytelling takes advantage of this oral fluency." (pg. 36). It allows them to get comfortable with their own voice. Minilessons will help to set up the workshop. The teacher should also write with their students and confer with students as they go. Sharing sessions is also important because it will give them a real audience for their work and feedback should be positive and celebratory. Some possible rules can be: "use quiet voices, please don't interrupt, everybody writes." (pg. 44) Example of writer's workshop: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPRM2ZXyrS0