Entry 8

While reading Tompkins' (2008) chapter on poetry, I was surprised to find that there are so many forms of poetry.  There were even a few forms that I was not familiar with, such as clerihews (Tompkins, 2008).  I think that having a chapter on poetry is helpful for educators, and I wish that all teachers who are planning to teach poetry would read this chapter in Tompkins (2008), as it greatly improved my perception of this genre.  I recall when we first discussed poetry in class, we mentioned that it is a genre that many educators do not enjoy teaching.  Whether they are intimidated by poetry or simply unfamiliar with it, the consensus seems to be that many teachers lack confidence when teaching poetry and, possibly as a result of this, many students do not enjoy this unit either.

I was one of those students who did not enjoy the poetry unit.  I rarely ever read poetry, and I was not a huge fan of it, generally speaking.  Whenever my class would study poetry in high school, we would work to interpret poems.  This was often challenging for me, especially with poems written by "classic" poets.  I seemed to never interpret these poems the "correct" way.  This frustrated me, and so I never engaged very much with the poems that we studied.  Also, our poetry units in school were very short and seemed to only serve to expose us briefly to poetry, so that we would be familiar with this genre when we encountered it on the NYS Regents Exam.

I wish that, as a student, I had more exposure to poetry and had the freedom and the opportunity to create my own poems.  Being able to create poems using all of the forms mentioned in Tompkins (2008) would have allowed me to have the freedom to be creative.  This ability would also have given me added confidence in my ability to write poetry.  As a result, this added confidence would have likely transferred to my understanding of poetry, and I might have had more interest in this genre.

Now that I am older, I do write my own personal poetry.  However, I have never really associated these writings with the poetry that I studied in school.  Also, I am more receptive to reading poetry on my own at this point in my life.  While I still don't read poetry very often, my attitude toward this genre has improved.  Although my attitude about poetry has evolved, prior to reading Tompkins' (2008) chapter 11, I still had doubts about how to effectively teach poetry to my future students, as it is not my most favorite genre.  After reading this chapter, I found myself more excited about all of the ideas and possibilities when teaching poetry to students, as well as all of the types of poetry I could teach.  Tompkins (2008) has definitely caused me to start thinking differently about teaching poetry, and I hope that she has positively influenced others who may not have had the most positive view of this genre as well.

Also, Melissa G.’s presentation helped me to further develop my understanding of this genre.  Actually writing the types of poetry that I may ask my students to create in the future allowed me to better understand the aspects of poetry writing that could be challenging to them.  While my confidence in my own ability to write (and share) poetry did not increase substantially, I do feel more comfortable writing in this genre than I did prior to the presentation.  In addition, I had not realized how many great resources and examples of exemplary poetry are available to share with our students.  Melissa’s presentation made me feel more prepared and more excited about potentially teaching poetry in the future. 

Entry 7

So far, I am really loving our Writing Workshop time in class.  Not only do I find myself getting a lot of writing done, but I also feel that I have a better understanding of what a Writing Workshop would look like in my future classroom.  Generally, I am the type of person who can read an article that contains an idea to implement in the classroom, can love the idea and want to use it in my own classroom, but I need to have it demonstrated in some way in order for me to have a complete understanding of the concept.  For example, when reading Tompkins' (2008) explanation of Writing Workshop, as well as Hicks' (2009) explanation of the Digital Writing Workshop, I had a general idea of how a Writing Workshop would look and of what it would entail.  However, having experience actually implementing a workshop, or seeing one being implemented by another teacher, gives me a better understanding and helps me to have added confidence in employing the workshop myself.  Also, I am better able to appreciate the benefits of implementing the workshop when I see an example.

Having time actually designated to write greatly helps me, because I find that I generally do not set aside much specific time to write when I'm at home.  Being in the computer lab also helps me, as it forces me to focus on the task at hand.  When I'm at home, I find myself easily distracted from writing.  For example, I will take what I like to refer to as "Facebook breaks" while doing homework.  I may write a few paragraphs for a paper or another assignment, and then "reward" myself by logging onto Facebook.  Not only is this a huge time-waster, but it interrupts the flow of ideas, and I end up feeling like my writing is choppy or fragmented.  I am sure many students do not set aside specific time for writing at home either, so having a Writing Workshop with specific time for writing would greatly benefit them.

Having to state what I'm going to be working on prior to the start of the Writing Workshop aids me in remaining focused on my writing as well.  I am able to figure out ahead of time where I am in the writing process and what I still need to work on with a given piece of writing.  It also is very interesting to think that students have time to write individually and complete assignments at their own pace when working in Writing Workshop.  From what little I can remember about my own education, I do not think we had a time like this to write in class.  I can remember having class time during which to write a piece, and then additional class time to revise and edit the piece after the teacher reviewed our drafts.  Although we worked independently, this class time seemed incredibly structured.  We were all expected to finish our writing by a certain time, and we were all working on the same type of piece at one time.

Also, I do not remember conferencing much with my peers.  In fact, I distinctly remember asking a friend to help me with a grammar issue that my teacher had circled on my draft as being incorrect.  Rather than helping me, my classmate told me to "look it up," since she was too busy revising and editing her own draft.  At the time, I recall feeling incredibly frustrated, since the teacher was busy conferencing with another student, and I simply wanted help with this one error so that I could move on to write my final copy.  What I particularly love about our LTED 618 Writing Workshop is that I feel supported by my classmates and know that they will give me honest feedback and helpful writing advice.  I do not feel as though I am working through the writing process alone, even though I complete the actual writing pieces independently.  It is this type of writing environment that I wish to promote in my own classroom and Writing Workshop. 

Hicks, T. (2009). The digital writing workshop. Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann. 

Entry 6

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Nancy Sommers’ (1982) article, as it addresses a concern that I’ve had ever since my student-teaching experience two years ago.  Once I was handed a stack of student essays to grade, I realized that I had no idea how to grade essays.  No one had taught me what comments to make and how much I should respond in the margins.  Do I only respond to an interesting idea or when a student makes a sizeable error?  I wanted to refrain from marking up every other sentence of an essay with red pen, since I know from experience that this can be extremely off-putting to students; generally the more red marks they see, the worse they believe their essays are.  What can we do for students who need much assistance with revising and editing their work?  Do we only comment on more serious errors without mentioning the inconsequential ones? 

When I was in high school, I distinctly remember being the type of student who responded only to what the teacher wrote on my paper.  If we had the opportunity to revise a piece, I would go through the paper and find all of the comments that the teacher made.  The only changes I made to my papers were those that the teacher recommended.  I remember always making the “cosmetic” changes first, such as spelling and grammatical errors.  I usually saved any more complex revisions, including any paragraphs that needed more supporting details, until the end.  When I did make changes that involved adding sentences and expanding on ideas, these changes were usually the “bare minimum” and very superficial.  I would not typically look back at my essay as a whole piece and make additional changes that were not suggested by the teacher.  As Sommers (1982) suggests, I was guilty of concentrating more on what my teacher “commanded [me] to do than on what [I was] trying to say” (p. 151). 

While this may be an unfair judgment, I attribute much of my writing abilities (both good and bad) to my experiences in middle and high school.  As Sommers (1982) suggests, I feel that my teachers did not explicitly teach writing strategies very often.  However, my teachers’ comments did serve to imply that “writing is just a matter of following the rules” in some cases (Sommers, 1982, p. 153).  While this is not the most positive example of teaching writing, those comments did help me greatly in determining the proper way to cite information and how to correctly spell certain words.  Through these types of comments on my papers, I better understood how to write research papers.  Unfortunately, the content of my writing and my own personal voice and writing style did not flourish through these responses.  This is an issue that can be corrected through writing workshops, especially through the use of peer conferencing.  In my experience, I have found that peers are more likely to respond to the content of another student’s paper, rather than individual grammatical or citation errors. 

Sommers’ (1982) discussion of the lack of teacher training in responding to students’ writing stood out to me as especially meaningful.  Teachers reported that “responding to student writing was rarely stressed in their teacher-training or in writing workshops” (Sommers, 1982, p. 154).  When I read that sentence, I was prompted to think of my own undergraduate education courses, and I realized that there is only one instance in which I can distinctly remember assessing students’ essays based on a 6+1 Traits rubric.  In terms of how to specifically respond to students’ essays, I had not received any instruction in this prior to student-teaching.  Grading papers remains one of the most daunting tasks in my mind when I think about having my own classroom.  I agree with Sommers (1982) when she asserts that, “instead of reading and responding to the meaning of a text, we correct our students’ writing” (p. 154).  I believe that not only is it easier for many teachers to focus on spelling and grammar errors, but that we feel more comfortable pointing out these types of errors than making comments about students’ specific ideas and arguments.  The more practice that we, as teachers, have with commenting on the ideas and meanings found in students’ writing, the more confident we will feel addressing these aspects of writing.

Sommers, N. (1982). Responding to student writing. College Composition and Communication, 33(2), 148-156. 

Entry 5

Dear Dr. Jones,

Overall, the class is going well.  I already find myself thinking differently about writing.  Through our writing workshop sessions, I am becoming more comfortable with writing assignments.  Previously, whenever I began to think about an assigned writing piece, I would not be very motivated and would consider the whole writing process to be a daunting task.  Typically, I would come up with an idea, create a brief outline, write a draft, and then edit the draft once for grammatical errors.  Once my work has been written, I have always had a hard time wanting to go back and read through what I have written, as I am extremely critical of my own writing.  Our writing workshops have helped me to take the necessary time to plan, pre-write, and draft my work.  As a result, I now feel more confident when I sit down to write.  I also enjoy our class discussions; even though there are only three of us, I think we are able to have richer, more authentic conversations than some groups that are twice as large.  This course has also broadened my knowledge of technology and how to utilize this technology in classroom learning.  Prior to this class, I was vaguely familiar with blogs and wikis, but I had never actually created and used one of my own.  After reading Hicks (2009), I have been introduced to numerous websites and other technological resources to use with my future students.  Our class blogs and wiki have aided me in better understanding how these two technological resources work and how I could utilize them in my future classroom.

Prior to this course, I had learned about Kucer’s (2009) ideas regarding the connections between reading and writing and how the two are similar processes.  While this was very enlightening to me, the implications of this way of thinking about reading and writing did not resonate with me.  Now that I am actually utilizing the writing process in our class and keeping this connection in mind, this relationship is clearer to me.  Lately, I have been engaging in a fully transactional writing process at least twice a week.  I think deeply when I write m blog entries for this course and when I write during writing workshop.  As a result, I find myself transferring this state-of-mind to other writing situations, either for other courses or for my own personal writing.  I chose to engage in this kind of thinking because I find that I am better able to understand and retain the information that I am writing about.  Also, thinking deeply about what I am writing allows me to examine the issue in-depth and form multiple perspectives.  I feel better able to discuss a topic after writing about it thoroughly.  For example, as a result of the work I have done thus far for my genre pieces project, I feel as though I am gaining a better understanding of chinchillas and am moving from being a “competent” learner to a “proficient” learner of this subject-matter (Alexander & Jetton, 2000, p. 300).  One of the habits I may have to change in order to fully engage while writing is to stop feeling so self-conscious about my writing and about the fact that others will read it. 

The main instructional strategy that will benefit me as a teacher of literacy is the writing workshop.  While I had read about this strategy in articles, I had not utilized it in a classroom setting.  After having experience with the writing workshop format in our class, I feel more comfortable with the strategy and see the benefits of using it in my future classroom.  The biggest concern that I have at this point is my “Teaching the Genre” expert presentation.  I always have anxiety before a presentation; I feel as though I’ll forget something or freeze up in front of everyone.  I will just need to think positively, make sure I’m well prepared, and remember that there are only three people in this class, so I shouldn’t feel too nervous.  Aside from this concern, I do not have many other concerns.  So far, I understand the content of this course and am enjoying our class.

Sincerely,

Melissa N.

Alexander, P. A. & Jetton, T. L. (2000). Learning from text: A multidimensional perspective. In

M. L. Kamil, P. B. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of reading

research: Volume III (pp. 285-310). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

Hicks, T. (2009). The digital writing workshop. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Kucer, S. B. (2009). Dimensions of literacy: A conceptual base for teaching reading and writing

in school settings. New York, NY: Routledge.