Making it Count

I believe I am in the majority when I say that I feel like I have tons I need to teach, but do not feel I have the time to do it all. Mainly I feel like I am able to get all the items introduced and taught, but making sure every student has learned it? That I do not feel I have time for, especially with seeing 85-90 students a day. Thankfully, this chapter made me feel a bit more at ease specifically the part that says to limit the work you take home. I am not a person who takes work home unless it is the weekend, otherwise I just stay late and work on it at school. There have been too many times to count when I brought work home to grade and it sat in my car.

What I found incredibly interesting was when Routman talked about commenting on student work, and said that commenting does little to improve their writing. It was interesting because I have read a few books that say commenting is much more important than the grade or score. I know Routman did not mean, do not comment and do not give the child any feedback. She wanted to emphasize verbal feedback with conferences, which I think is much more meaningful to see the student face to face when discussing their work. This is something I definitely need to do with writing and my projects.

Routman also discussed eliminating or reducing daily worksheets or isolated exercises. I have never been a huge fan of copying workbook sheets. However, I do like to do daily language exercises a few days a week as a bell ringer. Again, I don't use the textbook examples. I often create my own and relate them to whatever is going on in the world, or "their" world. It is a good attention grabber! I will keep this in mind when I am tempted to make copies of worksheets with content the students cannot relate.

With the help of this book, I finally have answers to some ongoing questions and new ideas that I had not thought of before. I am well aware of what I need to work on, and actually look forward to fixing those problems.

Graphic for 10-12

This cartoon is sad but true. When students do not do well, the workload for many students tends to increase with the idea that somehow it will help.
www.techtoon.tripod.com

Building on Best Practice

It is frequently mentioned in this book about teachers gearing up for the writing assessment by doing lots of test prep with students. How does a teacher test prep for writing? Do these teachers constantly have their students write using dull, boring prompts all the time? If so, how horrible to be that teacher and read those awfully boring papers. I can only stand to read them when I am required to give the writing assessment. Maybe that is not how those teachers prepare; I know teachers do a lot of test prep for the reading assessment, but writing assessment prep is new to me.

Writing every day is frequently stressed throughout the book as well. I do not know how a language arts teacher could not have his or her students write every day. In my classroom my students are always writing. It may not be a lengthy paper it could be a journal reaction, summary of what we read the day before, telling me what they did over the long weekend, etc. It would be interesting to go into a language arts room, and not see writing, what else is there to do?

Fortunately for me, I have worked with some wonderful language arts teachers, which is maybe why it is hard for me to understand how to prepare for the writing assessment or have a class that does not write every day. I feel like the language arts teachers in my building all want to improve their instruction by revamping a lesson or recreating a new unit entirely. My friend (job alike) and I often shared ideas on what to do better, we were always (and still are) up for trying a new format for instruction, and providing any lessons or handouts to teachers in need.There have been some meetings that I have attended where teachers were not willing to share any lessons with other teachers, or teachers were not receptive to making changes in their classroom even if these changes were backed by research. It baffled me, and still does, that there are teachers who think and act in such a way. After reading this book, I have found some wonderful ideas that I am eager to try with my classroom, and to pass on to the other language arts teachers in my building. I definitely plan to do more modeling for my students, and try the whole-class conference with writer's workshop.

Assessments

It seems like there is a lot of pressure on writing assessments. Maybe it is just me, or my district, but I do not feel nearly as pressured about the writing assessment as I do the reading assessment. This is probably due to the fact that we have not had one in three years since the state did not have it in their budget. 

However, our DCT says the writing assessment is scheduled to return in 2013. With that in mind, our DCT wanted us to find a better way to assess writing. We had a meeting not long ago discussing giving our students a writting pretest and post test at each grade level (6-8). We had not done this before, but our feeder high schools are, therefore, we thought it would be beneficial to all if we started it in middle school. We decided the pretest will be given within the first two weeks of school, with the idea that not many teachers will have taught writing so the results will give the teachers a good baseline. There are five prompts that the students are to select, and each grade level has a different set. There also a specified number of days (only because we need a control factor) to complete the writing. Each grade level will be given a specified rubric to use for grading the pre/post assessments. The post test will be given the last two-three weeks of school. We had decided that the students would get to select one of the five prompts, but could not write about the same one. This really is our only change in our curriculum, which will actually be beneficial to all the teachers. CA teachers will continue to write every day, and will now have a product to use as a jumping off point for teaching writing at the beginning of the year.

This chapter talks about rubrics, and how some teachers get "rubric happy." I use them when grading projects or writing, but do not solely rely on them. There are some great kid friendly rubrics available, which are what I use. I also like my rubrics to be very specific for my students to understand why they missed two points on a part. Has anyone tried having their students help them to create a rubric? That is something I would like to try.

From my experience thus far, I have found providing student examples of excellent and poor writing to help students see what my expectation is for them. Yes, a rubric tells them the areas in which they are graded, but allowing them to see what is deemed excellent givens them a true understanding. Not only showing the examples, but like the books says to ask students questions like:

• What made this a good piece of writing?
• What did the writer not do?
• What revisions could the writer have made?
• What suggestions would you give if a student had written this piece?
• Even if the piece is good, what could make it better?

I always enjoy having these discussions, they transcend well into writing and teachers are able draw back on it when meeting with students or the whole class-the students almost always seem to remember.

Graphic for Ch. 7-9

This cartoon reflects these chapters pretty well. With a conference, the teacher would know that the student is struggling with his writing :)
Taken from www.justkiddingcartoons.com

Conferencing

   Chapters eight and nine really sparked some ideas for my writer's workshop; there are several things that I would like to try in the fall. I like how these two chapters always start off with the problems that teachers are having with writing, especially this chapter with the questions of how to fit the conferences in and what to do with the other kids while you are conferencing? I tried having the one on one conferences, but was never able to get to every student, and found myself revising and editing. I eventually quit because I couldn't keep my eye on the troublemakers as well, and shifted to the "roving" conferences where I felt I had more control of my classroom. Class ran more smoothly, but I was not able to have the conversations with students like I had with the one on one conferences.

   It never crossed my mind to have a whole-class conference. I really like that idea, and think that would definitely work wonderfully for the beginning of the year to transition into conferences. It sets the expectation and creates an environment for the students to not only share, but learn how to help one another with suggestions for writing. Having the students reread their work before sharing is also a fantastic idea. When I had done this before, my students would hand me their work and I read it. I don't know why I didn't think to have them read their work to me. It would take longer, but if the students had reread their paper then it would be likely they had caught some errors which would save time for me. Also, I like the use of the "author's chair." I think it is a cute idea, but is it too elementary for sixth grade?My problem would be those students who are painfully shy that won't want to sit at the chair and read their paper aloud. If that were to happen, I think I would arrange for those students to share in a small group until they gained confidence in their writing.

   The idea of doing a shared writing of what to expect when writing and conferencing is another great management technique. It would set the precedence of the guidelines and expectations for their writing behavior and conference etiquette. This would be a great time for students to ask questions, for the teacher to explain the different conferences, and emphasize that when the students want to meet one on one they must have given it their all. One of my biggest pet peeve'swas when a student would come up and expect me to do all their revisions. It was even worse when I made suggestions and  the student took none of my suggestions and made absolutely no revisions. Hopefully that will diminish with the conference forms, which I like much more than what I have at school. There are some great resources in the book, has anyone found time to watch the DVD? I am a visual learner and think that I could really benefit from watching it.

Daily Writing

    I wish I had read this chapter before I did my previous post because it answered some of my questions. Maybe it was the way the chapter was organized or maybe it's because this is my third book to read about writing, but I am finally starting to see how to make writer's workshop work for me. Like I have said before, I am one of those people who has to have a plan and know where I am going. With writer's workshop I didn't feel like there was a plan, more of a fly by the seat of your pants plan, that changed daily. This book has given me a better explanation and overview on how to organize my writing curriculum.

   There are several parts in this chapter that I found interesting. First, I think it is great to essentially get away from the rigid writing process. We are suppose to teach the students skills that they will use. Well, I do not draw out a web when I start prewrite, like my students I make lists and outlines, and if I know exactly what I am going to write about then I start my draft so I don't forget. Once I've gotten it down on paper, then I can go back and make revisions. I tell my students that I don't care how they brainstorm as long as they are getting their ideas flowing.

     It was also interesting reading about how to teach students to brainstorming meaningful topics. I did this with my students also; we did what Nancie Atwell calls "writing territories." It's true that students need guidelines when writing, and I believe it is important to stress to students that they should not just write about anything. They need to care about it, know a lot about it, and be able to provide interesting details.

     Probably my favorite part in this chapter was the part on keeping records. It would be a relief  to focus mainly on the minilesson notes, cumulative writing history, and conference notes. Managing all the paperwork was one of my biggest challenges, especially with 90 students; there was no way I was taking 90 four page papers home to grade. I also love the idea of using an organized binder, rather than only a writer's workshop folder. Does anyone have other suggestions for grading,organizing papers, and keeping track of where each student is in the process?