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.
You are in good company on the taking work home and taking it right back to school, untouched! Me, too! I would rather stay at school and get things done there rather than try to focus amidst the distractions of home. I like Routman's approach to this dilemma, too.
ReplyDeleteHer approach to comments on students' work surprised me, too. It makes sense to limit them to a few meaningful ones rather than trying to touch on everything, and to mostly cover it verbally with eye-contact rather than lots of writing they're not likely to read or remember.
The idea to write your own version of DOL is great, and making it relevant to them or stirring in some current events appeals to me.
I am a firm believer in the value of written comments on students' work. I suppose in the perfect world, the best option would be to sit down face-to-face and have a conference, but this can be a challenge due to time and schedules. So I see comments as a compromise. Do they increase the quality of my students' writing. I am not sure. I do know that when I am a student, the first thing I do when receiving work back is to look at the comments!
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