Chapter 10 dealt with teaching the conference. It highlighted some teaching moves to do in a conference to make it as effective as possible:
-Transitions
-Naming the skill
-Saying why it's good
-Say back to me
-Record the teaching
I feel pretty comfortable now about finding strengths in student's writing but I am still curious how to pick one specific skill to focus on in a conference with a student when you can find a few different things the child needs to work on. What are the most important things a child needs to know first and foremost to develop most successfully as a writer? I again enjoyed the point of including why something is good to the student because as a child I never cared about anything I was taught unless I was given a full explanation of why the thing I was learning is important. Another thing I really liked and found interesting in this chapter was having a student say back to me what we just went over in the conference. From my experience working with students I have seen how students will often act like they understand what you are teaching them but then five minutes later don't remember. It is easy to feel like you just taught a student something very successfully when they assure they understand and can do the skill correctly as you are guiding them along but is very upsetting when that lesson does not stick. If you develop a routine of having students always say back to you the skill they were just taught they will soon be expecting it and pay full attention. It is just like the idea presented earlier in the book that if you tell students they are going to have to discuss with other students what is being taught in group lesson they are bound to pay attention more so they will know what they are talking about with their peers later. Recording the teaching is also a very smart idea so you don't lose track of what you worked on with each individual students and keep records of what they have learned and what you still need to cover.
Chapter 11 dealt more with group conferences and how to manage them. I have seen many group conferences before and I have seen them go well and I have seen them be a total disaster. In some cases the students all were well behaved, spoke only when asked, and got the work done. In other instances however, I have seen group conferences turn into a disaster. The students would be rolling around, talking to one another not paying attention, interrupting one another, and wasting time. This caused none of the work to get done. How do you get a group conference to go successfully? Is there a certain environment that helps the students become more focused? For example is having them sit at a table together better then having them sit on the floor in front of you as the teacher? I agree with the chapter that it is still very important to record the teaching point on each of their conference sheets because with a group conference you may not get everything done that you thought you would.
Assessing a students writing, as discussed in chapter 12, seems like something that I, as a teacher, will have to make sure I am doing fairly and have a proper rubric for all students to follow. When creating a writing assignment for students I want to be sure I have a fully developed rubric to use when grading the assignment before I even assign it. It is important to have specific requirements in each section of the rubric so each students' paper will be graded fairly. What does one do however, if the rubric created for an assignment ends up being too tough and the majority of the students papers fall into the "unacceptable" category? What if that continually happens and, as a teacher, I feel students should be able to do the things I am asking of them but their performance continually says otherwise? I have felt many times that grades I have received were unfair and often just saw numbers next to my strengths and weaknesses, never an explanation. As a teacher I want to be sure I don't just check the categories on my rubric but if a student is lacking in a skill be sure to make note of exactly what they are missing and try to help them improve on that skill for later.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Chapters 7-9
We read three chapters this week, chapters 7, 8, and 9. Chapters 8 and 9 were very similar because they both discussed important things to cover when conducting one on one conferences with students. Chapter 8 focused mainly on researching and addressing each students strengths in writing before trying to teach them how to correct all the things they are doing wrong. I think this is very important. In every class I have had concerning addressing students and even parents has emphasized the importance of pointing on the strengths before pointing out the weaknesses. One question that came to mind as I was reading however was, how can you be sure to praise the student's strengths but at the same time not overly praise them causing them to think that they have mastered that skill and can stop trying to better it? I also found the section of this chapter interesting that talked about specific writing craft skills that we develop over time just by reading others writing. I have noticed that when I read a book and then have to do a writing assignment that my writing style will change slightly and resemble more the authors style whom I had just read.
Chapter 9 dealt with the next step in a conference which is picking the topic you want to work on with the student first and foremost. The question that was addressed a lot in this chapter and I wondered about as well was, which is more important to focus on, problems with craft of problems with mechanics? The author talked a lot about how it is important to combine the two but I still do not understand how to do this. When reading a students writing it is very easy to pick out all the things that are wrong with it but how do we find the time to fix all of these problem areas without just telling the students how to do it?
Chapter 7 was very insightful and in a way kind of addressed a lot of my concerns from chapter 9. It is important not to just tell a student what they are doing wrong and fix it for them as chapter 7 states "Telling is not teaching." This is such an important concept because it is crucial for students to do things for themselves in order to learn. When I was growing up I had a horrible attention span and could not pay attention at all when the teacher was just lecturing and having us listen quietly without any interaction. I know as teachers it will be hard for us not to just stand up in front of the class and talk and assume all the students are paying attention and understanding because the information seems so simple to us but the fact of the matter is it is brand new information to the students and many of them wont be retaining much of what we are telling them. I learned the best and retained the most information as a child when the teacher would tell us we were going to practice the skill we were learning individually after the lesson or talk about it in groups. I was so worried about not knowing what was going on that I forced myself to try and understand what we were learning.
Chapter 9 dealt with the next step in a conference which is picking the topic you want to work on with the student first and foremost. The question that was addressed a lot in this chapter and I wondered about as well was, which is more important to focus on, problems with craft of problems with mechanics? The author talked a lot about how it is important to combine the two but I still do not understand how to do this. When reading a students writing it is very easy to pick out all the things that are wrong with it but how do we find the time to fix all of these problem areas without just telling the students how to do it?
Chapter 7 was very insightful and in a way kind of addressed a lot of my concerns from chapter 9. It is important not to just tell a student what they are doing wrong and fix it for them as chapter 7 states "Telling is not teaching." This is such an important concept because it is crucial for students to do things for themselves in order to learn. When I was growing up I had a horrible attention span and could not pay attention at all when the teacher was just lecturing and having us listen quietly without any interaction. I know as teachers it will be hard for us not to just stand up in front of the class and talk and assume all the students are paying attention and understanding because the information seems so simple to us but the fact of the matter is it is brand new information to the students and many of them wont be retaining much of what we are telling them. I learned the best and retained the most information as a child when the teacher would tell us we were going to practice the skill we were learning individually after the lesson or talk about it in groups. I was so worried about not knowing what was going on that I forced myself to try and understand what we were learning.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Chapters 4 and 5
Chapter four talked a lot about expanding a child's writing and encouraging him or her to add more details to his or her writing. It brought up the idea of using the 5 senses again. I really liked the idea about when you are writing to think about not only what you saw but what you heard and even, if it made an impression, write about what you tasted, felt, or smelt. I think it is very important to get children to think about details in their writing because in the long run it will really help them become better writers.
A lot of the things in this chapter are things I wish I would have thought about more as I was growing up and learning how to write. I had never thought about thoughts and feelings and how you can affiliate your thoughts with your emotions. Writing is such a powerful way to express your emotions and I hope someday I can emphasize that to my students. Also, using dialogue is a great way to add detail to your writing so you are not just using descriptors. My favorite line I read from this chapter was, "readers are supposed to fill in some information with their own visualizing; we wouldn't want every single thing described for us. But I find that most students are still working on offering the reader enough details to create a healthy balance." I feel this is very true because we read to create an image in our heads and we cannot create these images without some detail but we, as the reader, still want to imagine some things on our own.
Chapter five was all about teaching children the craft of punctuation. I am very worried about finding a good way to teach this to my students because grammar and punctuation are what I had the most trouble learning while I was growing up. I am still not the best with it but as a child I really struggled trying to understand all the punctuation rules. Learning this stuff is so important because it will keep coming up all throughout one's life. I still have to edit all of my papers and make sure that my punctuation and grammar is correct. This is such an important thing to learn to gain respect from others because using proper English will get you much further in life.
A lot of the things in this chapter are things I wish I would have thought about more as I was growing up and learning how to write. I had never thought about thoughts and feelings and how you can affiliate your thoughts with your emotions. Writing is such a powerful way to express your emotions and I hope someday I can emphasize that to my students. Also, using dialogue is a great way to add detail to your writing so you are not just using descriptors. My favorite line I read from this chapter was, "readers are supposed to fill in some information with their own visualizing; we wouldn't want every single thing described for us. But I find that most students are still working on offering the reader enough details to create a healthy balance." I feel this is very true because we read to create an image in our heads and we cannot create these images without some detail but we, as the reader, still want to imagine some things on our own.
Chapter five was all about teaching children the craft of punctuation. I am very worried about finding a good way to teach this to my students because grammar and punctuation are what I had the most trouble learning while I was growing up. I am still not the best with it but as a child I really struggled trying to understand all the punctuation rules. Learning this stuff is so important because it will keep coming up all throughout one's life. I still have to edit all of my papers and make sure that my punctuation and grammar is correct. This is such an important thing to learn to gain respect from others because using proper English will get you much further in life.
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