Ch. 5 Do More Shared Writing

The title of this chapter totally sums it up for me. I do need to do more shared writing. I used to do more word work when I worked with younger students but Regie suggests that it's good for older students as well. I enjoyed reading through her lesson dialog that she had when writing a story with her students. I have to admit that I often think that I have to have my "prewritten" product in my head before I start writing with students when in actuality I need to let the students guide the direction of the story and go with it. I like several of the ideas that Regie lists as tried and true and can't wait to try some of them out.

Ch. 4 Raise Your Expectations

I particularly found the part of this chapter about handwriting interesting. I agree that we should hold high expectations for neatness. I've become frustrated over the past few years with students entering third grade and still forming the letters incorrect. I think this is one more example of some of our expectations that get pushed aside because there seems to be so many other things to cover. Two other thoughts that I took away from this chapter are first, that students need to a have a good amount of independent writing each day. "Just as it is necessary to doa great deal of independent reading to become a competent reader, so too is it with writing." Secondly, one can never underestimate the power of kind words. We need to repair some of the negativity that some students already hold against writing and protect those that still hold the "I can," spirit.

Ch. 3 Share Your Writing Life

I really liked the quote from page 35, "Doing the task and feeling competent at it are two different things." Later the it tells how one teacher shared ..."I tried to impersonate what I thought a good writer would do. I finally realized I needed to be me." I personally can identify with both of these thoughts. This chapter was reaffirming for me. I know that I don't write enough and I'm working to increase that, but I do find myself organizing, thinking of my reader and constantly rereading my writing as I'm composing. I liked the idea of "snap shot writing." I will try that in my classroom. In the past I've done "quick writes" where you give the students a topic and ask them to write about it for 3-5 minutes. This exercise sometimes help that student who struggled at the "getting started" stage. They simply needed to write down the first ideas that came to their head, but there again, the students were given the topics to write on and so therefore didn't hold a personal value to them. My goal after reading this chapter is to increase my modeling and thinking out loud with my students.

Ch. 2 Start with Celebration

"Enjoyment and writing have not coexisted, and they must do so if all our students are to become proficient writers." This quote hung in my mind throughout the whole chapter. I do believe that most children start out with an enjoyment of writing but it's stifled at such an early age. As teachers we need to somehow keep the writers' spirit up. I believe in having students write about topics of their choice however, I have also seen the need to sometimes help narrow the topic. For many students, asking them to write about "whatever" can become scary and too overwhelming. We need to be cognisant of celebrating a student's risk taking in writing. This chapter has helped me become more aware of the need to acknowledge students' success at writing.

Ch. 1 Simplify the Teaching of Writing

Simplify the Teaching of Writing- Chapter 1

There's no doubt, as a whole, that students are much more motivated and successful when they are writing for authentic purposes. However, there are those students that sometimes still struggle to "buy into" the authenticity of a project. One of my top readers and student as a whole this year, is one of my weakest writers. If this book does nothing else for me, I hope that it will help me to help this student enjoy writing as opposed to him viewing writing as something to "get done" with the smallest amount of effort possible. I also hope that it will help me grow both as a writer and a teacher of writing. As I read through this chapter and took a look at my beliefs and practices, I came to the conclusion that my students do writing every day in various ways, but that I need to improve on modeling and giving them feedback on their writing. I also like the idea that less can be more; simplify the process and raise the expectations. I was so able to identify with the example of being overwhelmed when we have so many thoughts and ideas yet, we're suppose to create something on a big, blank sheet of paper. I think the author summed it up well, "It takes enormous energy, courage, confidence and skill, not to mention a positive attitude."