Response to Educational Leadership article...

In Ohler’s article, “Orchestrating the Media Collage,” we are informed about the need to include digital literacy when considering the definition of literacy. Ohler describes how students are trying to get along in a “digitally distracted world” and how teachers need to figure out how to incorporate digital literacy or media literacy into their educational journey. This requires us to continue teaching effective writing for students to be able to successfully create, contribute or collaborate in the digital world.

Ohler states, “Students need to be media literate to understand how media technique influences perception and thinking.” When teachers engage students in meaningful learning about social issues, the use of technology should always be included. Media is powerful, and we need to arm students with information to aid with the choices they make in their use of technology.

Many teachers are not exposed to the array of technological advances available to students and their families, nor are they aware of the positive contributions technology can make in learning. Ohler believes teachers do not need to be technological wizards in the classroom, but that they should serve as consultants (“guides” or “managers”) to their students. Digital literacy is here to stay, and teachers have a responsibility to add it to their list of teaching essentials.

For me—before we began our technology classes in this program, I considered myself pretty naïve and lacking confidence in the area of computer literacy as it relates to education. I have been resistant. Now—as we have been required to learn some new technology, I am excited about all the possibilities. As a teacher, I feel I can actually bring some great tools to my students to boost their learning and bring them into the 21st century. Wish me luck!!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

Regarding Routman's chapters on teaching and organizing writing (ch. 7, 8):

I greatly appreciate being in the different placements and visiting other classrooms to see how teachers teach writing. I'm happy to see teachers who really try to help their students enjoy and care about what they are writing. Conventions, traits of writing, and editing will emerge next. I can tell if teachers enjoys writing themselves. I've witnessed a certain kind of contagious enthusiasm whereby students' writing is honored and the students are ecstatic to be noticed!

Identifying the writer's AUDIENCE will be very helpful to students as they approach writing assignments. I've seen my supervising teachers issue fun and engaging writing exercises for students. In sixth grade, students were asked to write a letter to the principal about why the school should continue to support field trips for students. The students, by way of trying to convince the principal of their position FOR field trips, learned how to write a strong, persuasive piece. Another writing task involved a paper about the importance of good food being offered for lunches at school. These were topics that were "life applicable," that kids could care about and express a personal opinion.

As a teacher, I will want to try to follow the Optimal Learning Model for teaching meaningful writing. There's nothing worse for students than to be taught that learning how to write is REQUIRED. Of course it is--but we can ease students into an appreciation of their own writing through a multitude of processes--several presented in Routman's book. Students do need to assume responsibility gradually. Our goal is for them to become independent in their writing, but first they need to experience writing as a shared activity and through meaning gained through the teacher's (and sometimes peers') modeling.

Focusing on the trait of VOICE, Routman emphasizes the need for teachers to train kids to write and think out loud. Then they will get a better sense of noticing or identifying an author's voice. I think the trait of voice is key to students developing a love of writing; they are given permission to maintain their own personality or identity in their writing. Routman also talks about the important practice of reading writing out loud. Listening to yourself as a reader--not just the writer--is critical for reorganizing or revising the writing for the purpose of strengthening that piece of writing.

Routman proposed so many ways in which to immerse students in writing. I only hope I can make it a priority in my teaching. I especially appreciate that you can incorporate writing into most subjects in school. I agree with Routman that writing needs to happen daily. I appreciate the reminder about provided choices to students, also. Routman says, "Sometimes, we just have to plunge in" (p. 179). Writing should be part of the classroom routine with emphasis on prewrites and freewrites, peer conversations about writing, and a trusting classroom climate.

December 2, 2009

I've heard it from both my placement experiences--first grade at one school, and sixth grade at another...writing assessments are a BEAR! And the rubrics provided are over-the-top long and ambiguous.

While assisting my supervising teacher in the sixth grade class, I was confronted with a stack of students' responses to the district writing prompts for assessment. I stared (for quite a while) at those glorious pieces of effort and thought to myself: Where do I start? How can I begin to evaluate these when I know students tried so hard? I do know that the teacher provides a rubric on which they will be assessed. I am overwhelmed!

In my first grade class recently, right before conferences, I was able to peruse the folders of student work of which the teacher was going to review with parents during conference time. The teacher carefully collected samples of their writing (even while often messy and brief!) from the beginning of the year through current practice. To me, it seemed a pretty valid indication of how those students were successful in making progress in the right direction--even though they may not be at grade level expectations.

Routman stresses the importance of assessing the "validity" of students' writing rather than the narrow focus on a checklist (the rubric). I agree with Routman when he talks about making sure we use rubrics which are age-appropriate. Time spent on test preparation will decrease with good teaching of writing and simply doing a lot of it. As teachers, we can't be hyperfocused on test prep; the joy will be sucked right out of writing. Routman provides many examples of how to teach writing well so that we can reduce the stress felt by students, teachers and parents. Both my supervising teachers incorporate writing into their teaching every day. This routine practice lessons the hardship of the required writing for the students; they expect it daily. The other magic to getting kids to concentrate on the quality of their writing is to get them to the point of self-assessment, or at least peer-assessment. These students will be much more prone to good learning. Routman believes in the need for assessment--but not solely from testing.

Routman would agree with Elbow's contention that assessment/ranking is being incomplete and unreliable. I've heard from more than a few teachers who concur with the C.S. Lewis quote, "People are obviously far more anxious to express their approval and disapproval of things than to describe them." Seems everyone would agree that we need better ways to measure a child's writing efforts and success. We are in danger of shifting focus from writing as individual expression to writing as meeting someone else's expectations in order to assign a grade.

Elbow seems to like the term, evaluation, better than ranking/grading. Evaluation, he implies, forces the reviewer to more thoughtfully determine what works well and what does not work for a piece of writing. Similar to Routman's wishes for assessment--evaluation should not be an act of just filling in blanks with numbers; it needs to include some pondering on the part of the teacher. As with many teachers, this pondering should occur more often than just testing time. It needs to happen daily or at least frequently as students become more relaxed with writing and as they receive encouragement and positive feedback from the teacher.

Okay--I had to re-read the Elbow's "liking" hypotheses more than once. I believe what Elbow points to is developing the skills of discernment (and/or discrimination). We, and our students, need to be taught to delve deep into writing, to read a piece multiple times, with different sets of eyes, in order to establish the good and bad of that piece. Routman does not express this kind of evaluation in so many words, although he gives us a sense of this in explaining how to get students into self-assessment. I get the impression that Routman feels evaluation, aka grading, aka assessment, is inevitable, but that there are ways in which we can work to make them more meaningful for student learning.

The two writers, Routman and Elbow, provide us with great perspectives on judging our students' writing. Routman seems to offer more concrete methods or strategies to vary our means of assessment. Elbow's article more thoroughly explains the variations in the art of judgment. As teachers, we may need to post our grades on students' writing accomplishments, but we can also take it many steps beyond and look more closely at what makes their writing good. The more desired descriptive form of evaluation can then be used in conferences with parents and the students themselves so they know what they need to work on and for what we are praising them.

November 19, 2009

I wrote a literary vignette about my history with writing in journals as a child (making this into my digital story). Reading Spandel's article on 6-trait writing, I especially related to the section on the beginning process of drawing from personal experience. Even though I eventually delved into creative writing, my early writing as a young person was all from my own unique stories. This part of the process of formulating ideas sounds easy to me as an adult. However, I think it is something that takes training and practice before it becomes so natural.

I can see this as I work with both my first graders in my dyad experience, as well as the sixth graders in my main placement. Those first graders are just at the tip of the learning process. Sure, we provide plenty of rich topics from which they can choose. And we would think there would be a wealth of experience from which to tap, but this part of the process seems nearly impossible for them. Maybe it's because the whole idea of writing is daunting to these youngsters! Many of them are intimidated whenever the task of putting pencil to paper is presented. We'd be happy if they could draw pictures of these ideas, or even just a few words. We're trying to teach them that they are full of engaging stories that others would like to hear. I've seen a lot of jumping on the bandwagon with ideas like riding a roller coaster, watching John Cena in the WWF. The sixth graders are more hung up on conventions of writing and seem to experience writer's block when first starting a writing assignment. I also see a lot of copying of ideas--the easy way.

Seeing the power of our written word--for me the journal writing that helped me grow up--I hope I have the magic to share with young writers the importance of memories and even the simplest of ideas. I hope I can coax from them the telling of what is important to them in their lives and how valuable it is for us to reflect on those things.

Spandel talks about how "writers write before they write" (p. 152). If we could teach kids that their everyday thinking about what matters to them is their "pre-write," we could ease them into viewing writing as fun and accessible.

Carved Crayons

Deepest Fear

November 9, 2009

Ann Lamott...would love to go have drinks with her sometime! As we have been asked to identify quotes from her Bird by Bird book, I have ended up with a book loaded with a bazillion Post-It notes locating my most favorite quotes. Not sure how to explain my admiration...her honest way with words floors me, and I admit I can relate to a lot of what she says!

An example: The chapter, "How do you know when you're done?" (pages 93-94): Her analogy of "putting an octopus to bed" so reminds me of multiple writing experiences in school these past few years as I finished my undergraduate degree first and continued with coursework in the t-cert program. While attempting to attain A's in my classes, I have felt the wrath of several wild octopus tentacles as they threaten to send me over the edge of sanity. I can work on a piece of writing and come pretty darn close to what I would call my very best work--ready to print out my "final" version--but then that octopus rears its ugly suction cups. I stay up way too late trying to "finalize" a piece and then try to sleep with that nagging back of my mind saying, "If only you could fine tune that section a bit more" or "I know I've left out some critical element...let me just suffer through a few more hours trying to locate it!" I remember asking a much admired professor of mine at UWB while writing a research paper in his class, "How do you know when to quit?!" He said, "You just do. You work to the deadline and then tell yourself, 'It is what it is.'" No big magic or sixth sense in knowing when you're done.

Okay, one more: page 112 in the "Broccoli" chapter. Lamott writes about "being militantly on your own side" and the need to trust ourselves. She says not to "look at your feet to see if you're doing it right...just dance." After writing my literacy vignette drafts--both of them, I was a little underwhelmed with myself--especially after feedback from my writing group. I don't have Ann Lamott's sense of humor and am challenged to make my writing entertaining to other readers. I thought my vignettes were true to my word and my story, but they ended up a little "short" on the engagement factor for other readers. But you know what?! Those first drafts were truth and directly from my memories. I guess I need to not worry so much about my rational depiction of those memories via the written word and just keep working and searching for those details that best show my recall as "valuable stuff."