Hi, everyone, sorry for the delay in this week's post. I've read all of your responses, very interesting your suggestions and thoughts.
Please read the last 2 chapters and absorb this whole program. I think the real thrust of the program was examining the first 5 traits. Conventions and Presentation are very important, though, not as crucial to the student's writing.
Read both chapters and respond to the following:
How do you determine what grammar skills to teach?
How does your spelling instruction impact your student's writing (does it?)?
How do you feel about Ruth Culham's view on conventions? Do you agree or disagree with her point of view?
Chapter 8 Presentation
Share 2 points you found interesting in this chapter.
Also, do you see yourself implementing this program in your classroom next year?
Thank you for all of your input -- it's been great. I put support materials in your mailboxes for both of these chapters.
Liz
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Chapter 7 & 8
ReplyDeleteI have my students create a preliminary writing piece in September. I assess their writing needs and then plan my grammar lessons accordingly. In addition, while reading literature, I conduct mini-lessons based on grammar skills. Through oral discussions, I can ascertain the level of mastery of grammar skills of my class.
I’ve changed my ideas about spelling programs this year. My grade level has adopted a new spelling program and, halfway through the way, I have stopped giving spelling tests. I have found that students cram and memorize for the test, and these skills are not apparent in their writing pieces. I feel that spelling instruction is crucial, but hopefully more is understood if tests are not involved.
Ruth Culham’s view on conventions is similar in some respects to my own beliefs. It was very sad to read that her son was so upset about following rules due to his teacher’s teaching style. I too believe that I want my students to have a love and joy of using words to create their own original and unique pieces. I also agree that writing is never finished. You can relook at a piece months or years later and make changes and modifications to the original piece.
Two points that I have interesting were the following: I love Lucy Calkins and her ideas on the writing process. I agree that the best way to teach writing is to share writing pieces created by your students. In many ways, this strategy gives other students ideas as to how to further develop their own writing. It should shows students different writing patterns and styles. Another interesting part was to have students take risks as writers. When writers are nervous and unable to take risks, usually their writing is flat and simple. Writers take risks and work out of the box and create unbelievably original writing pieces.
There are definitely aspects of this program that are wonderful to use in the classroom. I will reread this book over the summer, take more notes, and pick and choose those aspects which are appealing to me.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteGrammar lessons depend on the overall skills of the students in your class. My self-contained class has a wide level of skills in this area. Grammar is not always the most important skill to teach. Having my students read a portion of text and write a small summary is more important to the needs of my students this year. The writing conventions, unfortunately, come second to the actual brainstorming and sharing of ideas in a verbal or non-verbal manner.
Spelling instruction is basically conducted using basic skills, such as prefixes, suffixes, spelling patterns and basic sight words. Spelling is taught directly through the use of literature, as well as a student workbook which reinforces concepts taught in class.
Ruth Culham's view on conventions is very much the same as my ideas on this subject. I believe that getting a student to open up, brainstorm and share their original ideas and thoughts is much more important than worrying about writing conventions. I think that ultimately, a student must be able to edit and revise a writing piece, but beginning writers need to feel free when writing.
Chapter 8
Two points I found interesting in this chapter were: Grading a writing piece on presentation is extremely complex. Generally, a teacher gives a student specific guidelines to follow in order to successfully complete a task. If these guidelines are ignored, it is true that a teacher begins grading the piece with a negative attitude. Another interesting point is that it truly is important to share/model impressive and descriptive writing with students. A lot of times, my students hear the patterns and the voice in a picture book and they try to mimic some of these techniques in their own writing. Modeling makes students think prior to brainstorming and creating. It also opens their minds to different writing styles.
There are parts of this program which I think would work very well with my students. My problem is that, from year to year, my assignment changes and I never know which population of students I will be working with in the upcoming school year.
Cheryl, it's great how you use the student's writing to plan your grammar instruction. I agree that using student's writing to model lessons is so effective. Thanks for all your great posts.
ReplyDeleteMichelle, it makes sense that your students would focus more on brainstorming and ideas and worry less about conventions. Overall, the first 5 traits are the more important part of writing for all students. I agree how important modeling is especially in writing. Thanks for all your great posts.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteTo determine what grammar skills in the beginning of the school year I start out with a Summer Poem. I read the poem aloud twice and then have the students write a reflection of the poem and I also have them make a connection of their own summer experiences. I then take the piece and grade it for grammar and for organization.
I think my spelling program does impact the students writing. Especially, with the program we are currently using. It teaches not only a variety of words but writing.
Ruth Culhams conventions are similar to my own. I feel it is important for students to be able to put down their ideas and thoughts openly. Even though grammar is important I feel that the students can revisit their pieces for editing purposes.
Chapter 8
Two points of interest:
Grading for presentation is something I do not normally do but I think it is a great idea. Maybe, this will make the students more aware of what they are handing in. I sometimes have to sit there and try to figure out what the student is writing. I am definitely going to do this in September.
Teaching students to take risks is a great lesson. Giving them the necessary tools to be able to open up and write down there ideas and thoughts. I personally learn to take risks in my own writing.
I would use some of the resources. I would also use bits and pieces. Especially in those areas that I feel I am not strong in. I certainly have plenty of room for improving and I did enjoy this book.
Laurie
Michelle:
ReplyDeleteI would think that creating grammar lessons to meet the wide range of abilities and needs in your class would be very difficult. Maybe you can choose a few different strategies to be used in small groups. I also teach spelling while modeling picture books and through rich literature.
Laurie:
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of assessing your students' abilities through the use of an authentic task. I also hope that our spelling program impacts on our students' overall writing abilities. I also agree with you that creating the writing piece in an open, and non-threatening environment is so important. They can always revisit their writing to edit for mechanics.
In many respects my response is similar to michelle's. Differnt groups that I work with I expect and stress different grammar rules. Spelling does impact significantly many of my students because oftne they have underlying phonemic weakness. Therrefore my work into the spelling arrea often is based on the teaching of phonemic rueles. It then hopefully carries over into their writing a short piece for me during the sesions.Again similar to Michele I will work with prefixes and suffixes as well as homographs and homophones. I do agree with Ruth Culhams' view. Braainstoeming and topic enhancement need to be valued as much as the conventions. But done correctly where one does do take over is the key element for me.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8
Fonts and discusssion of wha tto use and how I found to be interesting. thiss year I had some of my students type some writing activities for me and it was amazing how some of thee studnets good pieces of writing were not as strong because of the font that the studnet choose.The second interesting point was having the studnetns see the different pieces to understand what is strong and what is not acceptable. I plan on taking what ever I can form this course and include it whereever I can in my lessons to help support the classroom teacher in educating the students.
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteI have also seen that students just tend to memorize weekly spelling words just for the test. I have tried this year to focus on more of the rules for spelling to help them internalize and hopefully be able to transfer proper spellings into their writing pieces.
The chapter on conventions is where I finally knew my kids need to totally 'take a back seat'. I have tried some of the things I've learned in this class, and my kids have produced some surprisingly good pieces. We did a creative piece (which I almost NEVER do) and they loved it and did very well. That being said, their conventions are pretty awful! They have such weak grammar and spelling that it is next to impossible to focus on that. If I tried to teach them conventions, I think they would be overwhelmed, and therefore give up before even starting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ruth Culham that the other traits are the important ones to work on particularly with the students that I work with. Brainstorming ideas, teaching them organization and voice (in addition to word choice) are the key traits that I will focus on. I find that editing their pieces is exhausting for ME, so they would never even be able to attempt it (not to mention the fact that they don't see their errors anyway!!).
I have struggled with 'teaching' spelling the last few years. I found that kids would memorize certain spelling words, only to have them completely forgotten a few weeks later. Now I'm trying to focus more on some of the rules (similar to what Michele mentioned) so that they can generalize them to many words. Unfortunately, they haven't generalized too many of those rules yet, but at least they realize it and remember when I point it out to them!
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteIn addition to reviewing grade level grammar skills, I think it is important to use a student's own writing to guide teacher support and lessons. As for spelling, I hold students accountable for those words learned in the spelling program but also stretch those students who need enrichment and review spelling strategies with students experiencing difficulty. As for Culham'sview on conventions, I am in basic agreement and feel that editing is secondary to expression of self.
Cheryl,
Your method of using peer sharing is, to me, a wonderful strategy and a great way to establish a writing community in your classroom.
Chapter 8
ReplyDeleteI liked Culham's comment that visual appeal welcomes the reader. It's a nice way to speak about writers connecting with their audience. Students can think of presenting the gift of their writing to the reader. When they present a gift to someone, they usually use pretty wrapping paper and a bow. Hopefully, writers will consider their audience's response to their presentation.
Another point that I found interesting in Chapter Eight was how effective the sample student papers were as examples of poor presentation. I think they are useful to use as models for students to score. They make very clear to students some of the pitfalls related to presentation.
Liz,
So many valuable ideas! This model is practical and wise. I will implement as need arises. Thank you for a great course and for taking the time to provide us with the supplementary handouts. I appreciate your work.
My students need to learn all aspects of grammar because they are second language learners. For intermediate and advanced ESL students, I assess their writing for types of errors. Grammatical errors that occur most often are the areas in which I will focus first.
ReplyDeleteSince I am not a classroom teacher, I do not have a particular spelling program. I teach my students spelling rules as they come up. I only have them for about 30 minutes a day so I have to incorporate the teaching grammar and spelling.
I have similar ideas to Ruth Culham regarding conventions. It is very important, but it should not get in the way of putting ideas on paper. My students often get hung up on spelling and grammar, but I tell them to get their ideas on paper and we'll worry about the mechanics later. I find this to be much more production and in line with what Culham believes.
Ch. 7 -
ReplyDeleteIn September, the children are given many opportunities to write either on a given topic or one of their own choosing. This often leads to "September Shock" because, no matter how many years I have taught, I tend to forget the skills the children enter with for the new school year. Of course, some are more capable than others but generally, the use of homophones, punctuation, and mechanics need to be addressed. I do teach mini-lessons for each of these on almost a daily basis, and then the children are given opportunity to "try it out" either in their writing workshop or find an example of what was taught when they revisit the book their reading during our reading lesson. Those homophones need to be taught and retaught and practiced, and then practiced some more! Sometimes I play a game in order to review, or have the children put the homophones on index cards and hold up the correct word for the sentence. Spelling is taught emphasizing a certain sound or sound combination. The words on the list all have that particular sound. Through ALL the years I have taught, I have come to realize that many children can learn the words for the spelling test, but some will not spell those same words correctly a few weeks later in their writing. This is why we have dictionaries in the classroom and on the computers. When the children are first creating their written piece, I tell them to spell the best they can and get their ideas down on paper. After the piece is written and revised, then I feel they should edit for spelling. I totally agree with Ruth Culham that a published piece should be a corrected piece. The children are held accountable for the lessons that were taught. On the Smartboard, I list the conventions and the children reread their piece and just look for the convention that's listed. They do this for each one, one at a time, so there are many rereads involved when they are editing. She mentioned that as the children are writing, she stops by to comment on the conventions. I do not like that idea, since it seems like it would disrupt their thought processes.
ch. 8 - Presentation
Presentation is important. The piece needs to be neat and today, with the availability of computers, there no excuse for messy papers. Providing samples of writing, either from the children (without names on papers), or created by the teacher, is a good idea and something I do. I also liked the idea of giving the children guidelines and then formally assessing their presentation of their writing. I will use many of the ideas from this book this year and next year. I loved some of the ideas to check for conventions and will definitely incorporate them into my program.
One of the important comments that Ruth Culham makes in regard to presentation is that the appearance of a piece will have a great impact on it's appeal. She mentions that if the appearance is sloppy or hard to read, the reader may just pass it by and ignore it. It could be a great writing piece, but it may be ignored totally because of it's poor presentation(kind of like our own personal 'first impressions'!).
ReplyDeleteI must say that presentation is probably one of the last things I would work on with my students. They have so many other issues to deal with- most especially ideas, organization, and basic mechanics, that it's just too much for them to have to consider presentation. I think I would model it with some picture books just to spark a thought, but would not really delve into it too deeply.
I have greatly enjoyed this course. The book was terrific and I have already instituted some of the ideas. I read one of the suggested books (Where have the Dinosaurs Gone?) and had my students write a creative writing piece- where did they think the dinosaurs went? They loved it, and did such a great job! I was thrilled. I would like to look into the Traits book for the younger students as well. Because I have 3rd graders who are not performing on grade level, there might be many other ideas I could incorporate on a simpler level.
Thanks for such a great course, Liz! I look forward to more!!
Marsha,
ReplyDeleteI agree with the spelling issue- the kids may successfully learn the words for the test, and they are forgotten in a very short time. I also had a student last year who tried so hard, and was so hard on herself. Every week she got at least two or three words wrong, and would actually cry over it. I stopped 'spelling tests' after that! In my opinion, they were not achieving what they were supposed to achieve (true internalization of the spelling) so why torture the kids?!
Laurie, I like the idea of the Summer Poem -- a great way to welcome them back while assessing their writing. I agree that grading for presentation is something that might help students be more accountable for their work. Thanks for all your great posts.
ReplyDeleteCaroline, your point about how the fonts impacted your students' writing is interesting. I'm glad you found the program helpful. Thanks for all your great posts.
Debbie, we can only do so much with certain students. I agree with you that the brainstorming of ideas and getting ideas down on paper is the most important. I'm sure they pick up something about conventions through modeling -- the other traits warrant more effort, though. Thanks for all your great posts.
Pat, I agree with you about making the piece appealling -- it's a nice way to motivate students. I'm glad you enjoyed the program. Thanks for all your great posts.
Chapter 7: Good question!!! Honestly, I use the Manhasset Scope and Sequence and fourth grade books I have on grammar and usage to guide me. The children also do Daily Oral Language to help practice their editing skills. The spelling program does not impact the wriitng we do as much as I would like it to! However, I could start having the children find words in their writing that follow the week’s pattern. So far this year, the spelling program impacts their reading more than their writing.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with the author’s viewpoints on conventions, and love Mem Fox’s way of describing conventions as “manners.” So true! I also agree with the reasons Culham gives for why the students have trouble learning them! I love the “Walkabout” idea and “Look Who’s Talking” activity. I also love to use Schoolhouse Rock in my classroom. I also agree that when I teach grammar in the student’s writing, they remember it better! Separate teaching does not seem to be as effective. I like to do it too as reinforcement. I use a C.O.P.S (capitals, organization, punctuation, and spelling) checklist when the students edit their work, so I loved the support materials! Thanks!
Chapter 8:
Presentation matters! I agree Marsha. Presentation is very important and models and checklists and rubrics help immensely in assuring a good presentation. I love the list of comments to help children imporve their presentation. I find I use a lot of these comments. I teach my children that presentation does matter like Culham writes on pg. 259. They in turn feel pride when they have taken the time to produce work that is neat, coloraful, and accurate. i even have a blackboard dedicated to showing off pieces that have excellent presentation. In addition, when we share our final pieces, we usually have a “Writing Celebration” so the students understand their writing is always for an audience and that it should look as polished as it can for their reader to enjoy. However, in order for this to happen, I find it takes a long time! It takes along time to teach all of these traits, ESPECIALLY PRESENTATION so I appreciate your thoughts, Debbie. Still, I would definitely use this program next year. it is an organized, creative and effective way to teach writing! Thanks Liz! I learned so much, and look forward to using it next year! Good luck to us all!
The way I teach grammar is totally dependent on the type of language disability that is presented by my students. It could be sentence structure, parts of speech, pronouns, verbs etc. Of course, more is expected of the student as they reach the higher grades. I agree with Michelle and Debbie about spelling. Rather than trying to teach my students to memorize individual words, teaching general spelling rules seems to be more effective. Thre is no real stategy in memorization, and unfortunately words are retained for the "test" and forgotten not too soon after. I think Ruth Culhams ideas on convention gets to the heart of the matter on writing. Brainstorming is one of the most important...Most writers have a hard time getting started and organization is another convention that I find is necessary to improve writing. I find that the mechanics of writing presents the greatest difficulty.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8
ReplyDeleteI found that this program gave me the skills to better assess my students' writing. I found the sample papers to be very helpful as a guidline. I will definitely be able to use this program in my instruction next year, particularly for the writing segement we do on myths and legends. Caroline,I agree that the fonts that students choose impact their writing....maybe it has to do with visual tracking issues or the student's distractability. This si one area where I can say less is more. Having a format to follow will really help our students.
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteAs a grade, we are rethinking our spelling program and looking for one that emphasizes spelling patterns. We were also considering using the list of frequently misspelled words as well as incorporating homophones in the required lists.
Chapter 8
ReplyDeleteI like to idea of giving students a grade for presentation. There are students who struggle with writing, but have great presentation while others have great content and poor presentation. A grade will help some students feel good about their writing and it will help others learn what they need to do in order to improve presentation.
Rubrics are great because students know what they are expected to do and it allows the teacher to show the student specifically what needs improvement and what he/she does well.
The comments that Culham suggests are great. I could see myself using parts of this program with my students. Since I only have them for about 30 minutes a day, I can't go as in depth as a classroom teacher. The author makes it easy to see why evaluating one trait at a time is valuable. I think it will give the students a better understanding of their strengths and weaknesses as a writer. It will also be less overwhelming and allow the student to strengthen particular skills.
Cheryl,
ReplyDeleteWe seem to have the same method of teaching grammar. Assessing needs is crucial if you want to improvement. I also agree with you about spelling instruction. If the students aren't internalizing the infomrmation, then it is pointless. They aren't really learning if they can't apply the information in the future.
Amy,
ReplyDeleteI also like the idea of rubrics. Students like to know what is expected of them. I agree that presentation matters. It's great that you have a wall to display writing with good presentation. Students need to learn to take pride in their work.
Lisa,
ReplyDeleteAlthough content is crucial, I also stress that presentation is important. A neat appealing paper or project does make a difference. I have never graded presentation of their work, but do show examples and I mention what I like about the way it looks. Most of the students get the idea!
Marsha,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you since I too spend most of the time teaching homophones to help children improve their spelling. I like your idea of practicing the words by showing their differences. It might be fun if I have them each choose a pair to illustrate on the computer and we can put it into a PowerPoint, which might visualize for them. Thanks for helping me to come up with a possible approach since I too teach, reteach and reteach these words.
Amy,
ReplyDeleteLike you I believe presentation is important and when we are getting pieces ready for publication, I too, include it as an expectation in our rubric. By continuing to include presentation as a requirement in final publishable pieces, I feel youngsters learn to focus on this aspect, but after they have completed each of the other traits.
Chapter 7: Conventions
ReplyDeleteI decide what grammar skills to teach based on the needs of the class and the writing they produce. At the beginning of the year, I review parts of speech and types of sentences since they help me help students throughout the year ie to punctuate prepositional phrases, writers need to know what a preposition is. Throughout the year, I teach skills, based on what their need as I read their writing pieces. Without fail, I know to teach lessons on comma usage since so much of their writing includes clarifying where and why we use commas. If we are using dialogue and conversation, that's when I'll do mini-lessons on quotation marks, etc. I feel it is useless to teach any conventions out of context. We put their writing on the SMARTBOARD and I'll choose writing, which requires teaching specific skills that occur in many student papers.
I haven't given spelling tests in years so spelling mini-lessons involve homophones since it makes up most of the misspellings for a majority of my sixth grader writers. Making them more aware of their mistakes can be frustrating since it's hard to get them to take charge of errors in grammar, punctuation and spelling to the point where they will accept a ridiculous computer replacement of one word for another that has no connection to the sentence. I point out the misspelled words like writing are instead of our since so often the errors are careless ones that could be easily corrected. We go over suffixes and prefixes, also, to help them deal with word families and groups- but always in relation to the writing assignment. When we research and write essays on Early Humans, we develop a collection of vocabulary words that may end up being used. We review capitalization as it relates to the use of words for that social studies/writing assignment. Do I feel the success is balanced by the time I put in- not enough! so I'll give the time only where it is directly related to a piece of writing they may be working on.
I have to say Ruth Culham's views and comments about conventions validated my own because while I use the majority of my time helping students develop their ideas and truly growing as authors, I always feel guilty that I don't spend as much time on skills in grammar, punctuation, and spelling. I can never bring myself to spend the bulk of any writing period teaching skills in isolation and giving spelling tests. I have never seen any correlation between teaching grammar skills in isolation and better writing in mechanics. She is the first educator I have read to put in writing, "conventions are less important than the other traits" and I wholeheartedly agree. I can always sit with students before they are ready to publish and show them final editing necessary so that the final piece is ready for the public. I spend all year teaching the skills of revision so that the writing has powerful voice, a worthy idea that is fully developed with lots of interesting details and vivid language. That's far harder to learn. This book has given me a chance to appreciate the accomplishments of my students because I have set appropriate goals and prioritize what's important to spend our time on during writing workshop. I loved all her Every day Practices for Teaching Conventions as well as her suggestions for teaching them.
Chapter 8:Presentation
I found this reading quite interesting because I feel, especially with my sixth graders, presentation has to be specifically taught. In the chapter, Ruth Culham lists all the features of appropriate presentation, which again, validated the lessons I teach in this area. Since they use the computer, I talk about margins, how the title should look, centered on the page. We look at a variety of published pieces when they are finalizing their writing to be published and I insist they take time to carefully and thoughtfully "design" their piece: how to fill the space on the page pleasingly. Reading this chapter gave me a sense of relief that what I feel strongly about, teaching children how they should carefully and thoughtfully design the final copy so that their fine writing is truly "showcased" isn't wasting time!
I also loved how she accurately described my habit of taking the hardest piece of writing- the one that is most difficult to read- and putting it at the bottom of the pile because it will be a challenge I want to deal with later! I thought it was only me.
I definitely plan to implement this program next year, and even started to do so a bit this year. Rather than try to grade a piece of writing for all the traits, every piece of writing for every child, which takes me hours, I started this approach and decided to use VOICE as our focus for their most recent project: writing vignettes , since internally, it was the one trait I was teaching anyway. It was easier and faster to look at the one trait and it gave students feedback in that area, which will help them know what they have accomplished or need to accomplish to improve. I am thrilled I have a new set of tricks in my bag to begin next year, and I feel confident that I will help many more students grow as writers earlier in the year by choosing to deal with one trait at a time. I am thrilled I took this course.
After seeing some of the examples that students write in the beginning of the year, I see where they are at and what skills they may need to be taught. There are some skills though that are taught every year because students need to have them in language arts. Added to this are skills they need based off my observations. There is no spelling curriculum/book in 6th grade. I focus more on general spelling rules and homophones. I have seen this help some students, but the homophones need to be repeated several times for it to stick with some students. I'm still looking for a more effective way to teach spelling.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Ruth's view on conventions. Editing and revising are different. Conventions should be the last step to work on before publishing/sharing. Conventions take time and practice, and I feel too that demanding correctedness stifles creativity. Students should spend time on conventions, but demanding them could make students only focus on that instead of the content.
Two points I found interesting in chap. 8 were on pages 259 and 258. On 259, Ruth states that when a piece is hard to read, it creates a negative mindset. If a piece has a sloppy presentation, you assume that the piece isn't going to be good (when it very well could be). Therefore, presentation is important too. On 258, Ruth states that looking at different writing samples is one of the best ways to introduce students to the presentation trait. Students need to see what is expected of them in order to present material themselves.
I have found some excellent activities and lessons in this book that I plan to use this year and in years to come. I see myself implementing the traits and evaluating them as she laid out in the book.
Lisa, I agree getting the ideas down on the paper is the most important part for any student. Teaching from their written mistakes is probably most effective. Thanks for your great posts.
ReplyDeleteMarsha, I like your phrase "September Shock" -- it certainly is a shock to see how much they forget over the summer. I agree with you, too, that allowing them to practice as soon as they have been taught is a great way to help them master the skill. Thanks for all of your great posts.
Debbie, there is the book for the primary grades -- with great lessons. I also have a book on mini lessons for grades 2 and up. Stop by and I'll share it with you. Thanks again for all your great posts.
Amy, I like your idea of using their writing to reinforce spelling. Your writing celebrations are a great incentive to have children produce their very best work. I'm glad you enjoyed the program. Thanks for all of your great posts.
Lynn, it's true that you have to design your instruction based on the needs of your group. I think that's the best type of instruction anyway. Thanks for all of your great posts.
Nancy, sounds like you have a solid approach to incorporating grammar and writing together. I agree that teaching grammar in isolation does little to improve a student's writing. I'm glad you enjoyed the program and found some useful suggestions. Thanks for all of your great posts.
Laura, I think your approach to spelling instruction is more effective than following a scripted program. I'm glad you found the program helpful. Thanks for all of your great posts.
Assessing a couple of short writing pieces in the beginning of the year helps me plan/understand the instruction that is needed. I always encourage and remind my students to first write their pieces/stories. When we edit, then we can focus on the grammar/mechanics. However, many of my students first question is, Does spelling/grammar count? I tell them not to focus on that right now and to do the best they can. However, when we start a new writing piece, they need to incorporate the skills that they have learned through my lessons. I focus on one skill per piece. It works for that piece; however most seem to forget to use it in their next piece.
ReplyDeleteFor my student’s spelling seem to be all about memorization. I have students that cannot spell the simple words, but yet they get 100% on their spelling tests. However, I think it is important for them to learn the rules, patterns, new words and vocabulary.
I feel the same way about Ruth Culham’s conventions. Students should focus on their writing first. It is hard enough for some to get their thoughts and ideas on paper. They should be allowed to do this freely without worrying about anything else. Once that is completed they can figure out the rest when editing and revising.
Chapter8-
ReplyDeleteI personally have not graded a student on their “presentation”, however after reading this, I realize the importance of it. For my students it was always a fun addition to their writing. I agree that it is important to give specific guidelines for them to follow. It is also important to emphasis that they must follow the guidelines given. Another important thing is to have the student’s share their pieces so they can see what works and what does not. Whenever we have a project I always demonstrate what not to do and why it does not work, so they can visually see it. I would definitely use this in my classroom. I think it is important because as writers they should know what the reader would like to see as well as hear.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteI base my grammar instruction on the needs of my class. I use the "Write on Track" book as my primary source. I find my students are weak in this area. I remember my fourth grade teacher would have a grammar block each day. Due to lack of time in the day, I find most of my convention instruction comes from using actual student work. The smart board has made this interactive and students enjoy editing their (and classmates) pieces on the board. I also have a "Daily Language Review" time each day that helps reinforce skills that have been taught.
I agree with Ruth Culham. Teaching grammar isolation is not a good strategy. Students remember the skills better when they can relate it to their own writing. I also find checklists to be a valuable resource. Students are forced to review their work and look specifically for grammar mistakes.
Chapter 8
I found the assessing presentation quite interesting. I always tell my looks that presentation is a important component of the piece, however, I never thought about all the specifics that go into it. I guess I have been more focused on content than presentation.
I found this course helpful and interesting. I like how this program is thorough and organized. I plan to use many of these ideas next year. Thanks!