Reading About Writing

Scott 2

Day One: Help Children To Write And Keep Writing

I like how the author states that the first entry point into writing is simple conversation. I agree with this because it lets the students easily make connections and think of topics in their own lives that they could write about. I didn’t ever think of the fact that drawing often helps the children to think about what might be said in the text that follows.  “Inventing” words saves the teacher time as well as helps the students attempt to hear the individual sounds in a word and figure out the spelling.

It is important to help students learn how to listen to themselves. They can do this by taking notes as they are discussing and thinking of new ideas and memories. Some techniques to use with students are:

Thinking back to former experiences, making lists, sign or brief command, messages, show children the options for writing topics from an everyday reading of the world, writing conferences  (abt 2 minutes) where the students teach you about what they know, and conducting a writing share sessions with a small group or with the entire class.

With these techniques, the students will learn the three basic elements in the writing classroom: discovering writing topics, writing conferences, and sharing their ideas. I like how the author brought in demonstrating. Demonstration and modeling has always helped me to learn as a student, so I will need to remember that as I am teaching.

Scott 4

7 Conditions For Effective Writing

I like that this article focuses on conditions that encourage good writing rather than focusing on instructions or a particular methodology. I could really relate to the author’s examples she provides under “time”. Procrastinating and not having much time to do a piece of writing really does interfere with the outcome. I also appreciate that she says, “Correcting errors is not teaching, teaching requires us to show students how to write and how to develop the skills necessary to improve as a writer,” which takes time.

Time, Choice, Response, Demonstration, Expectation, Room Structure, Evaluation, and the Final Reflection are the 7 conditions that the author lists and explains that she feels are the main conditions for effective writing to take place. While reading the article, I agreed with all of these conditions. They all are important aspects that teachers and students need to take into considerations when writing time comes.