My Lack of Teaching Time

As we come to the end of our three weeks of guided lead teaching when we are supposed to have taught all of our unit...I have taught a single lesson, spread out over about three days. I don't even have many comments I can make now because my unit was on the useage of literary devices and examples of them and all I have been able to do thus far is go over the six we are looking at and examples of each. I have also read the introduction to the students finding two literary devices in the editor's note of "Howliday Inn". I hope to be able to have more time as time goes on...

Reflections

My lessons were focused in Writing Workshop. While, I had originally planned them with Nicole, I ended up having to condense the bulk of my punctuation lessons into four days. Instead of teaching each piece of punctuation separately my CT and I decided that, for our class, it would be best to maintain as much routine as possible. We were both very skeptical of how the class would do with some of the more outrageous lessons we had originally planned.

Day one: I introduced the main ideas of punctuation and had the class work on a separate sheet of paper just keeping in mind the conversation of punctuation. The class had a conversation about periods, question marks, quotation marks, and exclamation marks. We discussed what they mean and then the students set off to work. Their samples from the first day showed some consideration about using punctuation. From these I knew we needed to focus a little bit more on exactly what punctuation looks like in a sample of writing.

Day two: For this mini lesson, I prepared a writing sample similar to the work the students regularly do (stories about their lives). I wrote a story with a beginning, middle, and end, and also some of the other writing strategies they have been focusing on like using similes. In this writing I included different types of punctuation throughout the piece. After I read it to the class, we went through and highlighted the different spots with punctuation. We went through and found how it helped make the piece easier to read, understand, and kept it organized. For their focus during writing workshop they were to write about anything and keep focusing on using punctuation. These papers were better. Some of the students started noticing patterns with their own writing and could start thinking about where they needed to add in the proper punctuation.

Day three: As a final step for the recognition of punctuation I created a poster which outlined all of the different types of punctuation. The poster has columns for what it is, what is the purpose of it, and when to use it. We discussed the whole poster and whether or not they agreed with the statements. After looking at the poster the students were able to see the punctuation in a different way. Their writing showed increased attention to the punctuation.

I was able to conference with all of the students in the last two days. I tried to use this time to clarify any questions the students had, to check their use of the punctuation, and to find out what strategies the students were using while writing. I found that I could share some of these strategies to help the other students.

From now on, the students are expected to pay attention and use punctuation in all of their writing. I will continue to check in with the students to make sure that they are still using the punctuation properly.

I liked being able to take a few days to have the students just start to use the strategy we were introducing. Then show an example for the students to dissect and analyze. Finally, having a full discussion and lesson about punctuation. It was interesting being able to conference in with the students and read their daily work to see their progression in understanding the concept.

Reflection on 3 Lessons:

Lesson 1: Character Motives

This lesson was one I had to plan out really well, because I knew my students would need a lot of instruction in order to be successful in this lesson. For this lesson, they listened to me read aloud “Bud, Not Buddy,” the chapter about Bud being tormented by his foster brother, Todd Amos. In the mini lesson before I read aloud, I introduced the concept of character motives. First, I defined character motive as the reasoning behind character’s actions and gave them an example. I then asked if they could give some examples. The students did really well with this, and over half the class raised their hand to offer up an example. When I noticed that a lot of my students had something to say, I decided to have them turn to a partner and talk about their ideas. I did this, because I wanted all the students to have the chance to share their ideas. I then called on a few students to share with the whole class. One girl gave this example, “a motive is when you clean your room, so you can get your allowance.” I was really impressed with her thinking of this, and it was a motive that a lot of my students could relate with. Another student brought up the idea of a motive is why someone kills someone else like in CSI. I thought this was really funny, and I should have anticipated someone bringing up this type of motive! I told the students that we hear about motives in murder cases, but the ones in “Bud, Not Buddy” deal with why characters do a certain action. I tried to reaffirm that this person’s thinking was on the right track but redirected it to the book we were reading. When I read aloud, I made sure to stop a few times to do a think aloud. I wanted my students to start forming ideas of why Todd could be tormenting Bud. After I finished reading, I explained why it’s important to think about character motives. I think it’s important to explain why it’s important so that the students know that it is worthwhile to think about character motives. I then explained the activity of writing a letter from Todd Amos’s perspective explaining to Bud why he tormented him. I asked for “a thumbs up” if they understood the directions, however some students seemed confused. I anticipated some students having trouble with the activity, so I decided to have a student who did understand the activity explain in their own words what the directions were. I then made a bullet list on the smartboard of each step for the activity, and this seemed to really clarify what was expected of the students. While the students were working on their letter independently, I noticed that many students wanted reassurance that they were doing a good job. I had a lot of students raise their hands just to ask if they were doing it right. After I assessed the letters, I found that many students were really creative and detailed; however, some students missed the point of character motive. A handful of students only wrote a couple sentences and they didn’t touch on character motive. Instead some students talked about how Bud felt after being tormented, which told me that we would have to practice more on looking at character motives.

Lesson 2: Predictions & Inferences

For this lesson, I really wanted to have students work on being able to write down ideas and share these ideas with a partner. All year we have been working on predictions and inferences, and that is what this lesson really focused on. In the beginning of my lesson, I asked students if they knew what it meant to make a prediction. My students did really well with this, and I had 4 students offer up their ideas. Although my students knew what it meant to predict, I had to reinforce the idea of basing the prediction in the text. I then moved on to inferences, and asked students to discuss what it meant to make an inference. This was more difficult for my students to define, and they had trouble putting their ideas into words. One of my students shared a perfect example of an inference, “If you are going to someone’s house even if you haven’t been there before, you infer that the house has windows.” I thought this was a great example, and I asked if this helped my students understand what an inference was. I asked for “thumbs up” if they understood what it means to infer, and most of my students seemed to have a good understanding. I then instructed the students to write down at least one prediction or inference they make while I read aloud. When I read aloud, I could tell that some of my students were not writing anything down. I stopped and reminded the students that it was their job to write down predictions and inferences while I read. I also stopped a few times to do a think aloud to show students how to make a good prediction and inference and how to base it in the text. After I was done reading, I explained the activity of a written conversation. My students were a little confused by this idea and one student asked “Well can’t we just have a real conversation?” I had to explain that this activity would help us become better at responding to what others say. I then started to explain what constitutes an appropriate response to someone else’s idea. I said “If someone tells you their favorite color is blue…it is okay to respond with ‘what did you eat for lunch today?’” My students all said no, and they seemed to understand why it’s important to have appropriate responses. They then participated in the written conversation with a partner. This did not go as well as I had hoped. They did really well with writing their own ideas down, but they had trouble responding to their partner. I had a lot of students raise their hand and tell me they did not know how to respond. I had to probe them with questions such as—“well do you agree with what they say?” When I collected their sheets of paper to look at their written conversations, I was really happy with some of them, but some students did not put forth much of an effort. If I do this activity again, I am going to have to approach it in a different way and maybe give some more guidelines.

Lesson 3: Personal connections

To open up this lesson, I had students come up with ideas on why it’s important to make personal connections to texts we read. While they shared their ideas, I wrote them all down on a piece of chart paper. I had a lot of students share ideas, but none of them touched upon making the text more meaningful. I decided to share this idea and tell them that when we make personal connections, the text become more meaningful to us. I then asked “if the text is more meaningful, don’t you think we’ll enjoy it more?” My students said yes, and they seemed to understand the importance of making personal connections. I then reaffirmed some of the ideas they brought up by reading them allowed. During the read aloud, I told them to move their finger up and down when they make a connection so I could see the light bulb going off in their heads. I noticed a lot of my students do this throughout the read aloud, but I could tell that some students were just doing in the entire time. I had to stop and re explain that they only show the light bulb when they make a great connection to a character. After I finished reading, I explained that they would have to write down a connection they made to a character. I knew I had to model how to do so, because my students are very visual learners and need to see what is expected of them. I modeled how to write in complete sentences when writing down a connection. When I asked a student to re explain, he did a nice job and all the students really seemed to understand better having a peer explain the directions. During the time when they were writing down their connections, I had some students who were really stuck. Some students told me that they did not make any connections. I decided then to pull a group of students to the kidney table with me. I re explained what was expected and went through what happened in the story that day to help them think of ideas. These students really did a better job when they were able to sit with a smaller group and me. This helped me realize that some of my students really benefit from small group instruction. When I looked through their connections, I was really happy that all but two of my students wrote in complete sentences. Writing in complete sentences when answering questions is something we’ve been working on all year. I think by modeling how to answer the question really helped my students understand what was expected of them. Many of my students connected to Bud feeling scared but having to put on a brave front. I was really impressed how my students connected to this aspect of Bud, and it showed me that my students understand how to make personal connections.

GLT Reflection

Day 1: Pre- assessment: write a notebook entry to the best of your ability. It can be about anything, fiction/non-fiction; but it must be in paragraph form (not a poem/list/etc.). There wasn’t anything for students to learn this day. The at-risk students did struggle with their writing stamina and staying focused. As a whole, my students’ did not write as much as they are capable of. This could be interpreted as they are unable to focus and write for an extended period of time, that they have poor writing stamina. In reality, my students as a whole have strong stamina and can stay focused for a long period of time. I learned that many students have trouble with words that sound the same but have different meanings (threw/through, piece/peace, right/write), as well has how to correctly conjugate verbs (brung/brought, hid/hided, found/founded), and the majority of them do not understand indentation to show a new paragraph. I will reteach the material to students who need additional support by conferring with them while they write. I will focus on whichever convention they need the most work on—capital letters for proper nouns, question marks, etc. If I were to teach this lesson again I would have each student come up with a goal for their writing—which aspect of grammar conventions they are going to really concentrate on. I think this would improve their writing because it gives them a clear focus rather than trying to work on numerous conventions.

Day 2: Capitals and Quotations: discussion about when words are capitalized and when you use quotation marks, write a story about a time you went somewhere with someone. Students learned that proper nouns are capitalized and we use quotation marks to show when people are talking. These are not new concepts to the students, I just felt they needed a reminder of them. I looked over their writing and they all applied what we talked about and improved from the day before. I learned that many of them knew when and how to use capital letters and quotation marks, they just did not always transfer that knowledge to their writing as evidence. I don’t think these things will need to be retaught, but when conferring with students I will look to be sure they are using capital letters and quotation marks correctly and if they aren’t, I will have a quick discussion with them. If I were to reteach this lesson again I would have them go back in their writing notebook and edit previous work, capitalizing letters that need to be capitalized and using quotation marks where necessary. I think this would be better because it is teaching them that writing is a continuous process and they can always go back and change things whenever they want.

Day 3: Period and Exclamation: discussion about when to use periods and when to use exclamation marks, look at examples, apply to own writing. Students learned that exclamation marks are used to show emotion in writing. Again, these are not new concepts to them, I just felt they needed a reminder. I looked over what they wrote, and it seemed they tried to use exclamation marks as much as possible. Similarly with day 2, I learned they knew when and why to use exclamation marks, but they did not think about that and use them when writing. I do not think this will need to be retaught, but I will remind them to use exclamation marks and will be looking for use of them in their writing. If I were to reteach this lesson again, I would provide them with a writing sample containing no punctuation and spend the mini-lesson inserting correct ending punctuation and discussing why that is what should be used. Likewise as in day 2, I would have them go back in their writing notebook and edit their previous work, using exclamation marks where they are trying to convey emotion. This would give them a mentor text to learn from as well as further show how writing is a continuous process.

My unit plan

For my unit plan I decided to start literacy circles or book clubs in my class. During the time that I am going to do my unit plan is during guided reading time. My teacher and the other fourth grader teacher are both doing guided reading groups with Laura and I are teaching spelling and vocabulary. Since our CT are only doing guided reading with the low student right now, the group of students that do spelling with me spend their extra time reading silently. I thought book clubs would be a good use of this time. I am a little nervous to implement these book clubs because the students have never done book clubs before. I am aware that they are going to need a lot of model in order for these to be successful. I am hoping that the students are able to reproduce what i have modeled for them and they don't just sit in their groups not talking about anything. Hopefully, these book clubs will be successful and this will be a good start and they will become even better at book clubs as they do more of them.

My ever changing unit plan

My original unit plan was to do a second personal narrative, as the students are working on one now. I was going to have them work on looking at themselves and seeing how even though they are all different and have different things, they are all special in their own ways. For the reading portion I was going to read things like The Sneetches, To many daves, Elmer the patchwork elephant and other books of the same type. Now I am seeing in my room how we do nothing but writing and have done very little reading work. Also I don't think that they will be done with the narratives they are working on by the time they would need to be for me to start a second narrative with them. There for I am changing gears and looking at authors and different styles as they write. I will bring in two books that were my favorite from when I was younger, "Bunnicula" and "Howliday Inn" by James Howe. I will spend the first four days of my unit reading through a good chunk of these and sharing what I like about this authors style. All the while I will be giving time to the students so they may work on a presentation related to their own favorite author. About halfway through my lessons I will keep reading to them and sharing my feelings, but I will not do as much and multiple kids will share with the group their favorite author, and passages that demonstrate literary styles they like. This is a unit that gets them reading and thinking about what their reading, and is also a very flexible unit if my CT still needs to work with them on their personal narrative, which is very likely.

Literacy Unit Plan

As I've been developing my Unit plan, which I still have a lot of work to do, I am trying to make the lessons as engaging and meaningful as possible. I am centering my unit around the read aloud time in our class. I have decided to read aloud "Bud, Not Buddy," which I am really excited about because I absolutely love this book! I think my students will really enjoy it as well. I put a lot of time in trying to decide which book to read, because I know it will make or break the lessons I do. When I talked to my mentor teacher about it, she absolutely loved the idea of reading this book. I tried to pick a text that would provide many opportunities to make meaningful connections. This book also provides a variety of themes which would potentially lead to great classroom discussions. My lessons focus on making meaningful connections, talking about the themes, and examining character traits as well as the conflict and resolution. So far, I am having trouble with my lessons on teaching conflict and resolution, because it seems as though my students don't have much prior knowledge in this area. I would love input on ways to implement this text or activities that could go along with this text. I already have a few of my lessons planned out, however, I still have more to do. I am trying to be as creative as possible, because I really want my students to enjoy this book and the lessons that go along with it. So if you've ever read this book and have some suggestions, I would love to hear them!!

Jigsaw Article- Hessel and Greenburg

Hessel and Greenburg: Helping struggling writers succeed

Throughout this article, the authors introduce a writing model entitled SRSD, Self-Regulated Strategy Development. This model is specifically helpful for students who are struggling with the writing process. Since the students are independently developing a plan to execute their writing and choosing a goal, it results in students having a desire to independently write. The SRSD model is characterized into five different stages. In the first stage the teacher works with the student to develop the necessary background knowledge needed to learn a specific writing strategy. Next, students discuss the strategy. In the third stage, the teacher models the strategy. In the fourth stage, the student memorizes the strategy and steps of the strategy. Next, the student begins to write as the teacher supports their writing. Finally, students have a chance to independently perform. The article also discusses a particular experience the author used with a sixth grade struggling writer.

I think I could definitely use this strategy in my fourth grade classroom. It is pretty much the approach that the writer’s workshop uses, only individualized. In the article, it discusses that this particular approach is useful for tutoring or one-on-one instruction. Since it works best in that environment, I am not sure it would be as useful or easy to use with the entire class. However, since we conference during writer’s workshop, perhaps this strategy could be used for certain students who are struggling. Since the strategy allows students to see the steps that they are taking, it gives them an individualized plan with steps that they understand. Students could have a model to refer to and once they practice, the steps will become easier and more fluent.

In order to use this in a professional setting, I believe I would need to learn how to manage my writing time in order to incorporate SRSD with struggling writers. Since I cannot spend the entire time with struggling students, it would take a lot of planning and even small group work to consider.

I think overall throughout this module I have learned that there is not just one good way to assess students work. One of the main things that teacher’s use to monitor writing growth occurs by keeping running records, or conference notes with each student. It also reminds me that it is important to assess students before and after to make sure the student’s are truly gaining the information given throughout mini-lessons. My lesson is focused mainly on spelling and phonics, but I will have an opportunity to walk around as the students are trying to spell out certain words. This inspires me to keep running records of words that students are having trouble with. It will also be easier to do this since I will have a smaller group of students that I’m working with, and by smaller I mean 20. I also think it will be important for me to model the type of behavior and responses I expect during phonic instruction.

Gammill: Learning the write way

This article emphasizes that the writing to learn approach can be used across subjects to help students gain different skills. Writing helps students make connections between what they have read, what they are thinking and what they got out of the article. It is said that students who use writing to learn strategies have better comprehension skills. Even though writing is an academic acceptance many teachers do not incorporate writing into other subjects. It is seen as a language arts component. In writing to learn they are not just communicating, students use writing to shape, order and represent their own experience to reach a fuller understanding. The writing process itself is similar to the speaking, thinking and learning processes. Learning this way makes students take ownership of their learning. Students are active learners through this process in which they must think and reflect critically about content. One strategy of the writing to learn process is a KWL chart or reading journals. The KWL in the chart stands for what you know, want to know and learned. This provides student the opportunity to link this to their prior knowledge, ask questions about what they are going to learn and then reflect back on what they did learn. Reading journals help student to respond to their reading. In these journals they can retain information, organize information, solve problems and make connections with math and science concepts. Writing creates a record for a student to look back on as they grow and learn more. Allowing students to respond and make connections lets them see themselves as thinkers. These strategies will prepare students for their future of decision making and personal reflection.

In my classroom students write to learn during their reading lessons. Every Tuesday they write letters to the teacher reflecting or asking questions about what they have read in their books. It is hard to incorporate too much writing to learn into our curriculum when we have so many students that have difficulty writing and much of their writing is illegible. I do think is helps the students to think deeper about their books and make connections to their prior knowledge or experiences.

As a professional I think I need to learn motivational strategies to get the student to write. There are students that are going to just sit there are tell you that they have nothing to write about or that they don’t know what to write about. How do you get these students to do what they are supposed to be doing? I also need to learn different questions to ask students to provoke deep thinking. One of the things that write to learn is supposed to accomplish is getting the students to do deeper thinking. How to do get those deep thoughts out of them?

The ideas throughout the module showed me that there are many ways to look at writing assessment it does not just have to be done by having the student turn in something to great. In the movie clips Mark White said he assessed what the students were learning as he read through what they wrote during conferences. He was able to see if the students were trying these new strategies and if they we working in their writing. I know that in my unit I don’t have to have my student turn in something in order to assess their learning. I can do this informally each day.

Learning the write way: Gammill (2006)

The big idea in this article is implementing the approach of writing to learn. In the article they discuss how writing can be implemented in a variety of ways and across a variety of subjects. Writing to learn is a way for the students to write down their personal thoughts which helps them foster better connections and enhances their comprehension skills. Writing to learn is all about the students connecting to their own experiences to enrich their understanding. It also forces the students to take ownership of their learning and fosters critical thinking across subject matter. Writing to learn is a part of a bigger curriculum referred to as writing across the curriculum, which is basically using writing as a way to learn in every subject. Writing to learn is all about taking a personal approach and making personal connections through writing. The main goal of writing to learn is making the students active learners instead of passive learners.

K-W-L charts can be very effective for implementing the strategy of writing to learn. It has the students write what they know about a certain subject matter, what the want to know, and finally what they learn. It can be done as a class, or even by the individuals. The K-W-L charts helps students activate prior knowledge while also making connections between what they know and what they learn. Another way writing to learn can be used is by having the students keep personal journals. The journals can be kept for any subject such as a reading journal, a math journal, or a social studies journal. For social studies, the students can write down their personal response to the different historical events they study. The journal allows them to personally reflect on the event and it helps the student keep track of their thinking. The article discusses many advantages of keeping journals for different subjects—one being that the student has a permanent record of their thinking which they can always go back and reflect on.

The writing to learn approach is already implemented into my 4th grade classroom. My students keep reading journals where they keep track of their thinking. In their journals they reflect upon what they’ve read while also keeping track of their predictions and inferences they make while they read. Although my students are keeping track of their thinking during reading, they do not have journals for other subject matter such as math, social studies, or science. Although I think it might not always be beneficial to keep a journal for math or science, I think social studies is a great place to have personal journals. After reading this article, it makes a lot of sense for students to personally reflect on different events they learn about, because it will help them make connections and think deeper about the subject matter. I definitely think that writing should be implementing across the curriculum, and not just during writer’s workshop. By having writing in a variety of subjects, students are practicing their writing skills while also learning new things.

In order to use this approach successfully, I think the use of a personal journal needs to be modeled. Although a journal is a place for a student to keep track of his or her own thinking, students will need to see it modeled so that they understand what good thinking looks like. Also, to successfully use this approach I would need to find out more research on exactly how often students should write in their personal journals. Should students be expected to write for math or social studies everyday? I think for a reading journal, writing should take place everyday, however, for other subjects it might make sense to only use the journals a couple times a week. It would helpful as a professional to talk to other teachers who have used this approach to see what worked best for them.

Although my unit is not focused around writing, there will be a lot of writing that takes place. For my unit, I am doing a read aloud while students are keeping track of their thinking in their reading journals. This article was very helpful since I plan on having my students keep track of connections they make, predictions, inferences, and just their thinking in general while I read aloud to them. I will need to consider how my students have been keeping track of their thinking and if it differs then their formal writing—which I know it does. When assessing them, I need to take this into consideration, because I’m not assessing them on the mechanics but rather their ability to think deeply about a text.

Salch and Marino: Conferring in the Writing Workshop

I chose to read this article because I feel inadequately prepared to confer with my students in reading and writing workshop. The big ideas I got from this article are that it is important to "teach the writer, not the writing," and "conferring is as much about being a good listener as it is about knowing what to say."

It is important to show students how a particular strategy can be used in all other pieces of writing. This may be silly but I like to relate this idea to the Chinese Proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." By focusing on that particular piece of writing rather than the writer as a whole, we are only hindering that student in the long run, "when we finish a conference, we should be able to name what it is we did to help a student become a better writer."

One of the worst things we can do when conferring is to walk away feeling like we could have learned more about that student's ideas if only we had talked a little less. "By truly listening as we confer, we let students know that the work they're doing as writers matters."

I would definitely use these ideas in my classroom. I have not yet observed my CT confer with students, however it is something that needs to take place and after reading this article I feel more confident that I can do that. We do writing workshop every day, giving me ample opportunities to confer with them on what they are writing. There are some students who seem unmotivated to write anything, some who talk the entire time, and some who just need to build their confidence. By showing an interest in what they are writing about (or would write about/are thinking about), hopefully that would translate into them actually writing. The article mentions that some students have trouble putting into written words what they are thinking, so by conferring with them they would have the confidence they need to write.

Because "there is no template for a good conference," I feel the best way to learn is to just do. As long as I keep in mind to teach the writer and be a listener, I think this approach would be beneficial to my students.

My unit is about paragraph conventions, so by conferring with students during writing workshop and collecting their writing samples, I will have a good basis as to their abilities in this area. Not every student will need help in the same area, so I will be able to gear my lessons toward where the majority need help, and I can keep in mind those who the lesson may not apply directly to and confer with them individually. I will be sure to incorporate modeling into my unit plan (as I learned from the writing workshop videos I watched).

Jigsaw: Deidra M. Gammill; "Learning the Write Way"

In “Learning the write way” we hear, well read multiple ways to incorporate writing into other subjects other than just language arts. It suggests the usage of KWL charts so that students may record things they already know about a subject, what they want to know, and then toward the end of the unit what they learned. It is also suggested that instead of allowing the students to write in bullet points that you have them write out their KWL in complete sentences. It also suggests the usage of Venn diagrams in a similar manner. It also suggest the usage of reading journals (or learning logs) giving the students a place to write about what they are reading as they are reading it. It creates a risk free environment where the students do not have to worry about spelling and punctuation but still write out what they know. These are assessed only for content by the teacher not for spelling and grammar. Lastly it comments on how you must be patient so that students will ease into it and eventually will begin to write in their log without you forcing the issue.

I could and would definitely use these ideas in my classroom. For fourth graders, many of whom still struggle with spelling, it gives them a place to write without constantly having to ask how to spell something or look it up. Also the learning log if used for things like social studies and science reading would make it so that a student did not have to look back through the whole reading to find a point he/she wanted they would be able to look at what they wrote down. This also has an advantage over highlighting because students are, in the learning log, writing down the information increasing the likely hood that it will be remembered at a later date.

When using this in the classroom I would personally like to be better experienced at explaining the appropriate way of using these resources to the students and be able give examples better than I could now. I think the learning log especially will be a great help to me as I do my unit. The students already do something similar to this in my room and I don’t think it will be challenging to get them to be more relaxed about writing things and taking notes related to my unit, making it so when they go to write a bigger piece they have notes to refer back to.

Jigsaw: Salch and Marino (Eds). School talk: The importance of Listening

The article “The Importance of Listening” focuses on the art of conferences with students during writing workshop. The great minds of Ralph Fletcher, Carl Anderson, and Yvonne Siu-Runyan all offer their own professional opinion about how to conduct the most beneficial conference. The big idea that I took away from these authors is that you have “to teach the writer, not the writing”. Meaning, it is important to teach the writer how to use specific strategies in their own writing. If you focus on the actual writing and are only marking up mechanical errors then the student faces being embarrassed and forever turned off on writing or sharing their writing. These are not the ideas we want to establish from writing workshop. Writing workshop is supposed to be a time for the students to happily and confidently experiment with different ideas, techniques, or strategies. This is a time for the student to grow as a writer. If you are consistently negatively criticizing their work the student will become distant and will no longer want to use this workshop time to try anything new and the student will no longer grow as a writer.

I have started conferencing with my students during writing workshop (especially the at risk students) and have found it difficult to extract useful information from the students. Because I cannot get this information from them it is hard for me to teach the writer good strategies for the task at hand. These issues are the main reason why I chose this article to read. When I approach a student I open with the question “How are things going for you?” or “What can you tell me about your writing?” Sometimes students are eager to share and will specifically ask me to read their work. With both cases I have had trouble trying to decide the best way to approach the conference. I know that the writer’s notebook is not a place for marking up a piece and editing it to death. For the most part the students just give me a general “okay” if things are going well for them and a shrug if things aren’t going well. A majority of the students have difficulties coming up with ideas. These are what our mini lessons have mostly focused on. For most of the students, as I walk pass them I give them a thumbs up a thumb-middle or a thumb down. This is supposed to be a silent question of how that student is coming along with their work. If the student responds with a thumb-middle or down then I will sit down and conference about ideas or make sure the student understands the task.

I think it would be beneficial for me to focus on this idea of teaching the writer NOT the writing. This way the students who do not write as much don’t feel like they did not accomplish anything. The workshop has to be done at the writer’s own pace and I need to accept that and teach strategies to these writers based on what stage they are at in becoming an independent writer.
The video examples of successful writing workshop and conferencing has helped me to visualize how to approach teaching in the writing workshop model. The students need to see concrete examples of exactly what it is we are trying to focus on. The students need to work at their own pace and I need to be prepared for conferencing with students at all different levels. I would like to try to work in peer conferences and more author sharing. I think it is important to celebrate the students who are doing well and have the class pick apart what they did so that everyone can apply those strategies to their next writing piece.

Talk in the Classroom/Managing Book Club

Reading these chapters I felt really good about what I'm observing in my classroom. My CT had the students write a letter to her about themselves within the first day or two of school. I decided to pull a few of these as writing samples for my unit plan. Not only do these give a good idea of students' writing abilities, but whether or not they understand the concept of writing a letter--"that letters are designed for an individual to read," (pg 83). In addition when reading about the "Do's" of a good classroom discussion, I realized a similar idea is implemented in my classroom. My CT had the students discuss what it means to be a good leader and what some good habits are (eye contact, being proactive, being respectful of others ideas, etc). We then cut, pasted, and copied these ideas onto a handout, had the students get into groups of 4-5, and distributed the handout to each group. They then worked in their groups to choose the most important habits/traits and we constructed a "class commitment" which each student signed their agreement to uphold. Furthermore, each student wrote a personal mission statement describing the kind of person they are going to be. My CT has not yet implemented any way to track ways they are working to improve their abilities (pg. 96).

Our class focuses a lot on reading workshop, and when a student finishes a book, they fill out a book card detailing the title, author, genre, how long it took them to read it, etc. and on the back they write the theme with a short sentence explaining why they chose this as the theme. My CT has 7 themes displayed on the wall--friendship, honesty, perseverance, etc. While the themes are all relevant to their lives, we have not had any discussion about them yet, and I'm afraid they do not understand how "...reading can help them better understand their lives, one another, and the world around them," (pg. 105).

My CT tries to do a Read Aloud every day, we are about halfway through Flying Solo by Ralph Fletcher. There is a lot of focus on retelling--writing a short phrase for the beginning, middle, and end of each chapter. At the end of each chapter my CT will have the students turn to a neighbor and talk about what was just read/what they think is going to happen next/etc. Most recently, she had them discuss why they thought the upcoming chapter was titled "Blood," and what they think is going to happen during the chapter.

Everything up to this point has been either large group discussion or paired discussion. If I were to implement some aspects of book club, I would need to do a lot of modeling on small group discussion.

Possible Book Club Implementations.

As I look through Book Club Plus and see how it applies to our classroom I see some things that do that I did not expect and some things that I don’t know if, with the class of students that we have now, we would be able to implement.

First off related to the choosing of books for oral reading, the first book my CT chose this year was the book “Because of Winn-Dixie” by Kate DiCamillo. He chose this because of the fact that in the book the main character is new in the area and has no real friends at the start of the book, and a majority of the book is about her getting friends. He felt this applied well to the beginning of the year because some of the students may not know any of the others in the class, or even in the school so it will help them to feel more comfortable knowing that other children go through this as well. It also provides lots of opportunities for text to self connections which is one of the first things we work on as a class. As I have now taken over the oral reading, and we are reaching the end of Winn-Dixie, I have struggled over what book to read next. I know that I don’t want one that is too long, as I need to be ready to move on because I have an idea for what I want to read towards the end of October (more on that to come in a minute). I have decided as of now to read the book “Mr. Poppers Penguins” because it has a story similar to that of Winn-Dixie, giving the class the opportunity to make lots of connections between the two texts improving their comprehension techniques, and also to make new connections. It is also a shorter book so I know that I will have time for the book I want to read at the end of the month. This book will relate directly to my unit lesson which is going to be about how we are all different people but special in our own way, and the like. I am torn as of now between two books, “Flawed Dogs” whose title speaks for itself as to why that applies, and “Babe: the Gallant Pig” since that is about a pig that refuses to be what the society thinks he should be and works to be a dog. Any thoughts you have on the book choice would be super appreciated. I also know that both of these books will provide situations for discussion as the students will be able to make many connections to them as we discuss how we ourselves are all different and have our own flaws and quirks, myself included.

I see difficulty when it comes to grouping our students into groups. We have a class that is very chatty no matter who they are with and we have a very hard time keeping the class quiet and focused. I personally also have a problem with the idea of mingling the academic levels for something like book club because you should not overwhelm the lower students and cause the higher students to be bored and not challenged with the reading, but that is just my opinion, What is yours?