In Cusumano's article "Every Mark on the Page: Educating Family and Community Members about Young Children's Writing," introduces the writing workshop and how it can be used in a classroom and at home. Analyzing a kindergartner's writing in such depth is new concept, as I found this student to be ahead of most of her peers. The ways we looked into this child's topic, style, spacing, spelling, and more I became even more impressed with this particular child's ability and creative thought. In early writings such as this student's the use of pictures can be worth many words. This student's picture of the American Flag was the more significant aspect of her writing. She was able to write from left to right around the picture and still convey a story.
Having a writer's workshop is seems to be a useful process and interesting as to earlier teaching methods. I think I would have found writer's workshop helpful and useful to gauge my progress. Seeing the grade below and the grade above's writing would be useful to understand where one needs to be and can go in a single year. I find and still think writing is difficult to rate and this would have been a useful visual tool to mark general progress and parental awareness. Teaching parents the rules to writing like not correcting all spelling errors or having the child rewrite their paper to have not errors is a false way to encourage writing skills. I find this article very difficult to comprehend because as a child who was forced to rewrite papers and correct spelling this is a completely different learning style.
Back home in South Bend, I talk to many parents who have high expectations for their children and likewise, these children tend to be over-acheiving as well. I would definitely want these parents I speak of to read Cusumano's article.
ReplyDeleteHaving a workshop would benefit parents and students at all levels of learning.
You're correct that this is a totally different learning style than what we typically think of as learning to write, but I hope you can see the importance of allowing the student an opportunity to express him/herself without fear of being wrong. As the writer feels more confident, the teacher can build on the editting skills. It's like creating a rough draft that will take years to complete, but the corrections are made developmentally rather than just because an adult said so. Just because a first-grader can't be expected to know how to spell the word surprise, I would surely love to see them use it in a story!
ReplyDeleteI agree that looking at writing samples from surrounding grade levels is a good approach to monitor where a student is in their writing abilities. At the same time, I think that it could not only be a useful tool for teachers and parents, but also for students as well. At the end of the year, I think it would be awesome to let students compare their work from the beginning of the year to the end so that they are able to see how far they've come!
ReplyDeleteJill, I see your point with children developmentally making the writing transition from a first grader to a seconder grader for example. I see the importance of students being able to express his/herself without the fear of being wrong. I am just saying from my personal experience with writing I was not really shown the bench marks from grade to grade, and my writing was just expected to improve like all the other subjects. I like this article because the fear of writing or spelling errors is out of the equation. However, correcting spelling, grammar, and etc. comes I just wish it was introduced one at a time. I feel in writing today there is a forgiveness, but sometimes the screws are tightened in many areas all at once. I like the articles way of encouraging parents to use the art as words, see the child's thought process, and ask questions. Parents I believe would love to see a grade below and a grade above's sample writing to gauge where their child should be and can go. I hope to find these tools early and refine them for all audiences. I know that my parents were not given that advice, so coming from a math / science family it was either right or wrong when it came to writing too!
ReplyDeleteI agree whole heartedly with what you wrote in your blog and comments Jill. I think that its even interesting to note how what we define as a culture as mistakes are rapidly changing thanks to the fast paced digital platforms such as the one we are using now. If a student were to post a blog article would we be looking more towards content than form to define progress?
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