What a character: Bringing Subjects to Life

As I read this chapter I kept thinking about Nathaniel Hawthorne style of writing because it is very descriptive and the characters are explained in fine detail. But, the more I read about the key idea of showing not telling made me wonder about what writer I knew who did an amazing job of that for a younger readers. I decided it would have to be Katherine Paterson who wrote Bridge to Terabithia. This excerpt is a great example of strong verbs like on page 65: "Ba-room, ba-room, ba-room, baripity, baripity, baripity, baripity—Good. His dad had the pickup going." I like the description of sound and many readers can relate to the start of a beat-up truck.
Although, I am not sure about page 66 Kill Cliches. I have been told by some that I tend to be a flowery writer, aside from when I am writing a typically research proposal or critic in psychology, which is not always a bad thing. So if I was using a cliches, it might be a great lead or closer to a thought. I would hope at least to see some cliches in a draft one of my future students because it reminds one of what kind of description they might to elaborate on in that section. In terms of the different drafts, I hope to see this kind of writing occur within the younger grades. I can't remember ever writing drafts unless it was a large paper that my family was working on with me for a school project. Writing drafts needs to be looked upon in a light that is honing in on exactly what happened or what one felt, heard, smelled, tasted, remarked, etc. like when you are on trail as a witness. The witness needs to be concise, but descriptive to recall the event for the jury and the judge. This might be an intimidating concept, but it also adds importance to the concept of their writing. I struggle with getting my point across and love to go off on tangents! So to reminding myself there is a direct question that I am answering like during the trail I am more likely to redirect myself! When a witness is being crossed examined it emphasizes the importance of reliving the event and being concise so the judge and jury can understand so the decision that is made is based on facts of the event as it really happened.

Seedfolks

The book Seedfolks reminds me of The Good Earth by Pearl Buck, as the beginning starts with an Asian child wanting to please her family, in particular her deceased father, by planting Lima beans. As a child myself I grew-up out in the country and we had an one acre garden which I learned quickly built my character. I have many memories from working the garden every summer and wishing I could do as I pleased, but was told the garden must be weeded and the vegetables and fruits picked before I could have my time for myself. The book Seedfolks focuses on the work aspect by pointing out the issues of water and the heat of the day was not a desired time to work. Although, if you were me and was attending tennis camp each morning and open gym, the heat of the day was the only time left to have it done before dad got home! I appreciate the strict garden rules and how it was a form of punishment, but when we would get to sell our vegetables and fruits my sisters and I were overjoyed to finally reap the benefits of our labor. My character Leona is a man who knows if you want anything done, you have to get up and do it yourself. As the oldest child, I had to demonstrate to my sisters how to work in the garden and to take little breaks in order to be praised for our work rather than being scolded for our lack of effort. If I ever wanted them to work in the garden for me or if we all wanted to go swimming that day the garden was collaboration that required no arguing just working to get the job done. Leona realized if he wanted the trashed removed from the vacant lot, it was up to him to make it happen as the smell of the trash spoke loud and clear for all the Public Health Department to recognize there was an issue.

Van Sluys Chapter 3 "Setting Up Invitations"

Receiving an invitation to a pretend office Christmas party, a relative's birthday party, and an alumni banquet all have different approaches but all included the main information of when, where, what time, and the event. Following along with Van Sluy's process of setting up invitations, the school I am placed at this fall kepts coming to mind. The teachers at my school invite the students to be mathematicians, writers, inventors, etc. which extends the proposal to the students to take on that role. I find that the role of being a mathematician in k/1 is interesting because they are learning that at any level one can be a mathematician. Being invited as writer, an inventor, a philosopher, a scholar, a scientist etc. all create a willingness for the students to accept that invitation in that present moment. Then the students attempt the so-called activities and through overcoming struggle a student will then label oneself a mathematician (etc.) because of their success. Invitations are definitely a positive motivational approach to learning.
As in chapter 3 some students were curious about ebonics. The teacher jumped on that invitation and the class pursued their interest in ebonics. In the invitation of ebonics the students discovered many issues: the difficulty of the material, the lack of kid thought on the topic, and questioning the authority of the research. A small invitation in one subject can be a lifetime practice that will invite others to expand their understanding and willingness to attend.

P.O.E.M.S (Potential, Oral, Emotions, Meter, & Stanzas)

When poems are introduced into my present classes, I am transported back to the fourth grade when my school had poem week. Each day you had a different poem memorized or you could have them on hand and would orally recite them as beginning introductions. Students would recite them to friends, teachers, school staff, bus drivers, pretty much anyone who would cross your path. I was nervous about this week because I was not a strong reader, but in the fourth grade I discovered the poem Sick by Shel Silverstein. Because I thought that poem was so interesting, for the first time I picked a poem I actually liked not based on the least amount of lines in the poem.
Poetry is very insightful, but if not introduced over the years it can be a challenge to interpret like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." I find poetry to be very releasing and connective, but for some it will just seem strange. I can see starting out with acrostic poems like I did with the title POEMS above. In my after-school programs in past I had students create them with their names and it provided insight into their personalities and was not overwhelming to try.

Donut House

The Donut House reminded me of PBL: Project Base Learning. PBL is the concept that student go out into the community and learn about a business and create it in their classroom by bring it to fruition. The concept of PBL came to life in Mrs. Davidson Kindergarten class as her student obtained the applicable knowledge of everyday skills like getting a building permit, running a business, marketing, hiring and firing, and many other components. I was a part of a PBL project that had students build the new city pool and all the steps that would go into that business project. I introduced the project to freshmen and sophomores by the beginning letter requesting their input; which can be real to a degree or be complete real! It is easy to kindly ask business individuals to explain a typical project and how they might want outside resources or opinions ie the students. By giving students a chance to design a business or project that is applicable to the real world will increase their motivation and comprehension about content that is mixed into everyday occupations.

Writers Workshop in practice

This past week I was able to participate in writer's workshop which was an interesting experience to see the varying abilities and thought processes unfolding. Some students read their work to me, others visually explained their writing through their pictures, and a few were imitating the process of writing and only labeling. I found the imitating and labeling group to be the most difficult to work with in terms of guiding their writing during the writing process. I thought about two students in particular all day long and kept going back to their ability to communicate their ideas. I knew the students could express ideas, but I was unsure on how to open that dialogue and properly get it into words. Then during free time I saw an issue that one of the students was having with letter recognition and sounds. I am not sure how this impromptu game was created, but using a pointer and the alphabet on the wall, that student would physically touch letters to spell and other students noticed it and joined in. It was a positive experience for the initial student because it was empowering to know how to create words and have others understand the words you created. In a short period of time letter recognition was improving and the stress of writing was alleviated which was not seen by the student as writing, but the letters that were tapped did spell words and the order created a dialogue that sparked other students' interest. I was happy to end the day knowing that the imitating and labeling writers could express more using more writing materials like physical letters and not creating them from memory made them experiment more and try other letters that would otherwise be forgotten.

Steps to Conferencing

When conferencing begin by reading the piece of work and pointout what the writer did successfully. Be specific in terms of what was done well in their writing peice. Then find something that will help them improve their writing immediately during the conference. Next, have the student repeat both back to you: 1) what they did well and 2)what they could improve on. Give the student a few mintutes to try in with you present. Follow-up with how the current writing sample worked in terms of did they understand and did they actually apply what you suggested in their writing. To sum up this expereicne have a running record of what your students are doing during conferencing, what direction you see them going in the next conference, and are they making progress only during conferences or also outside the conference time. Finally, check on what the student has accomplished in terms of the mini lesson and evaluate your mini lesson.
I am excited to try out conferencing, but I am more excited to watch it in action tomorrow morning. I am curious on how the teacher knows what area to focus on in a particular students writing. I am lucky to be in the primary grade so it should be more obvious to make appropreiate suggestions. However, I am very concerned on how I will know what direction to take their writing, if I am in the upper elementary grades.

Craft Writes Part 3

In terms of my previous post I would like to look at Ashley again in terms of her successes. Fortunately, I can easily embrace the notion of learning to act as a reader and a writer. I am sure I am still acting as both now, but my skills are improving. I can sympathize with Ashley on how difficult it is to not be with your peers and know you are behind, and not see how you will catch-up. Having a teacher who encourages you for what you know or what you did do right on the test does improve your confidence and willingness to try again. When the teacher pointed out that you cannot say you are smart or you can do it is not enough in many situations. Trying to focus on the part that the student did understand or did absorb is extremely important. I am thankful for my first grade teacher who did that for me.

Dilemmas and Discourses of Learning to Write: Assessment as a Contested Site By: Karen Wohlwend

I was surprises by some of the social, cultural, and political activities that impacted the kindergartners' writing in just a short amount of time. In particular, Ashley (one of the pseudonyms) a five year old, experienced in my mind some common and helpful remediation and retention recommendation from the "Teacher Assistance Team," to Diane the kindergarten teacher. Ashley was able to receive one-on-one attention from parent volunteers and other teachers which seemed logical in terms of RTI. The goal of RTI as I understand is to pinpoint children who need some assistance at some level to get caught up, prevent labeling, or provide a challenge. I can see both sides of Diana's dilemma about removing Ashley or leaving her in the social environment. As a student who was pulled out of class for reading from k-4rd grade I like to think that my teachers had some plan to get me back on track. The writing trade-offs a teacher is faced with are difficult to decide, but do require immediate attention and action.
As a student who did experience first-hand some of the side-effects of removal or remediation, I am glad I was spotted to receive any one-on-one attention. The social environments in a classroom writing setting can be found in preschool settings or enrichment classes. In terms of Ashley, her social status and experiences with peers was lacking therefore removal would not have been a first choice of remediation. However, when considering the teacher's issues of not producing outcomes by the designated benchmarks can be the final straw in the decision making process. This highlights the social, political, and cultural dilemmas found in this classroom and many more.
Although, Ashley's removal was a detriment to her socially, she did begin to meet the required benchmarks. I am unclear as to when writing and learning to write are different components in kindergarten and 1st grade. When Diane raises the issues of Ashley not "inventing spelling or producing a text to suit her own purposes. Diane's educational coursework incorporated intentionality discourse that celebrates what children can do and value their intention to create social messages over their accurate mimicking of conventional forms (Wohlwend, 345)." In order to teach writing, letter recognition, and in particular their name mimicking the prescribed outcome is a good start. As some children obviously come to school not knowing their name or the alphabet, we as teachers jump right in and help those student tread water and race others who are already writing using the conventional forms. Should we praise the child who is using conventional forms or question their use of them? I think at 2, 3, or 4 you question and praise their use of inventing their own purposes. But, when it comes to young students learning to communication through pictures, words, or through their body language we should guide them to our conventional norms. Do we want children to communicate in an obscure way longer than normal because we are happy they are creating their own inventions? I can see with the children who are developmentally at a 3 or 4 years old to praise them with their inventions of writing, but they require intervention which I see as RTI. In terms of the constructivist psychological theories in particular Piaget, the schemas are the basic units like in math that construct one's understanding of their current and past knowledge combined. This process of combining occurs using either assimilation or accommodation to reach the coined term equilibration. Ashley is a student who I see needs more accommodation than assimilation. However one can argue she does not possess the basic units in order to build a schema so both assimilation and accommodation are useless. I am a person who looks at the world half full so Piaget's idea of building schemas is one learning theory to embrace, but I like to combine Ausubel's and Bandura's theory too.