Three Quotes

1. "Students are learning how to think for themselves and how to educate themselves over the course of their lives. When given ownership over the direction of their learning, they will work at their greatest capacity and in a creative fashion." Page 105

I feel that when students, or anyone for that matter, feels like they have control over what is happening to them, they are able to function at a much higher level. The goals they set for themselves, and the progress they make are because of the effort put in. They learn how to succeed through planning, follow-through, and hard-work.

2. "Portfolios place just as much importance on process an on product." Page 106

Wrting is a process. Often times learning how to learn a process is just as important, or more important, than the final product produced. One of my top priorities with students is to teach them how to learn on thier own. This is something that I live and model by being a life-long learner.

3. "Portfolios will not produce tidy scores that are conductive to the kind of quick comparisons that the public likes to make." Page 108

I think that teaching in a way that created portfolios over weekly test scored may be a challenge. I think that assessment is important. I think that incorporating some type of assessment into most lessons is a necessary component to me being successful as a teacher. This assessment will come in varied forms, but it will be there.

Burke Ch 7

This chapter is the best thing since sliced bread. Thoe more I read Burke the more intrigued and appreciative I am about his book and his insight into teaching English. This chapter focusues in teaching writing, no not doing writing, but teaching writing. Often times I have thought of writing as an activity that students will do and acquire mostly on thier own. While this may be tru for some students, all students will benefit from a planned out format in which teaching specific strategies for different modes is outlined.

"The second thing that makes certain teachers great is something that isn't taught. It is sending out a feeling of their own aspiration and love for writing that their students will pick up on." To me this is very similar to telling a kid that they shouldn't smoke while sending them to the store to pick you up a pack. We must teach through example.

Error as an invitation to improve. We must always do our best to help students correct mistakes they are making. Coming from an athletic background, I lean on those skills whenever I am trying to teach or improve a skill without killing confidence. As I have said before, a way that works well for me in the sandwich approach, followed by clear instructions on how to fix the problem. Finally, I ask students or athletes to tell me what they heard so that we are all on the same page.

Several traits distinguish effective journals in the English class. These traits need to be shared with your students so they understand the purpose behind the jourmaling activities. The quote on 187 regarding confidentiality is a must when having students write about potentially risky subjects. PAge 99 lists several interesting ways to jumpstart journal writing. I feel as if there should be a mix in journal entries, both personal and non-personal. Using prompts that are not personal in nature can be a great way for students to write creatively. For example, inventing new words, describing them and using them is a journal entry.

Creating "real-world" applications for writing have to be included. These are the skills that may end up putting food on studets' tables, or atleast getting them an interview.While all of the smape assignments on 207-209 are great, I particularly like studetsn to be effective writers of the e-mail, resumes, letters, as well as confidence with the interview.

There is so much useful inofrmation in this chapter. My final topic that I will respond to is the advice on handling "the paper load." A few of th key ideas I got out of this section are:
1. Focus on no mre than three items in a paper (ex. nouns, verbs, and spelling)
2. Have students seek other sources for input
3.Use rubric scoring
4. Have a time limit
5. Conference with students
6. Share with each other
7. Use the "check"system

A Mode of Writing I Want to Teach

There are several types of writing that I want to teach. I thin that the best mode to get students comfortable with the wrting process is the narrative. In chapter 5 the text says, "To enhance students' chances of success we recommend starting with personal narratives." Students with have a greater deal of experience to translate onto the paper if they write about personal experiences. I hope that this form of writing will create a richer, deeper piece of work.

When writing narratives with students they will often want to write about exotic topics that they have little or no experience with. A lifetime of experiences can provide writers with a wealth of knowledge and specific details. Students need to know that the experiences that they have gone through are interesting and will make for a muck more interesting narrative than writing about a completely fictional event. Furthermore, the urban students that I am being trained to serve will most likely have encountered lots of interesting poeple, and seen spectacular events by the time they reach my secondary classroom.

Being able to write a narrative may help students outside of the classroom by giving them a voice. With the internet there are countless oppurtunities to express youurself creatively and speak to a wide audience. One example is the blog. Another example would be to work as a freelance writer sharing your experiences with publications who may pay you for using your work in their publication.

My Response to Blasingame & Bushman Ch 1-3

Chapter 1 starts out with a lot of useful info students and thier attitudes toward writing. Like any activity, doing something new causes, amonf other things, anxiety. This particular emotion is the exact opposite way i want my students to feel. In order to reduce anxiety, teachers need to create an environment in which students are free to explore, learn, and make mistakes. If students feel safe, they are more likely to open up. The other big thing that I got from this chapter was to remember that not only are students developing mentally, but also physically. These changes will only increase the self-awareness. All the ore reason to demand and create a "safe" environment.

Chapter 2- Keep it interesting. There is nothing worse than a boring stagnet classroom. Talking, reading, and pre-writing activities are crucial to successful writing. We need to build background and develop interest in the topics we are writing about. We need to make writing come alive. There are great out of the box activities in this chapter. Look at what is going on in the world, wrote a slogan for your favorite product, speak out against an injustice. Write about what you and your kids know and are interested about. Forget about the typical, reach out and connect the lives of your students with the writing they are doing. Finally, be proud of your students' wrok and publish it. Many, like myself, will rise to the oppurtunity of a challenge. All students deserve to have thier work looked at by the community. Build confidence and believe that your students can and will produce amazing work.

Chapter 3- Be organized and have a plan. That goes for everything, but your students deserve to have you be prepared for them. How can you expect them to prepare for you if you do not put in the time preparing for them. e involved in thier process. If you know where they are in the process, it is much more realistic to help them. Use a chart to help you and the student keep track of thier process. The superstars will help motovate others as everyone's progress will be posted. Take time to read and talk about the writing. Give feedback, and allow students to read and offer feedback to thier peers.

WOW! - What a great start. All this seems so simple, yet not often talked about!

My Experience as a Student in the Classroom

My classroom experiences have varied. I was taught in middle school and most of high school in a teacher centered classroom. That is to say, the teacher had all of the knowledge and they were trying to pass it along to me. However, alot of times I did not identify with the text or the teacher. Without this connection, it was very difficult for me to accept anything that they were trying to pass along. Usually, I was to engaged in talking with my friends or doing all I could to dusrupt what ever it was the teacher was trying to do for us to learn.

Then, there was the teacher that cared what my peers and I had to say. This was the class that my opinions were wanted, the class that I learned more even though the teacher talked less. These were usually the teachers that got me to do my homework so I could demonstrate my newly acquired knowledge with them in a class discussion. These were the classes that seemed to fly by, the discussions that spewed over into the hallway. Somehow I learned more when the teacher spoke less. Somehow I cared what the teacher had to say when they showed interest in what I had to say.

WHODATHUNK - Teachers can say less and impart more!

My Autobiography as a Writer Part Two - Challenges

As a writer I have faced many challenges. Oneof the biggest challanges that I continue to face is that of a lack of confidence. I enjoy reading, I enjoy writing but often times I do not enjoy reading my writing. Furthermore, when I stretch myself as a writer I leave myself open to criticism. This criticism can do more than inspire me to do better, if often times can shut me down. Like any constructive criticism, when reading less than positive commentary on my work, it is much easier swallowed and digested with a large helping of ego-stroking.

This can look like:

I really liked...
I really found it interesting when you said...
One thing you may want to think about is...
My favorite part is...

The good-old-fashioned sandwich technique.

Another challenge that I face is learning new genre's of writing. As a student, it feels as if as soon as I get comfortable with one kind of writing, it is time to learn another. I am best coaxed to move forward when the teacher scaffolds the experience with examples of what this new kind of writing looks like.

As a teacher, I plan to remember these sorts of things.

How do I manage to get a piece of writing completed?

Usually I manage to get a piece of writing complete at the last minute. However, like most things, wrting that gets done st the 11th hour, is far from work that I am proud of. Perhaps the question should be: How do you manage to get a piece of writing comeplete that you are proud of? In that case I would say that U ahve a process that takes much longer. First, I read. Second, I write and write as long as I can. Third, I leave it alone for atleast a day. The next step, which I really dread, is coming back to a piece of writing and reading it for the first time. At this point I generally make one of two decisions. The first decision is to scrap the whole thing. The second decision, which if at all possible, I try to always do is begin somekind of an outlining process.

If I am able to move ahead with the outline process, I decide what belongs where. After moving stuff around, I will proofread for grammar and spelling only. Then, I look at the areas of my paper that are weak, read some more, write some more. Once this painstaking process is over, my final goal is to make the writing enjoyable to read. This invloves checking for flow and overall entertainment factors. Often times this is the time I like to add some interesting facts, quotes, or other pieces of knowledge that I find interesting.

My Autobiography as a Writer

How have I learned to write?”

That is a very good question and one worth a bit of examination. I think my writing skills developed, first of all, with my reading skills. While I was always an effective reader and good speller, it is only recently that I have begun to enjoy reading. This newfound pleasure has truly transformed my writing. It started as a boring ability to say what was said and quote others. Now, I get a thrill out of putting my thoughts onto papers for others to read. I now consciously intend for anything I write to be both informational and entertaining, when and if possible. That is a brief explanation of my current writing style.

My ability to acedemically write well, begun in ninth grade. For the first time I had a teacher that did more than ask me to write. She showed us what a good piece of writing looked like, and why. Amazing, I Know! A teacher that actually thought that us inner-city kids might need a little review before expecting us to write. Anyways, something clicked that day. For the first time I knew what "good writing" was suppose to look like, and I could look for that in my writing. That was all it took to be able to get through high school, and quite honestly, most of college.

When I began to look at writing as an art, I wanted to be the artist. Like most things, it takes desire and practice to be able to write well. In my case, it also takes alot of intrinsic motivation and a side of interest. To those other competetive folks, any time their is a competition involved, like displayed work, I am motivated to put in the effort to get the result.