Saturday, February 5, 2011
Chapter 6
This chapter stresses the importance of incorporating writing into reading and all other subject areas. I think this is an area that I am weak in. I am not really sure why I don't incorporate writing more into my class. Time as always is a factor. Most things with writing seem to take a long time to complete. I did like the way that the book described working writing into guided reading centers. I do guided reading centers, but usually don't have the students do much writing. I do not have an hour to allow for centers, so I have to adjust accordingly. I do think that I will try to work writing into my center time more often. My students do a lot of writing, but it is usually as a "writing" activity, not necessarily incorporated into another subject. I think part of the reason that I don't do it more is that I get hung up on thinking that everything has to be written correctly and checked. The text assures us that students' work doesn't always need to be corrected or even looked at. Many times they need to freedom to just write without worrying about proper punctuation, grammar, spelling, etc. I am going to strive to incoporate more writing into my daily lessons. I don't like to write myself (probably where some of this is coming from) and I don't want my students to feel the same way about writing as I do. I need to give them many opportunities to write. Not only will it help to broaden their writing skills, but reading as well.
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Reading and writing seem so obvious to integrate into other curricular areas. Sometimes I don't understand how some teachers don't understand that they are reading teachers too.
ReplyDeleteReading and writing are so important to do together. However, like you I'm not a big writer so we do writing activities instead of it being intigrated into our curriculum. I know I need to do more writing across the board it is just hard to do when your not sure when or how to do it. Writing, I think, is one of the hardest things to teach.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that I am enjoying this book so much is that it really makes you think about what you are doing as a teacher to teach writing effectively. The hard part, of course, is making changes in what we've done for years - the other factor is finding the time to do all that needs to be done in an already crammed schedule. You're on the right track when you say that you are going to have your students write more in their daily activities. I think we need to remember to try not to be overwhelmed with everything we're reading and even if we just make one change at a time - and do it well - then we're heading in the right direction to improve our writing instruction.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading this chapter, I realized I was really only using writing at limited times as well. I don't think to use it in other content areas and liked the suggestion of using it during center time as well. Good luck with incorporating it! :)
ReplyDeleteI also liked the suggestion to do writing during guided reading time. Most of my students have an hour in which they could do a writing piece. I like to write when I can type, I am not a journal keeper, and don't write freely. This seems to be a theme among us. When I think back to my own schooling, writing wasn't a big part of it. I don't remember writing in grade school. We didn't do writing until high school english.
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