Saturday, March 5, 2011
Chap. 7
I found this chapter to be very interesting. It discussed how important it is to start with the whole and move to the part and back to the whole again. In short, this means having the students do their writing first. Then work with the students on the conventions and context of their writings helping them to make corrections. The students then return to the "whole" writing again for the final copy. This is pretty much the way that the writing that I do in my room works. I am in no way on the same level as the author, but my students do write first and then we discuss the changes that could be made. The author makes it sound all so easy, but I am sure there is a lot of work involved in making the writing process work as smoothly as she does. I think it is important for the students to be able to focus on getting their ideas down first without getting hung up on spelling, punctuation, etc. especially at the lower grades where their spelling is limited. The students can get so hung up on how to spell the words correctly that they take forever to write even a couple of sentences. After reading this chapter I know that I need to stress audience more to my students. I need to specify who they are writing for and make sure that I give them opportunities to write for audiences other than just the students in the class.
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My second graders are always worried how to spell words! I tell them that I am not a human dictionary and that they have the word wall, sound spelling cards, and their words I know book to look in!!! They will ask all the time though.
ReplyDeleteI really admire that you have already established and have been using a whole-to part- to whole teaching method with writing. This is an area that I really need to improve in. I feel like I spend so much time at the beginning of the year doing all of these mini-lessons on skills, when really I just need to let my students write. Once they have had a chance to write, then we can start going back and looking at what we can change to make it better.
ReplyDeleteMy students start with the writing as well. I, too, need to work on stressing the audience portion of our writing.
ReplyDeleteLove the picture!! I agree with what you said about the author making it sound so easy. I am encourage by her attitude toward it yet still seem a bit overwhelmed about how to do it right. The section on audience caught my attention too. I need to model that more to my students.
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