Being Reflexive

The best of what i have achieved in this assignment is that i know alot more about the first grade enviroment. Also how the class goes with the agenda. I got to see alot of different things in the classroom by which how she was getting the students to work with math, science, writing and all the other subjects. I loved how i got to see how she incorporate writing in her classroom. This leads me to be able to know how teaching is before i get into the workfield. I found that being able to go and see her classroom and how it is set up for the students was exciting to me. This lead me to find out how you are suppose to arrange your class for the students and see how you organize every different activity. I have struggled kinda with this only because i am not a real good writer and i never have been taught well growing up. But i worked around and solved my writing problem by to be able to get help and advise for my paper to be apropriate to turn in. Something i learned from this interview was that i know alot more about the classroom enviroment then i had before i went to her classroom. I would use this by being able to know how a classroom should be set up with all the different stations in the class. I arrived at this conclusion by having a great time to be able to meet a wonderful role model and get some very good advise.

"Writing is something you do, not something you know" (109)

Writing is something you do, not something you know"

Writing we do it everyday and we might not always know what are writing about. Writing comes sometimes as a fun thing or it could come as a not fun thing to do. Sometimes i know what the promt is but i dont know what to write about because nothing comes to my mind. Writing can be hard because you have to make sure that your writing is appropriate. Like last time we were writing in this class i had a quote that i had no idea about what to write because it made no sense to me. But it was something i had to do in class because we were assigned to write about our quote.

Clapping about me

The clapping was funny because some peoples things were kinda dumb like mine. But it was fine to clap for everyone because it showed we cared and listened to everyones prompt.

" I balance my Masculine and Feminine sides" This connects to me by that you have to be a strong women and being strong in a way can be as a active women. As of today i am having to be strong becasue i currently just joined the golf team and you have to be strong to stay up with all the girls that are already been in golf all year. Being a strong women compares to being a masculine women from so long ago.

Response to Ray & Strickland

Ch.4

In this chapter Strickland talks about and explains about teaching Prewriting, Writers Notebook, Organizing Thoughts, Drafting and Responding to Writing, Keeping Track of Writers, Conferencing, Peer Response in Writing Conferences, Parading and Modeling for Students and Revision: Imagining the Better Text.

Strickland states that American schools are still in a "traditional mode focused on the alignment of a completed theme or essay with what is considered standard edited English." Strickland also says that the traditional method of writing is mostly on or focuses is on the product not the finish of the writing. Most of the time that is spent in the class is called the mechanics of all of the writing skills. Such as grammar, spelling, and usage of writing. Writing is so much more fun to the kids in the class when they get to pick their own topic and write about it. It is also good because the kids dont like to be assigned what to write because it is more boring to them and dont like when the teacher reads their paper. They like sometimes privacy about what they are writing because it might mean alot to them and dont want nobody to read it. The process approach just mainly focuses on the writing process, the writing that is learned, and creativity. Product approach is mostly more about the structure and the old time or the traditional way of teaching writing. The element of writing is about time, response, choice, structure, and community. Time is a big one because writing takes practice you cant just go and write and think your paper is good after the first draft. Also time is when they are having a writing workshop they can do 1 on 1 with the kids and check on their writing progress. Choice is about letting the kids make their own choice about what they want to write about. Also its their choice that they want to share through publication. Response is always good to have on the kids paper because it can show what they need to work on. Structure is all about having everything organized and in a structural way. During writing workshop you shouldn't control the writer but to have the framework that they need to do. Community is to respect each others ideas, viewpoints and accomplishments. A good way is to have a bulletin board outside of your class room and show how your kids are doing in the class. The best thing is to make sure that the students can trust their teacher and the teacher can trust her students.

Ray

Chapter 1: Understanding the essential characteristics of the writing workshop

In chapter 1 ray just goes over the characteristics of the writing workshop. Those consider as Choice about Content

Time for Writing

Teaching

Talking

Periods of Focused Study

Publication Rituals

High Expectations and Safety

Structured Management

Chapter 2: The necessity of a writing workshop in a day already full of writing

In this chapter there is two kinds of writing 1. They write to support their lives 2. they write to communicate ideas to others

It is important that we teachers needs to concentrate on writing as a composition because all the writing the kids do all day is composition. Composition is very hard and it takes along time to learn it.

Response to ch. 1-3

Reading ch 1-3 was about the importance of writing and how writing should be taught in the class. The author says that the best way is to motivate them to want to write. Being in 1st grade writing isnt what the kids want to be doing. So you would have to help them out and make writing fun and maybe that will motivate them to want to write. I know a great thing that would be fun for students to want to write is. Instead of reading a book aloud to them have it where they can watch it and it makes them want to listen to the book more if someone makes funny sounds while reading a book. The students think sometimes are boring because they don't mostly get into. So if they like the reading then you could get them to write a paragraph about the favorite part about the book. So it is just about wanting to motivatie them to want to write. So you sometimes have to make writing fun for the kids. Also it is great to make kids to be creative with their writing. You dont want the kids to think that they are being punished by writing that is why you as a teacher has to make it fun.