Blog Entry #3

In our reading and consideration of two case studies - Love that dog (Creech, 2002) and Structure and freedom (Casey & Hemenway, 2001) - we encounter examples of how teachers can structure their English language arts teaching to support their students’ growth in language and learning.

(1) List and describe the 5 stages of the writing process as discussed in class. Provide illustrative examples of each stage from either case.

The ordered stages of the writing process are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Prewriting involves identifying the purpose and the audience of the writing and forming ideas as to what the writing is going to be about. Prewriting can be supported by talking about the writing, drawing pictures or making mind maps, researching, and many other ways. Drafting is the process of getting the ideas which were developed in prewriting organized into sentences and just taking a first shot at writing. Spelling and grammar do not matter because the point of drafting is to just get the ideas on a page. Revising involves making changes to the bulk of the writing and narrowing down which ideas to incorporate and which ones to discard. This can be done through peer conferencing, but only if the students have been taught how. Another way to revise is through teacher feedback, either written or verbal. A good way for teachers to give feedback for revising is the “two wishes and a star” method, where the teacher will advise the student, “you did really well with (a), and I’d like you to work on (b) and (c).” This gives the student specific areas to work at revising. Editing requires the students to clean up any spelling or grammar mistakes left over in their work. The final step is publishing, and this can be done in a variety of ways; students can read their work out loud, post it on the classroom wall, mail a letter, submit it to a newspaper or magazine, post it on a class website, or even make a compilation of work into a book for the class library.

The stages of the writing process are illustrated in the two case studies we have examined in class: the fictional “Love That Dog” by Sharon Creech, and “Structure and Freedom: Achieving a Balanced Writing Curriculum” by Mara Casey and Stephen Hemenway. In “Love That Dog”, Miss Stretchberry helped the class to engage in prewriting by bringing many poems into the classroom to inspire her students in their own writing and to create discussion about the poetry. The form of “Love That Dog” is a journal kept by one of Miss Stretchberry’s students, Jack. In his journal, Jack engages in drafting when he writes responses to the poems read in class or models after them, like his entry on February 15 where he models a poem after “Street Music” (Creech, page 31). In Casey and Hemenway’s case study, they first examine a grade three class’ writing program, which focuses on revising work until it is good enough for publication. The subject of the case study, a girl named Page, compares revising writing to combing the knots out of her hair; both rather tedious exercises result in something to be proud of and enjoy. When Casey and Hemenway revisit Page in grade eight, they discover that her teacher fixates on editing the students’ work rather than revising, and focuses solely on correcting spelling, punctuation, and grammar. The importance of publishing is very well illustrated in “Love That Dog” when Miss Stretchberry asks Jack’s permission to post his poems on the class wall and when she has Jack write to Walter Dean Myers. By publishing his work, Jack gained a sense of self confidence as a writer.

(2) Discuss and detail three aspects of a well-organized and engaging writing classroom as discussed in class, and provide illustrative examples from the case studies.

A well organized classroom would include balance, respect, and sufficient time and space. In Casey and Hemenway’s case study, Page’s grade six classroom lacked balance between formulaic exposition and expressive writing, so her attitude towards writing shifted from positive to negative. A more balanced classroom would have taught that the full writing process can and should be applied to all types of writing, including personal, informational, and imaginative. In Miss Stretchberry’s fictional classroom in “Love That Dog”, there were clear expectations of the students that they would have to publish sometimes, not all the time, and that they could not always publish anonymously. However, Miss Stretchberry balanced her expectations with respect for the students and did not force them to publish any particular pieces. Instead, she encouraged them and helped them to develop confidence as writers so that they would eventually take pride in their work and want to publish it. Another effective thing that Miss Stretchberry did was to give her students the consistent time and space for work with poetry in the form of individual journals. This consistency gave the students opportunity to explore poetry in depth and to fully develop their own poems.

(3) What will be two important factors to you in developing an effective and balanced writing classroom?

My writing classroom will be student-focused and have a holistic outlook on writing. The classroom will be student-focused in that the goal will be for students to develop an enjoyment and pride in their writing. They will not be writing to appease me, but rather they will develop a deep understanding of the key points determined in prewriting, such as audience and purpose, and they will become effective writers from that. I want my classroom writing activities to reflect a holistic outlook towards writing, not only so that their writing is balanced between the various styles and methods of writing, but also so that students understand the connection between writing and the other areas of language arts: reading, viewing, speaking, listening, and representing.

Blog Entry #2

Discuss an effective or ineffective ELA learning context or situation that you remember from your own years as a student. In particular, discuss how the teacher engaged/disengaged you as a language learner through her/his text selection, the associated activities, and how this challenged or built upon your previous skills/knowledge/attitudes. Complete your entry by explaining how you would characterize this teacher’s instructional approach.

In grade four, I switched schools halfway through the school year. I went from an interesting and dynamic French immersion classroom to a boring and frustrating English one. I was much happier to be learning in English rather than French, but my new teacher, Mrs. B, was incredibly dull and old fashioned. While she was an all-around terrible teacher, she was particularly bad at teaching language arts.

I left my old class in the middle of a very engaging unit about poetry. When I arrived in Mrs. B’s classroom, the class was learning cursive handwriting. It would have been alright if she had us writing stories or reports or even just sentences, but instead she had us writing out the alphabet in handwriting over and over again and then handing in our papers to be marked, for the whole rest of the year. Mrs. B. practiced a transmissive instructional approach; she would stand at the front of the classroom at the blackboard and write the same letters over and over again, expecting us to do the same on our papers. I had already developed decent cursive writing at my old school in grade three, so the lessons were particularly boring for me. The worst part is that we literally did not do any other language arts lessons besides handwriting from February until June. We didn’t read any novels or do any creative writing or research projects. Maybe the class had lessons in other areas before I arrived, but regardless of that, I think that five months is too long to focus on cursive handwriting and nothing else. The contrast between my old language arts class and my new one was dramatic.

Mrs. B’s assessment style was summative; she would not walk around and engage with students individually. Rather, she would simply have us hand in our papers with the alphabet and she would mark them each night. She also avoided the social aspect of learning language and did not allow us to engage with each other, ignoring the fact that “learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, it is immersed in cultural and social settings,” (Vygotsky). We were always seated in rows facing the blackboard and she spent the whole day standing in front and talking at us rather than with us, not only for language arts but also in the other subjects.

Mrs. B’s transmissive instructional style, summative assessment, and single-strand lessons did not engage me as a learner. I was not supported and scaffolded within my zone of proximal development (Vygotsky), but rather I was left with lessons that were too easy and not engaging. She did not build on my schema (Piaget) of language arts or include new material to motivate the class to learn. Finally, she did not balance her lessons to include cognitive or affective stimulation, but rather she focused solely on the psychomotor aspect of learning cursive handwriting. Mrs. B. was older and had obviously not made any effort to keep her teaching up-to-date and current, which is a mistake that I plan not to make as a teacher.

Blog Entry #1

Throughout our first classes we have been building an understanding of learning theory and curriculum content. Drawing from our class discussions, assigned readings, and the BC ELA IRP for elementary/middle years, reflect upon and define:

(1) The characteristics of a learner in elementary/middle years ELA

According to Piaget’s Constructivist theory, the students in my future classroom will not be blank slates for me to simply “write on”, but rather they will all come together with a rich variety of knowledge and experiences, or schemas, that will inform their learning. They will come from many backgrounds, with vast differences in their cultures, socioeconomic statuses, learning styles, and learning levels. I will have to scaffold (Vygotsky) and support their learning by creating a “purposeful, caring, and supportive classroom” (Nancy Atwell) in which I address the students’ differences while creating a classroom culture of respect and unity.

In his Sociolinguistic model, Vygotsky said that learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but rather it is immersed in cultural and social settings. This ties in with Piaget’s theory that the people build upon their prior experiences when learning. All together, this Social Constructivism suggests that I as a teacher take into account the learning that has been done outside of the classroom when I teach and that I work with the individuality of my students rather than squashing out their uniqueness.

It is important for me to encourage the active participation of my students and to “teach lessons that allow students to apply what they are learning” (Tompkins et al). This means that I must find a way to engage all the different types of learners in a single classroom and be sure that they are developing the skills and strategies that the curriculum requires.

(2)The positive and negative aspects of the BC ELA IRP in supporting your teaching of those students

For me to support and scaffold the students’ learning, it is important that I am also being supported as a teacher by the Integrated Resource Package (IRP). The IRP is useful in that it is outcome-based; in other words, it tells me what my students must be able to do by the end of the school year. However, the IRP does not give explicit guidelines for how to teach the specific subjects. For example, one PLO strategy for grade one students is to “use diagrams, sketches, and pictures from books to prompt their writing,” (BC ELA IRP). This PLO explains what students should be able to do, but it does not tell the teacher specifically which diagrams to use or what the writing has to be about or how the teacher is to teach the lesson. Those factors are up to the teacher to decide. This quality of the IRP can be viewed as either an asset or as an annoyance for teachers.

Some teachers (especially ones who are just beginning their careers) may find that the IRP does not provide enough guidance with specific examples of how to teach so that students are able to reach the required outcomes. Other teachers will appreciate the freedom they have to teach the way they choose to. This opportunity for variety also is probably positive for the students as well; unconventional teaching and learning is often the most effective.

While the IRP is full of good information, the most important information can be difficult to pinpoint because it is laid out in long, repetitive, and wordy paragraphs. A more effective layout would include more bulleted lists of key points, more chart and diagrams, and perhaps a media component which would link certain vague ideas to pictures, videos, or other websites with further explanations. Also, the glossary is very useful for finding the meanings of some of the more confusing concepts, especially for a new teacher like myself.