In Response to Bonnie Mary Warne’s “Teaching Conventions in a State-Mandated Testing Context”

I thought it was wonderful that Bonnie could come in and talk with us, it’s always nice to be able to pick the author’s brain to figure out just what is behind their reasoning in their articles. She was completely different than I thought she would be. I thought she would be all academic and snotty because her paper sounded so professional, but she was so down to earth and practical (although the practical wasn’t surprising given her article topics). She really gave me hope for getting future articles published.

The biggest concept I took away from her articles and her chit chat with us was the lesson on teaching grammar using popular novels and texts that the kids are reading. My biggest fear coming in as a first year teacher would be not knowing the grammar rules well enough to be able to just pull out examples of what we are trying to study. The grammar books are safe because they have the answer in the teacher’s edition, but they are also terribly boring and impractical. So maybe I won’t do this my first year, but once I have all the little grammar rules down I will switch to using popular texts.

In Response to “Chapter 13 Conferring Writing Becomes a Tool for Thought”

I really enjoyed reading this chapter, although it was a little disheartening reading all the things that you are absolutely not supposed to ask, and they are all the things that I have been asking my students while conferencing. I’m excited to try this new technique of conferencing, it seems I always want my students to dig deeper and learn instead of being taught, but I don’t always know the best way to allow my students dig deeper, this chapter has helped out tons!

I personally can admit that I have been guilty of what is talked about on 232, “Why is it so difficult to give a simple human response? I think it is because we try so hard to be helpful we forget to be real.” I totally forget to be real. If one of my friends came up to me and told me a story similar to one my student has told me I would not react in the same manner that I do for my students. This is unfair to the student because it makes their writing almost fake or artificial because I am not reacting to it in a real manner.

In Response to Stephanie Dix’s “I’ll do it my way: Three Writers and their Revision Practices”

I like the writing activity of having to write out the instructions of how to build a paper tree. I thought it would be fun to have the student pass their instructions to a fellow student and see if that student could build the tree based on the instructions; after this have the two students revise the directions together. I don’t know if it will really work, but it could be fun.

It makes sense to me that kids are more willing to revise poetry than other types of writing. The way we teach poetry suggests that there are multiple choices per line, and that there is more than one right way to write a poem. How could we teach the other types of writing this way so kids are more comfortable with remixing and adding to and taking away from their papers?

In Response to Nancy Sommers’ “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers”

I had actually read this article before in my teaching composition class last semester so this was a nice refresher of Sommers’ views on revision. One of the most interesting parts of the article, in my opinion, is found on page 383 at the bottom of the second paragraph, Sommer says, “At best the students see their writing altogether passively through eyes of former teachers or their surrogates…” This sentence has been haunting me since I read the article; it our fault as teachers that students stop writing for themselves and start writing for the us (the teacher). This makes me so sad because it is totally true! How can we change our student’s concepts of their writing, it’s as if we will have to fight against every other teacher our students have ever had.

I love how one of the experienced writers say that revising is an ongoing process that could go on forever. I have my BS in English Ed and it took me three advanced writing classes to figure out this concept. How do we get our students to make this ah ha moment if it took me forever?

In Response to Barry Lane's "After the End" Chapter 11

In chapter 11 on page 164 Barry Lane relates a little story about a teacher he observed named Ms. Treu. The part of this story that touched me the most was the end where Lane talks about Ms. Treu’s reaction each time a student hands in a piece of writing; he says, “She could have seen it a hundred times, it could be scrawled in smudged pen or smeared with erasure marks, but when a child hands her a story to read, her face beams with delight” (164).

Reading this just put a smile on my face. It made me think back to my school days; did I ever have a teacher like Ms. Treu? Not that I can remember, however, this has changed the way I want to see my student’s writing. I want to show my kids that their writing is special to me, not just some pile of papers that will leak into my weekend. I challenge each of you to try for this if you don’t currently have this attitude!

Barry Lane "After the End" Chapter 6 Response

In chapter six on page 92, Lane gives a lot of great activities and ideas for bringing characters to life. I think the fourth bullet down would be really fun to try. He suggests that you have your students adapt a story you are reading to a screen play and then map out the story. After you have the main points mapped out you can have the students draw pictures of the scenes.

This last month I took three classes from the Nixon Institute here at the U of I, two classes I took would really help me with this activity; one class was teaching the graphic novel and the other class was drama: from the page to the stage. I could see how turning a novel into a graphic novel would be really fun for the kids (maybe you could read a graphic novel in class before this assignment and teach them how to create graphic novels). Secondly you could act out the scenes that you draw. I learned all different kinds of fun activities to make the drama come from the page to the stage (actually having the kids act out the scenes).

I’m excited to try this! Have any of you tried anything like these activities? What has or hasn’t worked for you?

In Response to Sheryl Lain’s “Reaffirming the Writing Workshop for Young Adolescents”

I liked a ton of things Lain said, so I think this post is going to be a grab bag of Lain concepts that hit me the most.
Lain reasserts what we have heard so many times these past two weeks, “ We learned by becoming immersed in the writing process ourselves” (20). It is essential to think back to the time when we weren’t so confident with our writing skills and use those memories to relate to our students. We ourselves must be writers in order to teach writing!

Confer with students during the workshop. It is better to confer with each individual student many times throughout one of their papers than to “…simply editing and grading the final draft” (21). I can only imagine how much work will be cut out of the grading process for you if you confer with your students. Who wouldn’t want that?

I really appreciate that Lain outlines the first month of her school year. She talks about her specific directions when handing out journals, which is just wonderful for me who has had problems with keeping journals in the classroom in the past. I like how specific she is with her students, they don’t have any room for guessing what she wants them to do in their journals, maybe this ability comes with experience (something I lack). She says, “I ask two things—please date each entry, and draw a line between entries. I tell them they will write at least a page a day” (21). Maybe these tips will help me in the future! I’m excited to try.

Lain gives two great suggestions while doing student conferring: firstly, when she can’t think of anything to say she just makes a personal connection to the piece, secondly, she keeps a comment sheet and a chart of how her conferencing are going. I like the idea of the chart especially, because I have been asking myself how do you grade workshops, more specifically what the student accomplishes for the day. But she answered my question! For more ideas, how do you guys grade workshops?