I found Chapter 12 interesting because it gave more of a focused look on what a year can look like in a writing workshop. I have always been stressed about how I am going to plan for each individual day for every subject, but this chapter focuses more on units and explains that the writing workshop should be lenient with time and vary according to student’s needs. The questions to ask yourself about planning a unit were also very beneficial to me. Knowing what the students have done in the past is extremely important because it can be built on, and if they have learned nothing then you know to start with the basics of writing workshop.
I have been seeing more writing in my field experience lately. The other day my teacher read “My Name is Yoon” to the children and they wrote a response to reading about it. She provided sentence starters and discussed what the children should write about and I think this greatly helped them focus. They got to share today and I was amazed at some of the vocabulary and thought that some of the students put into their work. They have also been working on persuasive writing on a prompt asking whether they think Whitehead should have school uniforms. Some of the children thought of very imaginative reasons, but most of the students seemed to enjoy it because it was a topic they felt strongly about one way or the other. I look forward to continuing to see my students grow as writers and hope sometime in the future I can teach a lesson on writing with this class. They are very enthusiastic and want to share their writing which I think is so great!
I'm excited you are getting to see more writing and that the kids are anxious to share. I am thinking that persuasive is wonderful because we all have opinions, don't we? Many kids have very strong opinions and want to share them.
ReplyDeleteKnowing what kids have done and already know is so important, and something we often overlook.