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Pros and Cons of Writing Workshops

When writing workshops are a great tool for teaching and nurturing the writing process. Fletcher and Portalupi touched on three short-term goals of writing workshops that I wholeheartedly agree with: (p.22)

Getting students to love writing time

Establishing a safe environment so that kids can take risks in their writing

Setting up a workable management system to handle the flow of papers, folders, and so forth

While I do agree with the last goal (mostly because I like the idea of writing folders), I think it is the least important of the three. I also believe that establishing a safe environment is not only a precursor for students loving to write, but it also allows students to feel the freedom they need to pursue their own interest and be themselves – which I think can help any child academically. To quote Fletcher and Portalupi, “Students will love to write if they believe they are in a safe place where they can do so” (p.22). No student will want to write about something they are interested in if he or she thinks it will lead to torment. Following that, if students cannot write about something they are interested in – and make meaning - writing may lose significance for them. Choice is a key factor when it comes to interest. Fletcher and Portalupi quote Poeton when they write, “choice leads to voice”. I do not think it could be said any better. They continue on with, “We know that young writers work best when they feel a sense of ownership…”(p.23). It all leads back to choice. It is when options are given that passion has a chance to develop. Engagement is a product of the passion that can result because choice exists.

“If you want it to be alive, truly alive, your kids have to feel that, in the most fundamental sense, the writing workshop belongs to them” (p.24).

As mentioned in Samway’s article (and in class), some classes engage in peer review during workshop time. While this can be beneficial, I cannot help but see the negative side to peer review. I do not like how the teacher in Samway’s article had a tutor system in place as a workshop. Peer tutoring often sets some children up to either feel superior because they are selected to help a peer, or feel less because the teacher singles them out for needing help. Peer tutoring is not always entirely beneficial to the tutors either because they are helping peers with concepts the tutors themselves have already mastered, therefore neglecting to focus on their personal writing or writing issues they themselves might have. I do not think that ‘more advanced’ students should be penalized for lack of adult aid in the classroom. As Samway mentioned, to improve, writing needs to happen often and on a regular basis. I do not quite understand how that can happen when teachers are depending on students to act as teachers. However, I am not saying that there are not benefits to learning from or teaching someone your own age; it just seems as though the writing workshop is not he place for this (most of the time).

I believe that when teachers share their own writing, students can benefit immensely from writing workshops. This point came up numerous times in several readings for good reason: it gives students a tangible evidence of what a writer can be. Students often look up to their teachers and incorporating this into a writing workshop can give them an example to from which they can learn. Hopefully teachers continue to improve as writers themselves and inspire their students to do the same.

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The whole process of differentiation and decentration can appear to be a messy one to those who are well practiced at writing. For whatever reason, teachers freak out when they catch a glimpse of this process, promptly grabbing a red pen and marking the crap out of a child's paper.

Luongo-Orlando Chapter 6 makes the point that it is important to support every step in the writing process. Kids can become intimidated by the writing process when they view it as a task too large to undertake. We only reinforce this fear when we approach a child's writing/ideas with a critical eye.

My boyfriend's mother is a middle school French teacher. She ultimately encounters the same process as she teachers older students how to write in a second language. Mrs. Antolik never uses a red pen to grade her student's paper, because she doesn't want to scare them.

When we write on a student's paper, in whatever color ink, we tell kids that it is extremely important to be technically correct. Unfortunately, being technically correct can be very limiting for a child who is developing technique. A child will only attempt things they already know how to do, and their creativity will hit a wall.

I compare this red pen approach to writing to when your parents attempt to help you learn through their mistakes. "You really need to do this, because I didn't and I really regretted it." All I can think when I hear this is that I need to make my own mistakes and construct my own meaning. The same goes for learning to write. A teacher can come in and mark up a paper and correct spelling, but it's not the same as making own mistakes on your own and going through your own writing process.

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Notes 9/26/13

Differentiation

*Learners start with whole or bigger concepts (like marks on a page that tell a story) and then begin to move toward a specific understanding of how it works (example: letters create words that tell a story)

Decentration

*Learners begin to understand that in order for a wider audience to understand their writing, there is a need for shared conventions; they see a perspective other than their own; it "involves being able to take another person's point of view"

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Differentiation and Decentration

Differentiation

I have a hard time thinking about the correct definition of differentiation. After reading the article by Bissex, I take away the message that differentiation is the "technical" aspects of writing. Can children separate words, letters, sentences, etc.? Are children using punctuation correctly? Are children capitalizing the correct words? I have no idea if this is correct, but that was the message I took away from the article by Bissex!

Decentration

I find the subject of decentration very interesting. I think it is something that has surrounded me for a very long time, yet I have never learned about it. Some key aspects of decentration that Bissex mentions are:

*It involves being able to take another person's point of view. This increases around age seven.

*There is no clear distinction between the writer and the audience in the same sense of someone who does not automatically share all of the writer's unexpressed knowledge.

*Decentration goes hand in hand with differentiation.

*The student learned to differentiate between peers, teachers, parents, unknown clerks, and self.

I believe that these things are at the heart of writing. Sure, punctuation and capitalization are very important, but if a child is able to connect with their audience and see something from someone else's viewpoint, that is something special and something to talk about.

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Writing Development

The Bissex readings were insightful in a number of ways. Explaining differentiation and decentration in way that highlights how children’s writing develops in forms/features as opposed to stages was interesting. Using the term form/feature instead of stages makes it so that children are not limited when adults assess writing levels. In that light, it seems to take some of the pressure off of the child to be ‘in the right stage’. Bissex gives the example of Paul who’s “writing development was expressed not only in progressions within forms, but in the disappearance of some early compositional forms and the later addition of other kinds of forms”(p.200). Bissex goes on to talk about decentration a feature children’s writing gains as they age. This involves being able to take another person’s point of view and therefore recognizing the difference between writer and audience.

Children’s ability to ‘develop theories’ on writing should inspire teachers to not only encourage writing, but provide their students with all the necessary tools to become a successful writer. When children are younger, a lot of times “the focus is on what the child does not yet know rather than on the knowledge the child has demonstrated…” (p.99). Teachers need to look beyond these so called mistakes and acknowledge that these theories are part of the learning process. Bissex uses the example of non-existent words like goed or mouses. Teachers should focus on the fact that students know the meaning of those ‘words’ and are trying to make meaning out of a writing system they are still in the process of mastering. Those type of mistakes will dissolve in time as children gain more and more experience with word usage in their everyday lives.

If “children use their knowledge of speech sounds and of the alphabet, combined with some information requested from adults, to devise a spelling system”, then a teacher’s purgative should be to ‘request’ the most helpful information possible in an effort to aid in their student’s learning. The Luongo-Orlando chapter mentions how teachers should encourage writing from an early age and provide daily opportunities to write. Some examples were activities like morning message or writing games (p.134). Teachers can provide these types of opportunities by discovering “what children already know about written language in order to tell where effective instruction can start”(p.103). A good example of this is writing portfolios because they can track progress throughout the year. It is important to note that “teachers will learn much about their student’s concerns and interests as they draw and write if children generally CHOOSE their own topics rather than respond to assigned topics”(p.104).

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Language Development

The most prevalent theme in the Patè and Luongo-Orlando readings was development of language through opportunity, more specifically how teachers can provide that opportunity for their students to become literate. Each reading mentions the natural approach to teaching language. With this approach, young students are expected to be the stereotypical sponge and pick of new language easily. While that is a very valid approach, I still think opportunity is key in learning language. Experiences, social experiences in particular, are extraordinarily important in learning and developing language. Teachers need to be able to create situations like Patè’s projects so as to introduce new experiences to their students.

Patè focuses primarily on the project she introduces, but there is so much within that project that facilitates language learning. She made in known that it is important for the receiver in the conversation to understand what is being conveyed, not necessarily the language. I agree with that because I think the language comprehension will follow after relationships and social interaction continue. It is critical for teachers to create environments that foster interactions which can sustain opportunities to learn language. The wrap-up of the article related to these concepts, but managed to reach further into teaching philosophy as a whole when she remarks on adapting to situations in the classroom. Teachers need to be able to find the problems in their classroom and solve them in ways that benefit their students. Improvements are constant in classrooms because each group of students is different.

There are three quotes on the first page of the Luongo-Orlando reading that I feel sum up most of chapter:

“Talk builds a strong foundation for literacy learning” (p.33).

“The development of spoken language in the early childhood years must be a priority in homes and classrooms” (p.33)

“Oral language events help young people build vocabulary, grammar, narrative, and storytelling skills and give them understanding, confidence, and ability to move into reading and writing” (p.33).

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My Ideal Classroom Setting

My ideal classroom would be set up much like the classroom in the Pate reading, play at the center of the curriculum. I know that this particular classroom was for an ESL class, but I find this strategy very appropriate for ALL children no matter the class. This particular program in Italy had a balance of teacher-centered and child-centered activities and was very adamant about an in-depth involvement of the children and what they were learning. Another factor I see as a great tool in the learning of your students, is incorporating related field trips to what the students are learning about. In this situation, the fact that the ESL children could physically see the dinosaurs and the environments in which they lived in, instead of reading about them in a book. “The goal of this project approach is to foster young children’s thinking, self-awareness, sense, emotions, community membership and aesthetic experiences” (Pate, p. 13).

Luongo and Orlando write, “The classroom environment should be rich with opportunities to use language that is purposeful and productive. Every learning experience should be an open invitation to children to express their understandings and thoughts in ways that support language growth” (p. 39). Like they said, every learning experience should be an invitation for children to express themselves. We, as a nation, are told to speak and express ourselves, so why should we as teachers not have this opportunity? Why do all of our classrooms have to look the same and all of our students have to learn the same. We all know that this is not the case. I want my classroom to be a comforting learning environment for all students, and I want them to have the opportunities to learn in ways that help them. Structured daily routines and activities are still very important, but the ability for children to partake in these roles help them grow as listeners and learners (p. 37). In order to promote this (active learning, productive talk and dynamic learning), my ideal classroom would be equipped with an audio-visual center for learning, classroom library, posters and bulletin boards, play centers, drama resources, musical instruments, different themed areas depending on what is being learned at that particular time. All of these learning centers of the classroom should incorporate ideas such as past and current events, future plans, family, relationships, new ideas, routines, special events, etc. Not only is this encouraged and learned in the classroom setting, but it is important to be aware if this is practiced at home.

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