This week you will be focused on teaching writing to young children. You have already read about a couple of aspects of writing instruction: handwriting and spelling. This week you will be focusing on the aspect of composition, including genres of text and grammar and mechanics. So take a minute and think about how you learned to write in elementary school. What do you remember being the focus of the writing instruction? What kinds of texts did you write/dictate in PreK through grade 3 in your own education? How did that instruction (or did that instruction) help to make you an effective writer as you moved into the middle and secondary grades?
This week there are again quite a list of readings so you will need to share them out. Everyone should read the writing in PreK article as it demonstrates how children develop as writers and what that means for how teachers support them. Everyone should also read C&R 5 and 6. Chapter 5 discusses how to help children learn to write sentences beginning at the oral language level and moving through to editing, grammar and mechanics. Chapter 6 illustrates the phases of writing instruction that helps children recognize the characteristics of a particular genre, evaluate a text against those characteristics, and learn to write in that genre as well as what components of instruction should be included in each phase. The remainder of the chapters each focus on a different genre of text, with illustrations of how to model and support learning about that genre. Share those chapters out so you each get one. Blog about teaching writing from your chapters, including discussions about Standard English, mechanics of writing, types and kinds of sentences, genres, the writing process, instructional components, rubrics, and differentiation.
Remember, case studies or multimodal texts are due on Saturday, April 22 by 11:59 pm. Those of you doing multimodal texts, I'll be sharing with you the Dropbox folder with the iBook template begun by Monday morning. I'm working to get each section included with the literacy aspect labeled.
Have a good weekend, and happy Passover and/or Easter if you celebrate either holiday.
I honestly don't remember much about writing in K-3rd. There wasn't Pre-K when I went to school. What I do remember though is writing on those Big Chief pads. In second grade I remember being chosen to go to one of the third grade classes for phonics. One of the activities was to write as many words as you could from one word written on the board. I'm sure we had writing and grammar I just don't remember what we did. I do remember in fourth grade having penmanship which didn't do anything for my penmanship. I still have messy handwriting.
ReplyDeletePre-K wasn't available when I was 4 years old, but my mom taught me to write my name when I was 3 and then I didn't stop writing. With two older sisters, I wanted to do my own "homework" when they were doing homework. I had many note pads for my own writing. I don't remember writing activities in kindergarten, but of course that was only half-day. In first grade, we had daily journals to write in, but I don't remember any composition instruction. I remember learning how to write a paragraph in second grade. Such as "I have two favorite colors." In third grade I remember getting to start creative writing, which I loved. Journaling and creative writing made a big impact on my future writing because I knew how to express myself using my own words and style.
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ReplyDeleteLooking back I can only distinctly remember writing in 3rd grade. I'm sure I wrote tons prior to then, but I can't remember anything specific. In my 3rd grade class we journaled everyday. Sometime we would have a prompt, either in the form of a question or a topic, and sometimes we got to free write. I feel like the focus was on using correct grammar and syntax. We would have to go show our journal entry to the teacher after we finished and she would look for any mistakes. That did cause me to always worry about my grammar usage and the formation of my sentences, which could be a good or a bad thing. The daily journaling helped me to be able to come up with ideas quickly and get started, which was useful later on in middle and high school when we had to do quick writes.
ReplyDeleteThat early on, I remember a lot of writing being done on that lined paper and mainly weekly vocabulary words. The biggest thing I remember was constantly being corrected because my first grade teacher thought that my paper was at too much of an angle when I wrote. Looking back, I don't even know what that mattered, it just seemed to annoy her. I remember the textbooks that we used and I think most of our writing was a summary of passages in that book.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall too much about my early writing experiences. Before preschool, I know that I used to scribble and tell my parents, "Look, I wrote cursive!" In Pre-K, I distinctly remember working on repetitive exercises where we copied letters to work on handwriting and letter form, but I don't remember anything about writing in kindergarten. In first grade, we had daily journals to write in, with prompts like "What did you do this weekend?" which we were expected to accompany with drawings. I don't remember anything about writing in second grade, and all I remember about 3rd grade was learning cursive. I think that these writing experiences, while great for teaching me the very basics of handwriting and letter formation, poorly prepared me for creative writing pursuits. I remember that writing assessments on standardized tests in middle and high school were always very stressful for me. While I did well, it was still a laborious process for me, because I feel like I learned good composition tips relatively late. Writing responses to basic prompts asking comprehension, rather than synthesis/analysis, questions was always easier for me, because that is what I was most familiar with throughout elementary school.
ReplyDeleteThinking back to my handwriting instruction, I remember a lot of paper/pencil instruction with handwriting paper. I can remember my teacher meticulously grading my handwriting papers based on neatness and readability. We did some free writes, but most of the assignment were to copy sentences produced by the teacher. I remember having a hard time with this and receiving poor handwriting grades because I had really poor fine motor control. My mom got me a few pencil grips, which helped though. I don't remember using different tools for handwriting but for paper and pencil, except in 1st grade we would write our spelling words in shaving cream every once in a while. In 2nd grade when we were learning cursive I remember that being a little bit easier for me and I still write in cursive today. I'm not sure if this is because my teacher was more explicit in teaching handwriting than my 1st grade teacher, my fine motor control increased or I just liked the fluid writing of it (maybe a combination of all three).
ReplyDeleteI don't have any specific memories of writing instrcution in preschool or kindergarten other than I think I remember copying letters and using the lined handwriting paper. I don't have specific memories of writing assignments until around 4th grade. I never had any issues that I can recall with handwriting so perhaps thats part of the reason I don't remember? It seems as if the emphasis was placed on grammar and syntax starting around 4th grade. I don't feel like I really received any pretreating for creative writing. It was always writing a summary of a chapter or answering specific questions found in the text.
ReplyDeleteI didn't go to pre-k and in kindergarten we focused on handwriting. In the primary grades, we wrote a lot of personal narratives but I don't remember writing other genres or formats. Most of what I learned from writing came from reading or high school teachers.
ReplyDeleteThe first writing experience that I can remember was in first grade. We got to take a bear and a journal with us for the weekend. The teacher has us write down what all we did with the bear. In second grade, I remember doing morning messages. Our teacher would write something on the chart paper, and then we would make corrections as a class. I remember having to fix the grammar as well during morning messages. At one point, I believe we had pen pals in which we wrote back and forth. Another writing project that we did also involved interviewing a family member. I remember interviewing my grandmother and then writing the answers to the questions, and then writing and later typing a biography. We also used the computers to type our stories. In one grade level, the teacher also took us to the outdoor classroom to practice writing haikus. I also remember handwriting and spelling tests. I am sure it is through these varied activities and others that I cannot remember that my teachers helped to instill a love for writing in me. However, I do think most of the writing we did in elementary school was more for narrative purposes. I remember struggling with the format to write essays in high school, but not so much in my college classes. I’m not quite sure when all that clicked. I don’t feel that I was prepared though to write across all the different nonfiction text structures.
ReplyDeleteI remember doing a lot of writing in 1st-3rd grade while growing up. During 1st grade, we did mostly informational writing, like All About Me books, where we write facts about the Star Student of the week, we wrote "how-to" pieces as a class during interactive writing time, and thank you letters and such when we had guest speakers and when we went on field trips. In 2nd and 3rd grade, we also did a lot of expository writing, like journaling, writing observations of plant growth, daily oral language sentences, and much more. Due to the continuous amount of writing and focus on grammar and mechanics, my confidence in writing grew. I was able to organize my ideas and create essays that were more fluid.
ReplyDeleteI don't recall any specific writing instruction in elementary school (long time ago). I do remember I had my appendix out in first grade and I received handmade get well cards on construction paper from all of my classmates. I still have them. What skills I learned in elementary school seemed to help when I went to middle and high school.
ReplyDeleteI remember learning to read and write from my parents in Pre-K through first grade when we lived in Georgia. My parents taught me to write the letters of the alphabet in Pre-K and my mom had at home reading/writing/spelling kits that I worked with on a regular basis through Kinder and 1st grade. I was doing a lot of reading on my own at that age so I was very frustrated in class when the teacher would read everything for us. The only writing I remember were "About Me" type worksheets and cursive handwriting packets that did not take much time to complete. When I was in the second grade we moved to Texas and I honestly do not remember any writing instruction at all for second and third grade. All that I remember is that the math was so far advanced from what I had been learning that it took my complete focus to catch up with my peers. I think I remember the beginning of "How To" papers at that time, though. Writing was not a major focus of mine in school again until fourth grade. The persuasive writing we were learning still sticks with me. Our english teacher focused on grammar but our history teacher would do interactive things with us like mock court where we had to research, write, and play the parts. Around that time in fourth grade we were reading Edgar Allan Poe and doing creative writing. By fifth grade we were writing constantly and never slowed down.
ReplyDeleteI remember my early writing to be mostly focused around my own personal narratives. I was encouraged to write about my life, things I enjoyed, and things I observed in the world around me. I also remember there being a strictly fictional element to my early writing. I was encouraged to write fictional stories that may have been formed around a true event or person in my life but stories in which most of the information was fictional.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this instruction helped me develop my own creativity and an interest in early writing that certainly followed me throughout my education. I progressed through school enjoying writing and expressing myself through writing and attribute that enjoyment to the early push from my teachers to write creatively.
Thinking back, I do not remember much. I remember handwriting and learning how to write in cursive. We did a lot of finger spelling in the air. As far as writing I remember writing lots of stories. I remember the topic, write three points and sum it up from second and third grade also. But as far as specifics, I do not remember much.
ReplyDeleteI also don't recall any particular writing instruction that I was given in kindergarten-second grade. I do remember that our teachers highlighted the importance of learning how to write in cursive. We would often be given lined paper and sentences and told to re-write the sentence. I remember importance being placed on the form of our letters and how well they aligned with the lines on the given page. I also remember that we were required to write sentences repeatedly to better our handwriting. I also remember that we were given prompts and told to write our responses or narratives in journals.
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