Monday, April 11, 2011
Writing Approaches
In Tompkins book, few writing approaches were discussed. There are five writing processes which are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. To be honest, I have not seen much writing in my placement. All the writings that I observed in my placement are just practicing some Chinese characters. I don’t think students have practiced more than 5 times this semester. So I am not sure how students are practicing their writing skills. I am assuming that in their English classroom, they are learning how to write and sound out words in English. Mostly in Chinese immersion classroom, they are practicing reading and speaking. Even though those five writing processes are not happening in my placement, I am certainly can see how it will help students to write better. Myself as a student, I learned to go through writing processes to help my writings better and I think it worked pretty well. Therefore in upper elementary classroom, writing processes definitely needs to introduce to students. I don’t see any journals in my placement but when I was Junior I was also placed in kindergarten class and I observed students writing journal entries every day. Most of students could not write many words. However, as chapter 12 described, words wall on the wall helped them to write their journals. I think with lower elementary students, journals works well for students to practice their writing skills because younger kids like to talk about their own life and they always have something to tell others. In the reading, it introduced Double-Entry Journals which is students divide their journal pages into two parts and write different types of information in each part. They write important facts in one column and their reactions to the facts in the other column, or questions about the topic in the left column and answers in the right column. I never have seen any teachers do Double-Entry Journals and neither have I experienced myself. I think it is a unique way to write journal and it might interest students who does not like to write “traditional journal”.
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I haven't seen much writing in my field placement either. But just like you've observed your kids writing the Chinese characters, I have mostly seen my studetns practice their handwriting and cursive skills. I'm pretty sure they write often in the classroom but since I'm nly there on Fridays, I so happen to be there mostly during their handwriting sessions. However, there have been a few out of the ordinary days where I would be able to catch some of their actual writing class periods. One instance was when they wrote about their favorite resturaunt. It looked like most of the students were using what Tompkins calls, the revising strategy. The purpose of the writing assignment was to use descriptive words. So, the kids had to go back and change words to make it more descriptive and alive in a sense. A few of the students were futher along and were already in the editing stage where they were fixing spelling errors, adding punctuation, etc. Like I said, I'm only there on Fridays so, I'm pretty sure they went through prewriting, drafting and even the publishing stages which I was not there.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned your students using word walls. I have also observed my students using word walls to hep them spell words in their writing. But what I really liked was when my CT made a temporary word wall on her smart board. She had predicted that studetns would need help spelling common descriptive words. So, she wrote several words such as delicous, cruchy, sweet, tasty, salty, etc. This was a BIG help for the studetns. I had also walked around and helped students with their spelling.
I have also seen one instance of the studetns writing in their journals. They were assigned to write about their predictions to a story they read together as a class. They were only required to write about 4 or 5 sentences. Like you, I also read about the double entry journal idea and thought it sounded very interesting. I've never seen my studetns so it either but perhaps I can use this idea for my students in the future. Do you think you would try this idea for your classroom or stick with the traditional journal?