Writing Instruction

When looking at the writing in my placement classroom, I feel that many things are working. First, I think the fact that they have time set aside for writers workshop everyday is extremely important and effective. They never overlook writing and showing students the importance of frequent writing is very helpful in their overall written development. However, I feel that many of the writers workshops are very similar, not allowing for much variety in their writing styles. Most often, students are asked to write personal narritives. After some time, students began to grow board of writing about themselves. Once my CT changed the topic to writing on Desperoux, students began developing their writing more. Therefore, in my classroom I would strive to create more variety in my writers workshop in order to allow for more creativity from my students as well as engaging them in the writing activities.

In addition to writers workshop, my students participate in "buzzy the bee journal." Every three days one student gets to bring buzzy the bee (a stuffed animal) home and is asked to write about what they did with buzzy. When they bring the journal back, students share what they wrote with the class. They are more than welcome to draw pictures and there is no length requirement, allowing students to feel less pressure. This is an opportunity my CT has created for students to share their work which in turn allows them to feel that their writing is being valued by their peers and teacher. This is also an element in writers workshop, that Tompkins discusses, and it is one of my favorite ways writing is incorporated into my classroom. I would keep this type of sharing and the relaxed feel that students have when they are sharing their work. This is a way for students to have their work celebrated in the classroom and allows engagement from all students.

One element I would like to see more in my placement classroom would be the qualities of good writing that Tompkins discusses in chapter 2 to be more explicitly encouraged and taught. She talks about organization of ideas, voice, word choices, sentence fluency, and mechanics. The only aspect I see explicitly discussed in my classroom is mechanics (capital letters, punctuation, etc.) I think it would improve students writing if they were encouraged to use their voices more or vary their sentences with better word choices. I loved the idea of a "banned word" for a few days. I think this really promotes variety in word choices and could increase vocabulary for students. It could also work as a challenge for students, increasing their engagement and motivation in their writing. I think that these qualities of good writing need to be more present in the classroom in order for them to be worked into the students writing, especially during writers workshop. However, overall I feel that writing is fairly strong in my classroom but could be further improved to engage students more and make them really enjoy writing.