Blog Entry #5

Blog Entry #5

Letter to Dr. Jones

March 1, 2011

Dear Dr. Jones,
I wanted to take some time to tell you about my experience in your class. I am so happy that your class incorporates technology and addresses the need for teachers to know what new digital writing aides are available. This class is titled, Reading Improvement Through Written Expression, so I did not think when I registered that digital writing would be part of the curriculum, yet so far, the technology aspect of the course is most interesting.
I’ve always been nervous to teach writing because I am not a confident writer myself. I’m sure the writing process was taught to me in grade school, but as I got older and the demands of school became greater, I dismissed the process and just wrote. I’ve found that for certain types of writing, such as narrative prose, it’s much easier to “just write” rather than go through the process.
My understandings about writing and the writing process have been altered since the beginning of this class. Yancey encourages us not to think of students as merely writers, but instead as composers (Hicks, 2009, pg. 52). This thought resonates with me as a teacher and as a writer. I’ve never considered my students to be composers, but I also never considered my students to be writers. I give them writing assignments and they complete them because they are required to do so, but there is no passion for the actual composition piece. Throughout this course, we talk about one of the key motivators for students in writing being choice. Composers tend to write about topics and subjects they are interested in, not because a teacher told them to write about the topic or subject. Even though as teachers we talk about it, and there are many opportunities where we are able to sneak in some authentic authorship from our students, state and federal mandates demand that our students write on certain things. Things the students have no passion for and even worse, no background knowledge in. How is a student supposed to be engaged in writing authentic prose while under such constraints?
Is there a happy medium? I think there is. I think that teachers should teach students the process of composing, both on paper and digitally. Especially digitally, because that is the world we are sending our students to. But I think that the on demand writing should stop. I think that state and federal exams should include more student choice.
I, personally, engage in the process of writing on a daily basis. Between work and school, I am required every day to write something on demand for someone else. Very rarely do I get to write just to write. When I wasn’t burdened by adult responsibilities, I used to write all the time. I wrote stories, poems, journals, you name it, I wrote it. I’m metacognitive about my writing now, as I was back then. I think when I write. The thinking drives the thoughts from my brain to the paper.
Sincerely,
Sophia Amaxopoulos

Blog Entry #4

Blog  Entry #4

Student Choice versus Mandates

          As literacy teachers, we are constantly reminded of how important student choice is to motivation and success in writing.  Yet, as we all know, today’s schools require students to write “on demand” (Hicks, 2009, p. 15).  State exams ask students to produce written expository text on any number of subjects, without allowing them time for preparation.  We learned in Tompkins that the prewriting stage in the writing process is where students should spend 70% of their writing time (Tompkins, 2008, pg. 8).  According to Tompkins, students may use this time to consider topic, purpose, audience, form, and ideas.  There is little room for this approach in today’s curriculum. 

          People gravitate towards subjects that interest them.  Students are no different.  When we ask them to write a five paragraph essay on a topic of the teachers choosing, and include requirements and demands on the content, we are essentially taking away their right to write and learn about something that is truly meaningful to them.  I know the word “right” in the previous sentence may sound a bit dramatic, but I think that everyone has a story to tell, and we all have the right to learn how to tell that story in a meaningful way.  How does a teacher find the balance between academic literacy demands on students and fostering a love for writing in a heterogeneous classroom?

          To add to this dilemma, the current technological advances in publishing capabilities have changed the demands placed on students and teachers alike.

Digital writing tools such as RSS and social bookmarking have changed the rules of the writing game.  Some things remain the same, but the technology used today has truly changed the way we write, what we write about, who we write for, and why we write at all. 

As an information consumer, I am constantly inundated with data from a number on self-inflicted choices J.  I find myself filtering, screening, and scanning more than I actively read for comprehension and reflection opportunities.  After reading Hicks’ chapter on these digital tools, I now have a new way to organize and hopefully assess this information.  I hope this leads to a new, improved, and more efficient system of writing for me.

As a literacy teacher, I struggle with how to introduce these new literacies and the tools that come with them to students that are already struggling with reading or writing.  It’s not enough to use these technologies to do the same activities that can be done within a classroom environment.  This is harder than it sounds.  There are some obstacles to overcome.  First, teachers must learn and use the technology themselves in order to be able to teach it in an effective manner.  While I can’t speak for everyone, I myself am not a fan of technological change.  It frightens me because it changes so quickly and has lasting effects.  I’m sure someone, somewhere, at some time said the Internet was just a trend.  Schools should give teachers as much technology training as possible.  Their student’s future success in a technological world depends on it.

The second obstacle is about providing students with a digital environment in which they can truly collaborate rather than using the digital tools to do the same old things they’ve always done before, except now they use technology to do them.  Students need to learn the value of a blog, or a wiki as literacy tools.  Tools that not only let the student create content, but also to publish and gain feedback on their ideas. 

This is the way in which students grow as writers and as people.

References

Hicks, T. (2009).  The digital writing workshop.  Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.

Tompkins, G.E. (2008),  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (5^th ed.).

          Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Reading/Writing Entry 3

Blog Entry #3

Journal Writing

          I love journals.  I use them personally, professionally, and in my classes.  Before reading the text on journals in Tompkins, I had only thought there were only one or two types of journals and only a few activities that could be introduced to students to help aid in their learning.  But as I read, I not only thought of how my students could benefit from journal writing, but how I, myself, could use journal writing to aid my own learning.

          For example, I often have a hard time gauging my learning after reading narrative text.  I usually write about whether I simply liked the text or not or I may write about other meaningful items I encountered during reading.  Tompkins provides a number of prompts on page 99 that would help out my journal writing after narrative texts.  My favorite prompt from those on the list is, “how does this story make you feel.”  I don’t get to read much for pleasure these days, but even when I do, I rarely ask myself how I feel after reading something.  I usually concentrate on the things that I have learned or questions I may still have, but very rarely do I check in with my feelings.  As a student, I think that writing about emotions that one feels after reading, can be stressful, because you always know that a teacher is going to read it.  But in my own personal journal, I can be free to write about the emotions that were brought out by the text.  Engaging narrative texts should bring emotions out in people.  Journal writing is a good way for me and for my students to check in with our feelings. 

          There is a flip side to allowing students to journal about feelings.  Tompkins says that “sometimes teachers learn details about children’s family life that they may not know how to deal with” (Tompkins, 2008, pg.104).  I never considered this issue until I read about it.  I am one of those teachers that would be really uncomfortable in reading something related to the safety of my students.  As a teacher, I have a responsibility to tell someone about a possible issue, but as a human being, I would feel very uncomfortable in sharing my student’s private journal with a third party.  That sends the message that they can’t trust me with personal information.  Some student’s may include such personal items in their journals as a cry for help, others for attention, and still others just want someone to listen.  It will be hard to decipher which voice needs what.

References

Tompkins, G.E. (2008),  Teaching writing:  Balancing process and product (5^th ed.).

          Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Merrill.

Reading and Writing Entry 2

Reading/Writing Blog

Entry 2

          According to Hicks, teachers of writing should consider the three main elements in the framework of a digital classroom; the students, the subject of writing, and the spaces in which the writing is done.  As a teacher, not only of literacy, but of other subjects as well, the thought of a digital classroom entices and excites me.  Unfortunately, my experience in the classroom consists of my days of observation and student teaching during my undergraduate years.  The prompt for this blog post asked us to think about our classrooms, keeping in mind the three elements mentioned above, and answer the following questions:  What was there already in place to begin a digital workshop and what else was needed in order to create a successful digital writing workshop?

          I am a business educator, teaching computer applications, accounting, economics, and a number of other business/computer related courses.  These courses and classrooms have more technology available within them than most other high school courses do.  During student teaching, I was charged with teaching the computer applications and accounting courses.  During my time at this particular high school, I taught a group of students that were computer savvy in certain regards but lacked the skills needed to navigate many computer application software programs, such as the Microsoft Office Suite programs including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.  Looking back on this time, very little time was devoted to reading and writing in these courses.  Pew Internet and American Life Project (Lenhart et al. 2008) confirm most [teenagers] are more adept than their elders at particular digital skills like texting, blogging, uploading photos or videos, and using social networks such as Facebook—they do not necessarily possess the capacities that make them critical and creative digital writers (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).

          The classrooms that I taught in contained certain elements that I believe made a good start to a digital writing workshop.  The rooms were equipped with computers loaded with word processing programs.  The room had comfortable chairs and tables for the children to work at.  Each student had their own computer and therefore their own writing space.  Besides the computers, there was a Smartboard in the room and a digital projector.  The students within these classrooms had chosen to take these classes as their high school electives; therefore, I believe that their motivation level was higher than the average student who was required to take the courses. 

          Even though these classrooms were well equipped technologically, there are other things that could be integrated within the courses that would aid in the development of a digital workshop.  As Warschauer (2006) argues, a combination of new mind-sets for teachers, administrators, students, parents, and other stakeholders must accompany substantive change in literacy practices enabled by technology.  Understanding when, why, and how to use different forms of media to convey a particular message requires a working knowledge of the mode—that is what an audience expects from a piece of writing in order to be moved to action—and how to effectively manipulate the media in which it is composed (Hicks, 2009, pg. 127).  This new mind-set that Warschauer refers to was lacking in this classroom.  Skills were taught with regards to manipulating software programs, but nothing new was done with this technology.  Students read the textbook for homework the night before, so when they came to class they were ready for a hands-on lecture on the reading, then they were asked to create a template using the skills they had just learned.  They were never asked to take those skills and create something meaningful for themselves. 

References

Hicks, T. (2009).  The digital writing workshop. 
     Portsmouth, NH:  Heinemann.

         

Reading and Writing Entry 1

Reading/Writing Blog

Entry Prompt 1

            I have almost no experience as a teacher of writing, per se.  But I do have experience in teaching other subjects that include writing as an appropriate learning activity.  I also have a lot of experience as a student of writing.  I have been a writer my whole life. I wrote stories, poems, plays, etc., when I was a child.  Then my authorship took a more formal turn in later years, in that my purpose for writing changed from personal reasons to more academic ones.

            In the classroom, playing the role of the teacher, I have asked students to write on different topics, for different audiences, and different purposes.  Students are usually not motivated at first by the thought of having to compose their thoughts onto paper.  But writing is such an important piece to education that it cannot be ignored and it also cannot get bogged down with thoughts of proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation.  When we consider ourselves as writers, we consider the role the writer brings to the writing process.   It is the writer’s job to convey a thought, a message, an idea, or a question.  It is not the writer’s job to be the editor in the process as well.  There will be time for revisions and editing at a later date

            In the classroom, playing the role of a student, I have been asked to write about countless topics, for countless audiences, for countless purposes.  I know that working within an academic framework requires the regurgitation of facts and such.  That was the most comforting part for me, the research.  The actual composition of the research that gives a valid answer to the questions asked by my instructor was the challenging part.  I never learned about the process of writing.  I learned back in grade school the different parts or writing an essay, or a poem, or a story, but I was never taught the true process of writing.  I am comforted in process.  I am comforted by words that are not permanent and can be altered or deleted completely.  I am comforted by knowing that the thought I hold on a topic today is easily amended and “rethought,” so to speak. 

            Giving students ample time to work on writing, discussing issues about reading and writing, and creating a judgment free zone as a writing community are just a few things that I would like to enact in my writing classroom.  The most important part of writing is practice.  There are very few activities that don’t require practice as a means of fluency and ease.  It’s the same thing with writing.  You must practice, not once in a while, but daily.  Give students an opportunity to share their thoughts on paper on a daily basis, even if it’s just for five minutes. 

            Word processors, digital audio and video editors, and online writing spaces are the future.  Not just for our students, but for everyone really.  Composing thoughts and ideas into a written work is not the same digitally as it is using a paper and a pen.  There’s a certain permanence in the publication of written work that is composed online.  Once something is published online, it is very difficult or sometimes even impossible to remove its contents from cyberspace.  This makes many people nervous, including myself.  Whenever I publish something online, I never forget to ask myself if what I am posting will be relevant or appropriate within a few years.  Will I personally feel the same about a subject in ten years as I feel about it now?

Hello :)))))

This is my second blog.  The first one did not go so well.  I hope this one works better.

My name is Sophia and I am a business education teacher and a graduate student at Nazareth College of Rochester.  My graduate studies are in literacy education.