Chapter 12: Make Every Minute Count

I truly loved these statements from p. 282: "First, I have to reach each child's heart, and so I have to open mine." "If I am to be an effective teacher, our hearts have to connect as well as our minds." These statements echo the foundation of my teaching beliefs.

Chapter 11: Build on Best Practice and Research

Wow! This chapter was packed with good information.
It's hard to pick one single important thing from this chapter. However, one point that sticks out was under the category of Develop a Schoolwide Vision: lasting change takes a minimum of 3 years and a full 5 years of ongoing commitment to impact achievement permanently. As teachers, we rarely give ourselves this much time for the process of change.

This is another point that I will walk away with from this chapter: "While there is no one best program or model of how to teach writing, knowledgeable teachers make decisions based on research, teaching and learning experiences, their observation of their students and ongoing professional conversations."

It takes courage and commitment to be willing to reflect on and question your beliefs about teaching and learning and for this I applaud my 6th grade team!

Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count

I enjoyed this chapter and agreed with much of what Routman had to say. My favorite was, "Reader's have to read avidly to become readers, and the same holds true for writers."
We should have students write everyday for 20-30 minutes, just as we have them read every day. If this is what we believe, we will make time for it.

There was one area that I disagreed with Routman on and that was the use of the six traits of writing. I don't know any teacher that uses the traits in isolation as Routman suggests. We use it as an evaluation tool, criteria for good writing and a common language. Routman herself uses these phrases when talking about writing: it's in the language, the way the piece flows, organized, the impact the words have on the reader, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and voice. Sounds like the six traits to me. I don't believe that the use of the six traits or a rubric sends the message that content doesn't matter or fails to take into account the writer's development of ideas and evidence presented in the writing piece.
I do agree that not every rubric is a good tool to use and if a teacher doesn't teach and demonstrate a rubric that it makes it worthless! However; our 6th grade team has worked hard to create a rubric that we value.

However, I'm sure every teacher must have been relieved and cheered to read that Routman suggests we needn't grade but 20% of our students' writing. I personally have never graded all my students' writing, because I feel it creates an atmosphere for reluctant writers instead of promoting writing.

Chapter 9: Conference with Students

The main idea that I took away from this chapter is that even though one on one conferencing with your students may sound ideal, it is not the only effective strategy. It was reassuring to here Routman suggest that there are a variety of ways you can conference with your students. A conference can be formal, informal, long, short, small group, large group, public or private. This realization gave me some hope that I was on the right track. My thoughts were further reinforced when Routman explained that conferences can be conducted for different purposes : to celebrate, validate, encourage, teach, assess or set goals. Some of these I never really categorized as a conference before now.

Chapter 8 Organize for Daily Writing

Provide More Choice Within Meaningful Structure
I was glad when Routman addressed this idea in the chapter. It was something that I had been curious about. I have found the greatest amount of success with my students when I apply the idea of giving students the freedom of choice within a predetermined topic. Routman also suggests that a teacher should demonstrate choosing a topic for writing, so students learn how to effectively choose their own topic. I have not demonstrated specific topics that I am writing myself but I have used different scenarios to demonstrate choosing a topic. For example: I might say, "If my daughter were going to write on this topic she might choose to write about her trip to Washington D.C.. This topic is really large! How could she write about her experience in D.C., but narrow the topic?"

Recently, when my students were to choose from four drafts they had previously written to publish, way too many of them chose their weakest piece of writing to publish. This really surprised me. Which lead me back to Routman's comment: "the topic is the single most important factor contributing to writer variability." I didn't want to discourage my students by contradicting their choice; which to some would mean they really didn't have a choice to begin with, but I also didn't want my students stuck writing on a topic that they clearly could not develop well. When I came across the following questions Routman listed I thought this would be an excellent way to handle the situation. Do you care about the subject? Can you tell a lot about it? Can you include appropriate and interesting details? I will use these questions or similar ones with my students in the future.

Chapter 7 Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

I'm not certain if it is just me, but Routman confused me through out this chapter. I felt she contradicted herself numerous times.

We, as teachers, strive to create authentic and real world writing situations for our students, but I'm unsure how to teach my students to write for a particular audience and format without teaching them the skills that go with it before they write and not after as Routman suggests. Routman also suggests not to list the requirements we want students to include in their writing, but then she uses that very technique.
Her opinion that most teachers don't inform students why they are learning a skill and that teachers simply have their students complete worksheets and then magically want them to apply the skill from the worksheet into their writing is a bit offensive to me.

I do agree that there are skills better taught within the context of a piece of writing and I liked her list of mini lessons.

Chapter 6 Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

I have to say this chapter is one of my favorites. It seems like such a no brainer and yet as teachers we can all say that we need to spend more time writing. We know that to improve reading, one must read. I believe we have finally, but not so easily, accomplished this in our educational day. We give our students many and varied opportunities to read. We also know that our best readers are our best writers, so now, we must ensure the same for writing. It only makes sense that since the two go hand in hand developmentally that we teach them together and not in isolation. I believe that primary teachers tend to do a better job with this. I know that when I taught only reading and language I taught reading and writing interconnected, but now that I must focus on more subjects the connection is not quite as strong.

I do believe that as an intermediate teacher I do a better job reading and writing expository text. It's neat to watch a student who otherwise struggles with reading explain potential and kinetic energy and journal about their team's process of building a mousetrap. It's amazing.

One topic that I have modeled a lot with my students is rereading writing, so as to improve the quality. The students are willing to give input as I model and do quite well. However, when they are working independently on their writing I don't see it having the impact that I desire.

Chapter 5 Do More Shared Writing

A colleague of mine mentioned that she was going to attempt a shared writing using the current suffix we were studying. It sounded like a great opportunity for my students, so we also composed a shared writing together using words with the suffix -al. After, my colleague and I discussed our experiences with the shared writing. She had a tremendous experience and mine was good but not outstanding. I was a bit disappointed and wondered how I could improve upon the experience.
After reading Chapter 5, I realized that I had a different understanding of what shared writing was all about. When I taught second grade it was impressed upon teachers that when students share ideas you should always write exactly what they shared, so I used this technique with my shared writing and did not implement the part where I as the teacher expand on the students ideas and paraphrase their thinking while demonstrating cohesive writing. I am excited to try shared writing in my classroom soon.

Chapter 4 Raise Your Expectations

I have to say, I found some of the statements the author said offensive. I have taught in a variety of school environments: small enrollment, large enrollment, disadvantaged and advantaged, etc... Yes, I have felt empathetic to many of my students over the years, but I have never and will never have low expectations for my students regardless of any extenuating circumstances. I have plainly and simply never given up on a child! There may be times when it is more difficult to connect with a particular student, but all the teachers I know find that connection.

However, I whole-heartedly agree with the author on the fact that students know when we think they are smart and capable and that high expectations must be accompanied by close, trusting relationships in which students bond with the teacher and feel safe to take a risk. This is key to not just writing, but to all areas of the educational environment.

Chapter 3 Share Your Writing Life

It's almost as if the author could read my mind. I used to enjoy sharing my writing with friends and family, but sharing my writing is very hard for me now. You wouldn't believe how many times I edited my first two blogs. The anxiety of clicking the Publish Post button was just too much. I almost immediately clicked Edit Posts. However, it is reassuring to hear my fellow teachers admit they feel similarly.

I do model my writing with my students, but only once in a great while. I am much more likely to model revising techniques with my class. Which seems funny, because you couldn't ask for a more compassionate audience then your own students.

I recently asked my students to write a 100 word story. They could choose the topic, but it had to include 100 of something in the story and had to have exactly 100 words. I thought this would be a perfect time to model my own writing with my class, so I got out my computer and not one word processing application worked. Just ask Bill! More surprising is that I was genuinely disappointed. I think that's a good sign. As for my students, I could tell that only a few found the writing to be too broad and needed more control. We discussed how they problem solved if the words were more or less then 100. Here were some responses: I made a contraction, I changed several words to this, I added more to my story. What a great way to have students learn to revise.

I agree with the author about connecting reading and writing. As we read a novel in class, we will discuss the language the author used. I feel I need to take better advantage of modeling my own reading more when my students read.

I never gave it much thought about why I teach writing the way I do. After this chapter and taking note of the author's suggestion to pay attention to my own writing process, it makes sense to me. My daughter always struggled when her teachers asked her to brainstorm using a web. Her web always became linear. I would reassured her that that happens to me. We both like to write and revise as we go. If we do, then surely my students have their own style. I now approach the traditional writing process as one model I teach my students, not the model.

Chapter 2 Start with Celebration

The idea of celebrating student writing is not a new concept. Most teachers firmly agree that all student work should be celebrated. It just seems to be too easy to loose this element within the time constraints we are under and standards we must teach.
I had recently been presented with the idea of creating "Valentines for Veterans" but put it off to the side because I wasn't really looking forward to taking time out of my curriculum to have my students make a card. Then Vicky shared with me that she was going to have her students write a poem and publish it by adding a graphic from the internet as part of creating the Valentine's card. Since I had used poetry to model my writing in the past. I decided that I would take this opportunity, but was concerned with my students' limited connection to the topic.
Routman suggests using stories as a springboard which is something my students and I both enjoy, so I shared a personal story about creating a valentine when I was in Brownies and how the Veteran's hospital had given my card to a vet with the same last name as mine and how we became pen pals.
As a class, we brainstormed vocabulary we might use in our writing. I gave my students the choice to write using any poetic format they wished, including free verse. This seemed to ease some of their concerns. I did not model my writing on this particular assignment. Most of my students conferenced with me at some point in the assignment, but none were at a loss for what to say.
Some of the topics we conferenced about were teachable moments, like: appropriate word form, tone for the chosen audience, fluency and concise writing.
I was absolutely amazed at how well my students wrote for their audience.

Chapter 1 Simplify the Teaching of Writing

I can honestly say that at one time or another, I sounded like the teachers described at the beginning of this chapter that complained about their students' writing ability. As if by magic, my students should become good writers. When I became a 5th grade Language Arts teacher I formed new beliefs and found a new passion for writing. I didn't have much guidance and it was definitely not a simple process, and I might have even used a little of this from 'a program' and a little of that. In so doing, I also formed the belief, "Teaching writing well is like giving our students a lifetime gift." I actually feel that my expectations for my students' writing increased in the process. I enjoyed conferencing with my students on their writing and watching them when they found just the right way to communicate what they wanted to say. No, not every student was at the same level or wrote with the same amount of easy, but my students became more confident writers with an increased joy for writing.

I now struggle with the fact that writing has taken a back seat to other subjects in my 6th grade classroom and I don't know why. I have struggled with feelings of being an inadequate teacher of writing for about a year. I ask myself, "Is it because of all the state assessments, changing of grade levels, time or the fact that I don't just teach Reading and Language Arts?" So I am thankful for this class. I don't necessarily agree with all the author has said, but I hope that it will inspire me to take that first step again to improving and refining my instructional practices so I can give writing the central, meaningful, enjoyable place I believe it deserves in my curriculum.