Re: Article #2

As I read this article it reminded me much of what I do in my classroom during writer's workshop. Each day we have a 45 minutes writing block which is divided into three major parts-mini lessons, independent writing/conferencing, share. I just completed my third year implementing this model for writing and I can honestly say that now I understand how each component works and what should be done during each part. In the article it says that the first step to helping create good writers is to allow them "to the creative heart of the writer" I feel that a lot of times we spend so much time worrying about writing to the prompt that we lose this sense of creativity that children have lost in school.

One of the first things that I do in the beginning of the school year is to set up students writer's notebooks. On the first two pages of their notebooks we use these to brainstorm different topics for writing that they might someday like to write about. We don't fill up the two pages on that day but over the course of the year we work on different writings during independent writing time which they get to choose. The students love having the opportunity to write about something that is important or special to them. This experience I feel helps them to grow as writers because they are able to express and relate to what they are writing to rather than being told what to write about.

One of the focuses of our school is using rubrics and portfolios to assess student work. Just last week when I was sending home the students academic review portfolios I was looking through them and commenting on how much they have improved over the course of the year. It is so important to me to see the growth that they have made rather than just basing how they did on standardized tests.

One of the things that I read in this article which I don't think that I do a great job on is keeping the parents informed. I speak with and meet with the parents in my classroom regularly however, I am unable to send my students work home with them until the end of the school year. When I meet with parents I have all of their work for them to see and review and we talk about it, but we are unable to send it home. Our school requires us to participate in academic review in which student portfolios are looked at and comments about instruction and next steps are recommended. This is a valuable process for reflecting as a teacher but does not allow us to communicate with parents about how well the students are doing by sending home work for parents to see and review. The article also talks about having the parents set goals for students to work on at home which I really like and might try to do next year. However, many of the parents of my students work at 3rd shift and it might be difficult for them to do and I don't like making them feel bad about not being able to do these things with their children.