Continuing our Conversation....

Kim said, "For me, with teaching writing, I guess I just don't know where to start. It feels like there are so many little pieces that go into teaching writing and I'm not sure which ones to teach first." So if we look at this, how can we, as a group think about and respond to this question? Where do we start? How do we know we are "covering" everything? Is there a curriculum we can use as a guide? What do we do well? What else do we need to get better at? Do your students consider themselves as writers? Let's keep this conversation going because it is an important one for sure!!

What do YOU think?

Good Morning Bloggers! I would like to thank those of you who remembered to post your final letters and reflections and to nudge those of you who have not! Also please notice I am posting the special section for observations.This week I would really like you to think about the work of Katie Wood Ray and write a personal response to something in the text that has "spoken" to you. Perhaps you might take a quote right from the text and write to that. What did you mark in the text? What makes the most sense to you? What does not make sense? What do you like? Dislike? The point here is not to write a summary, remembering we have all read it! The point is to write YOUR personal reactions so that we can all read and share the different ideas we have read about thus far. Here is a sample reaction from me!I really like the list that Katie keeps about the process of writers that begins on page 103 and continues onto 104. She writes "When our students envision writers at work, then need to be able to see them doing lots more than just sitting at desks. Active development possibilities like those in the lists above need to be a big part of what our students can envision themselves doing as writers." I wish that someone had pointed that out to me years ago! If you look at my background and my history it is somewhat overwhelming. Coming from a family of self-proclaimed writers, ( my grandfather wrote his town's history and multiple plays for the local players, My Dad, has owned and created newspapers and magazines throughout his life, my sister, worked for my Dad and started writing stories for the family when she was 10!) I was unwilling and unable to see myself as a writer!! In fact, I found the idea completely intimidating and made it my goal to be anything BUT a writer! I mean really, who could compete in world such as this? And yet, over time I found myself more and more drawn to the written word. I slowly became an avid reader and revelled in how different authors used words to convey their thoughts. And so I started thinking about how I would say different things. I began to "play" with words in my head...having no idea that I was heading down the exact path that I was eager to avoid!! Still, the image of a writer was one who was perched over their typewriters for hours and I knew that I would never have the patience for something like that. I needed to move and to play outside and to experience all that I could everywhere I went. And again, I was doing things that "writers do!" I just never knew it. It was not until very recently that I actually was able to start calling myself a writer. It seemed simple enough as I started working on some writing that writers write. I was writing and so I tentatively called myself a writer. I do not do this still, though, in the company of my family and I think they are always surprised to hear that I am a teacher of writing. It is as though they forget and are startled back into reality every time I mention that I teach writing. I can teach writing because I write and because I write I am therefore a writer! Katie's list only confirms all of my active processes that involve so much more that actually sitting down at the keyboard. In fact, by the time I actually sit down I can write with a general flow because I have done so much thinking about it before I find myself banging out everything that I have spent so much time thinking about!