our story Inna Point Warf

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My Writing Philosophy

When you’re teaching kids to write you’re teaching them to think. Writing is the window through which all thinking starts. Sheryl Brock. With this students must be taught to write purposefully in order for them to become independent thinker. To do this student must be taught how to write.

Writing is defined as any piece of written work as writing, especially when you are bearing in mind the style of language used in it. As start before when students learn to write they learn to think. Writing is an essential skill to attain in the classroom. Writing is the principal source upon which student’s work will be critique, learning will be judged. Writing prepares our students with communication and thinking skills. Writing allow us to visiblable see and interpret  what our students are.  

Due to the fact that writing and thinking are complicatedly bound. Each and every time our students learn a new way to think so they must learn to write in a new way. These “new ways” of writing include both new thought practices and new ways and types of writing.

Students will be faced with writing differently for each subject area and still maintain the creative aspect of writing.

Our students need differentiated  instruction and taught the writing process and trends  constructive feedback in order for our students to move from the different stages of writing  Thus, learning to write  work best when they are sequenced or scaffolded, with larger conceptual responsibilities that is  explained, and with adequate time  to go through each process effectively.

We as teachers must not see writing as the end result but see writing in  itself the process of learning, and students require instruction, feedback, and support throughout the whole writing process until they are able to do so on their own.

With this wealth of knowledge I plan on making my classroom writing friendly by: Bring Writing to life when  students have discovered different types of writing such as plays, I will offer them further motivation by producing some or all of those works. I will also put on a class play that the students worked on together, or you can bring a video camera and let students film mini movies, or even news broadcasts. Students will take pride in their writing and will get excited to show off their creations to fellow students and their parents.  Students will be encouraged to explore structured writing stimuluses have their place in and around the  classroom, but some students will write once left to write in the way that best suits them.   

 Benjamin Franklin once stated that we must ‘ either write something worth reading or do something worth writing, this will be my mantra for my students.  As I progress in becoming a purposeful writing teacher. I aim to find more innovative ways to bring out the best writer in my students.

WRITING PHILOSOPHY

Becoming a good writer is slow going and challenging, it is a complex process because learning how to write well takes practice, skills, strategies and courage. As teachers of writing it can be concluded that students learn to writ by first developing their fine motor skills which is making small movements and hand eye coordination. After students have developed these skills students are ready to hold a pencil or even use their finger to write in the air. Moreover, after they have learnt to hold a pencil they will use the pencil to scribble until they can form letters then write words, sentences and finally make paragraphs, for me personally some students learn to write because they might have been exposed to a lot of book whether it is at home or at school. However, by seeing good models, students develop a sense of how good writing is structured. 

Being exposed to these books allows them to have a wider range of vocabulary and allow their imagination to be broad. As a teacher who will be teaching students how to write, i will provide my students with the materials and tools that are necessary for them to write. Additionally, i will utilize different writing strategies such as in class writing, teaching writing explicitly and summarizing just to name a few. According to Bo Bennette, "A dream becomes a goal when action is taken towards its achievement." Therefore my dream is for my students to become effective writers and my goal is for them to write different genres for many purposes and audiences. 

Further, you may wonder how this goal will be achieved. I t can be achieved by introducing students to the five processes of writing, which are, Pre writing,drafting revising, editing and publishing and more so integrate writing in every lesson that is being taught with different strategies.

PROMOTING WRITING IN THE PRIMARY GRADES AND DESIGNING WRITING ASSESSMENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES

Teaching children to write is hard because writing is not so much one skill as it is a bundle of skills that includes sequencing, spelling, re reading and supporting big ideas with examples Fletcher & Portalupi (2001) pg 1. Unit 5 and 6 gave me a lot of knowledge on the fact that teaching writing can happen in several different ways such as, teaching writing whole class, as a group or one on one with the students. I learnt that in order for students to be engaged in writing a class environment should be prepared wit tools for revising their writing, materials for bookmarking, reinforcing material such as dictionaries and teacher made charts to guide their writing efforts. To further say learning about assessing students writing performance increased my knowledge on the fact that rubrics can be used instead of analyzing and marking students work anyhow based on judgement. However, rubrics are important tools that teachers use to evaluate their students finished pieces. 

Additionally, evaluating students writing is therefore beneficial to teachers because it helps the teacher to know what lessons to teach to the students or i the students are in need of a one on one with the teacher. Added to that, i also found that the primary trait scoring rubric 6+traits in writing is a more effective rubric to correct students work, due to the fact that the rubric varies with the writing purposes and audiences. As a teacher who will be teaching students to write, i will therefore teach them strategies for planning, revising their own writing pieces, strategies for summarizing reading materials, the purpose of their writing product, gathering and organizing their ideas before writing and how to increasingly write complex sentences.

WRITING AND THE READING, WRITING CONNECTION

Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out (Pam Allyn) During units 3 and 4 we were exposed to the purpose, audience and the complexity of the language when writing. When i am thinking about or actually writing, I had never thought of or studied about audience and the complexity of the language, i use to just write bearing in mind my purpose. However, now that i have been exposed to the different purposes of writing, audience and complexity, as a future educator it has certainly changed me. Previously, i thought about writing to just inform, entertain, persuade, educate, explain describe and advertise were the different types of writing but i know now that they are the purposes of writing. Within this writing course i was also introduced to a number of audiences to whom students can target when creating  their pieces to include parents, children with different age ranges, adults and teachers or a general audience. Most importantly, when writing the complexity of the writing should be taken into consideration such as the words we choose, how we structure the sentences and the format or the type of writing we wish to utilize. Also, i was unaware that any of the purposes of writing can be used to teach any topic to any audience. For example the topic of Sex Education can be used to entertain, persuade, educate and still explain to both adults and even young children.

As a teacher who will be teaching students to become successful writers, i will introduce them to multiple forms of writing and a variety of purposes because it is a great benefit have when learning to write broadly. Writing has many genres, styles, purposes and more so many activities which students can be engaged in while writing. In class we looked at the genres of writing which included stories, informational, descriptive. poetry, letter writing and journals, however, there are different styles of writing which will determine if the writing is dressed up or dressed down by the word choices, sentence fluency and writers voice. The styles could be in the form of frozen, formal, consultative, casual and intimate.I additionally learnt that the different forms of writing can be written in these styles. Stories too can be written in a frozen style for example the bible. We also looked at the genres and what they can be used for like, story writing for entertaining and recalling an incident which really happened. I was also happy when we were introduced to the different activities teachers may utilize with their students to write different genres such as description. Descriptive workshop narratives for telling it your way, poetry opposites attract, letter writing work with me and i will work with you and journals, scribble da ting. I really found these activities very useful simple, interesting and entertaining and will actually engage students in writing the different types of genres.

WRITING AS A STAGE A PROCESS AND A TRAIT

I love the process of writing, it helps students to be effective writers, especially the ones who do not like to write. During Unit 2, we looked at writing as a stage a process and a trait. I was well aware that there were stages of writing just like there are stages of reading from my reading and writing course during the summer. The names within the stages, however, were a bit unfamiliar, I learnt that there are four stages in writing . 

The first stage is the emergent stage where students normally, scribble, trace, writes narrative stories and more. I also learnt that as they move on from the emergent stage that they move to the early stage where they will be engaged in their own story writing, able to plot stories and well exposed to different genres of writing such as, stories poems, expository's and fables. As students have mastered the first two stages they will move on to the transitional stage where they will be introduced to a variety of strategies to spell different words and then finally move to the last stage, where they will be able to critique their own writing and that of others.

What stood out most to e within this unit, was that all students would not be at the same level within their writing and so as a new teacher coming into the system would have to work really hard to better myself in order to assist them in different ways to suit their varying needs. Added to the previous, we got the opportunity to look at the writing process. i began realizing that the more i became expose to the process of writing, the more it became clearer within my mind. Within the writing process there is pre writing where students gather their information, drafting where they put their ideas together in a coherent way, revising where students will look over their work and look to add, remove or substitute letters, words or phrases, editing where they will check for the conventions of writing and the final process where they will be able to share the final copy of their written pieces to audiences such as their peers, teachers and other persons.

Further within the course, i was exposed to the traits of writing which were totally new to me. They were all very interesting as the lecturer explained that there are 6+1 traits of writing and that each trait has its very own way of teaching, modelling and assessing writing. The traits include, ideas,organizing , word choice, voice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. I am still not too clear on their complete uses, but i intend to become a young intentional educator who will read additional information so that o may become proficient, this will only seek to help my students. I really enjoyed that each trait has a song to boost students motivation and memory, when students are creating their pieces. I intend to utilize what i have learnt within my future classroom while taking into consideration, the differentiated needs of my students, so that they may become effective writers.

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN TEACHING WRITING

Teaching Writing takes time and effort. According to Anne Lamott, "Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts." "You need to start somewhere." As a teacher who will be teaching writing, awareness of strategies to help young writers become expert writers, is of paramount importance to have as an educator, During this writing course i was introduced to a number of strategies including, grammar instruction, summarizing, publishing writing and writing to start class, just to name a few. We were given a short demonstration of how each strategy should or can be used. I was impressed by the strategy "choosing topics to write about" this strategy allows students to choose their own topics to write about so that they can better relate to it. There were other strategies which i am confused about, and still is confused about, namely teaching writing explicitly. However i think that all the strategies are useful and great. I strongly believe that all of these strategies will have a positive effect on the writing of our future students. Additionally, in class, we looked at some possible challenges students may struggle with including" Writing does not have prosody, body language, facial expression and the writer should not assume that there is shared context with the reader." for instance, de-contextualized tasks, students may be asked to write about something in their past, for example, their Easter Vacation. The challenge for them is to rely on their memory, which students will indicate to the teacher by saying, "teacher i cannot remember or do not remember" which makes the task difficult for them. Usually strategies are developed to address or fix difficulties. So, in class we scanned through the trends in teaching writing and found that this problem arises, teachers can utilize a gallery walk among other things to help students remember.

WRITING AND THE READING ,WRITING CONNECTION

You learn to write better by reading. you learn to read better by writing. reading and writing work together to improve your ability to think. IN this aspect of the course we focused on the connection between reading and writing. we were asked to choose random story book and asked to state all the thing we could teach from this one book. i was amazed to say the least at the numerous lesson that could be taught from one single storybook. i never looked at a storybook from that aspect of teaching Grammar or vocab. we also looked at different types of writing styles such as formal, imformal and casual just to name a few.
these aspects will be implemented into to my daily lessons when teaching my students.

PROMOTING WRITING IN THE PRIMARY GRADES AND DESIGNING WRITING ASSESSMENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE PRIMARY GRADE

the real measure of success is whether students continue to do what they have learned after the unit is over. Carl Anderson

As we look at promoting writing in the primary grades, we as teacher must understand our students as writers. we must be able to get our students from point A to point B, while monitoring their progress purposefully.

In order to teach writing we must make sure that the environment that the students are writing in is suitable to foster creativity.

after observing a student engaged in the writing process, it is clear that we most promote writing in every aspect and accurately and purposefully assess them to acquire where our student stand as writers.

Writing as a stage, a process and a Trait


"Writing is the painting of the voice." Voltaire. in teaching our students to become purposeful writers we as teacher must impart to them that there are different processes stage and trait to enable them to become better writers. 
The Writing Process

Writing is a process includes at least four distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing. Prewriting- Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document. It includes thinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information (e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data.  Although prewriting is the first activity you engage in, generating ideas is an activity that occurs throughout the writing process. Drafting- Drafting occurs when you put your ideas into sentences and paragraphs. Here you concentrate upon explaining and supporting your ideas fully. Here you also begin to connect your ideas. Regardless of how much thinking and planning you do, the process of putting your ideas in words changes them; often the very words you select evoke additional ideas or implications. Revising- Revision is the key to effective documents. Here you think more deeply about your readers’ needs and expectations. The document becomes reader-centered.  At this stage you also refine your prose, making each sentence as concise and accurate as possible. Make connections between ideas explicit and clear. Editing-Check for such things as grammar, mechanics, and spelling. The last thing you should do before printing your document is to spell check it. if we teach our student to follow this process we will in turn she a great difference in their writing.

Along with the writing process identifying the stage a student is at is very important. this will allow the teacher to analyze where the students are at and set writing goal pertaining to their levels. whether they are emergent, early stage, transitional etc. with this teacher can build on their students. Also teach the student t know what they want to write about. for example their overall idea of what they want to write about , the voice that they want to use through their writing . Joe Bunting stated " No one is born a writer, you must become a writer. In fact, you never cease in becoming , because you never stop learning how to write. even now, i am becoming a writer, and so are you.

PERSONAL WRITING PHILOSOPHY

Writing may be defined as a process whereby written expressions are captured by words and phrases, and combined together to form pictures within the minds of readers.(Oxford Learners English Dictionary)

Donald Murray once said that writing is an art, it may appear magic, but it is our responsibility to take our students backstage to watch the pigeons being tucked up in the magicians sleeve. As a teacher of writing, learning occurs when students are better able to pen what they feel and think using letters, words and phrases. The ability of my students to paint a picture in the minds of future readers is in essence how their learning will be shaped and further, occur. As readers we will receive a windowed opportunity to view what goes on in their minds and can then assess if learning has taken place. As a future educator, it will be my responsibility to ensure that I provide my future students with opportunities such as allowing them to use strategies to include, graphic organizers,CUPS and ARMS during the writing process, writing for specific audiences and purposes, writing in different styles and bringing out the traits of writing through the remembrance of songs and jingles as they choose the writes words, use their voices, organize their ideas and ensure that their conventions are up to standard. Moreover, in light of this, the fluency of their sentences will allow persons to read their pieces effortlessly. I intend to guide them step by step, with much needed practice, then gradually release the responsibility to them and them alone. Additionally, the goals for my future students include, not only, providing them with useful strategies and guidance during the process, but also to develop within each of my students a fire and desire to want to become excellent writers, this goal will only be met by me affording them opportunities to perform and showcase them selves among audiences of varying types and publishing their finished pieces so that the wider society can see. To further facilitate this process and ensure that my future students be given every opportunity to become competent, I pledge to better myself through intentional and reflective research, where I will be able to give my students the very best and allow them to become prolific. proficient and competent writers that I know they can be , and contribute meaningful literature to society on a whole.

PROMOTING WRITING IN THE PRIMARY GRADES AND DESIGNING WRITING ASSESSMENTS AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR THE PRIMARY GRADE

According to Fletcher& Portalupi (2001) Once we study the written pieces of our students, we can get a comprehensive picture of the child's writing ability. This is very important because teachers must be able to track the progress of their students in order to be able to assist them in becoming more purposeful and great writers. Writing can be taught in many ways and using many different strategies to include, whole class, within groups and on their own (individual). This aspect of the writing process lends itself to careful planning and the use of  precise methods and strategies in order to ensure that students are taught correctly.

As the lecturer demonstrated how, as teachers of writing we can make recommendation and suggestions to our future students so that they can become better writers i was overwhelmed by the information. I have certainly become a reflective teacher who plans to do things totally different.

Moreover, in n order to engage students we must also ensure that the necessary tools and materials are available for them to perform at their best which will include writing materials like  bookmarks, pens, pencils and paper. Assessing their writing would then become more authentic, even with the use of the 6+1 Traits of Writing Rubric which follows a precise and specific order in which the students' pieces should be rated and assessed it takes the writers pieces from a developmental level to that of a professional one. During these sessions we were required to observe a child in pairs and write anecdotal notes on what he does as he writes during the writing process. Myself and my group mate journeyed to the S.R.Olivia David Primary School where we met a young man named Dow, as we observed him we formed a bond which i know will stick with him for a very long time. Even as i wrote suggestions for bettering his writing skills i reflected on the many students who have passed through my hands and did not receive the opportunity which Dow now has. I really do hope that within the future, as student teachers observe students like Dow and make our recommendations, that it would not just be for the course but to effect a change within the used subjects like Dow where they will get to use our recommendations.

WRITING AND THE READING ,WRITING CONNECTION

Reading allows students to use the reciprocal process of connecting reading with writing. Throughout this session we looked at connecting reading and writing, this topic brought back some familiarity, in relation to the Reading and Writing Course which i completed during the summer semester. The lecturer introduced the session by asking us to choose a story book from a pile which she had, she then explained that we were to pull from the text, anything which we would have been able to identify and teach the students. I can recall choosing a book about a young lady writing a letter to her grandma about being impatient when it came to waiting on the summer to arrive. From that text i was able to show verbs, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, sentence structure, sequencing and many other observations which i had pointed out. It was mind blowing that a simple text such as that one would be able to assist me within class for both reading and writing. I was quite excited and pondered upon my latter years before coming to teacher training and how i would have been able to use even the basil readers to connect both disciplines. Additionally, we were exposed to the purposes of writing and the audience to whom our students would be able to pitch their writing. The complexity of the writing would fall on both elements. Further, we learnt about the many styles of writing to include frozen, consultative, , casual, intimate, formal and informal to name a few. Knowledge of the styles of writing would allow persons to be able to write for the exact reasons which they have chosen. What stood out to me was that the bible even in its frozen language style had a bit of intimacy within it in Songs of Solomon and also during a session, where a clasmate and i were disagreeing on how soon to introduce sexual terms to little ones, all of this debate would not have been possible,  if we were not introduced to the genres of writing to include, for entertainment, informative, descriptive, poetic, letter writing and story telling.

As the session went on we learnt about many strategies to include scribble da ting and work with me and i will work with you. These will be utilized within the classroom and be able to ensure that pieces are written with the aforementioned elements within them. In the future, if lecturers would compile the suggested strategies given by students and publish a book, then future teacher would benefit and be able to teach students the correct way to produce excellent pieces.

WRITING AS A STAGE, PROCESS AND A TRAIT

"If the children in our classrooms do not care about their readers, how can they develop as writers." (Mem Fox) As educators its is important for us to introduce our students to different ways and means of bringing their pieces to life. The writing process and the traits which are intertwined within the process itself, serve as guidance in making writing great. During these units we were introduced fully to the stages persons go through when learning how to write, the first stage is the emergent stage where children use big picture books and explain their experiences orally, the second stage is the early stage where they will be able to form letters and practice good spacing, future writers then graduate to the transitional stage where they will hone their spelling skills and become more aware of punctuation and capitalization  and finally the fluent stage where they will develop greater control over their ideas and where best to place them while being able to critique the work of another. Further, i learnt about the writing process or the fab 5 of writing which embodies what good writers do in order to produce worthy pieces. i learnt that the writing process has five stages and that within each stage, teachers are able to use different techniques, strategies and activities in order to bring out the writer in every child. It was heartwarming to learn about different graphic organizers which are used to organize ones ideas and also CUPS and ARMS which strategies my students can use on their own to make their papers better. Additionally, within the publishing stage, my students can benefit and become motivated to read their finished work in front of different audiences and even view their work through digital story telling. Once writers use this process they will produce read worthy pieces that both children and adults can enjoy. Not to be forgotten are the 6+1 traits of writing to include, ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions and presentation. These traits will allow the writing of my future students to come to life and leap off of the pages and into the minds of the readers. 

As the sessions continued, what stood out to me was the many songs which the lecturer introduced us to, in order to help our future students remember what is required of them while writing. Songs like, the ideas, organization, voice, sentence fluency, conventions and the word choice song sang to the tune of many familiar nursery rhymes, really lifted the classroom as each trainee sang like children, which brought us all great joy. Within that moment as i reflect now, it all made sense and was falling into place, what was expected of me on practicum and what was then and there mandated for all of us to do and that was to deliver. By and large, once we as educators provide our future students with the knowledge we have about producing great pieces, they will become he writers they ought to be, fluent, confident and proficient. Within the future, it is my hope that more strategies, songs and techniques in relation to writing will be formulated and will make their way into every classroom with the nation.

 EXPLORING TRENDS AND CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING OF WRITING

My introduction to teaching the trends of writing has been uplifting and motivating. It was a true eye opener confirming and refuting many things that came to me during the course. The style of writing was most interesting for me. Prior to this unit, i never thought that i would have been able to make writing so fun for my students. I use to struggle to find creative ways to bring it out of them. When teaching the trends to writing, it is important to note that they play an integral role in getting students to become proficient and expert writers, beginning from the basics of sentences write down to the finished product of students writing their own stories and publishing them for others to see. Many trends to writing were new to me, but i loved the way they are designed to allow the students to mimic great writing, while having fun and staying focused on the tasks at hand.

The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model was brought out in teaching writing explicitly. This trend also stood out for me and is the complete package. It allows the student to get much needed practice when creating a piece of writing. This model is also known as the I do, we do and you do model. This allows the teacher to model in the beginning what expert writers do when writing, as they think aloud. The students will then write along with the teacher, all the while helping him/her to build the story. Students will then be placed into collaborative groups of varying numbers where they will create their own stories together while learning from one another's experiences. The final stage is known as the you do stage, where students are expected to individually produce a piece of their very own, following explicitly the steps shown within the previous phases of the model. In addition to the GRR Model, trends such as think alouds, publishing writing, writer's workshop, gallery walk, inquiry activities, writing at the end of class and writing at the start of class, all stood out to me and are great activities which will help to enrich my future children's writing pieces and make the process more meaningful. I am extremely eager to return to the classroom where I will use all of these trends interchangeably to ensure that my future students become the expert writers that they can be. 

Jack Prelutsky once said that" one must not limit their challenges but challenge their limits." This is true in keeping with the many challenges to Writing, these would include for example, where writing requires simultaneous coordination of a variety of skills (phonics, grammar, spelling, vocabulary and reading), but with every challenge in writing, there is a trend which can work towards bettering or eliminating, altogether the problem mentioned, this would be process writing or grammar instruction. Further, writing has been said to have no prosodic elements to include, stress, juncture, pitch, or voice but utilizing the digital story telling will help to bring these elements to a piece of writing. By and large, there is clearly no excuse for me as an educator to not allow my future students to write and write well.