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.