Log Notes from Wednesday, June 20th, 2012

Vanessa's presentation:
http://prezi.com/3h24bytuvzog/integrating-poetry-into-mathematics-and-beyond/

Vanessa helped us make our own tagxedo that we will use for our NWP idea booklet cover.

Vanessa York's Research Question: Research Question: How can writing be integrated into content area instruction? As students progress from the primary grades to upper elementary school, the focus of instruction becomes increasingly more focused on content area subjects. Instruction shifts from teaching foundational reading skills to the more complex literacy skills specific to content area reading. During this time, it is critical to provide students explicit instruction and modeling of strategies that aid in the comprehension of content area text. Writing in the content areas can be a valuable tool in developing comprehension. Writing in the content areas is a way for students to demonstrate their understanding and thinking about content area concepts. It is not always an essay or research report that requires students to engage in the writing process to complete a final draft. The students engage in a variety of informal writing activities to scaffold instruction and increase student comprehension. Students are writing to learn, rather than learning to write. “Writing to learn engages students, extends thinking, deepens understanding, and energizes the meaning making process (Knipper, 2006).” Writing activities are incorporated before, during and after reading to scaffold instruction and increase student understanding. “Just as we must encourage active thinking while reading, we must help students actively process what they are learning through their writing (Teach for America, 2010)” There are many ways to include writing opportunities into daily instruction. The use of daily journals, structured note taking, admit/ exit slips, and summarizing are examples of strategies that can be used to provide informal writing opportunities. Using these strategies allows students to demonstrate their thinking and synthesize information from content area texts. Writing to learn engages students and actively involves them in their learning. It requires them to put their thinking and learning onto paper. It invites them to interact with text and become more thoughtful readers (Knipper, 2006). Writing in the content areas can be a valuable assessment tool. It allows teachers the opportunity to evaluate the depth of understanding a student possesses. It can be used to demonstrate mastery as well as provide insight into concepts the students are struggling with. Using rubrics or checklists can aid in this process by giving students clear guidelines about what their writing must include. Unfortunately, many content area teachers are reluctant to include writing because they see it as a skill taught in the Language Arts class. They are not comfortable with the idea of teaching writing and don’t feel like they have the training or background to accomplish such a task. It is critical that we change that perception and help content area teachers see that writing in the content areas can be a valuable tool in developing comprehension. Bibliography Jacobs, V. A. (2002). Reading Writing, and Understanding. Educational Leadership , 58-61. Knipper, K. J. (2006). Writing to Learn Across the curriculum: Tools for Comprehension in the Content area classes. International Reading Association , 462-470. Teach for America. (2010). Secondary Literacy. Possible Audiences for Students •Local, state, and national contest opportunities- see back for specific contests •Publishing opportunities like Young American Poetry Digest www.youngpoets.org •Book Binding through companies like StudentPublishing.com-They offer a broad variety of products from handwritten copies, student typed with hand drawn illustrations, to a new online book creation that is all digital. Books can be either a collaborative class effort or individual student books. •Thank you letters to: guest speakers, field trip hosts, bus drivers •Cards for: military service, nursing homes, firefighters, or policemen •Poems or cards for school staff members: custodial staff, cafeteria staff, office personnel, bus drivers etc. •Letters and poems to parents •Postcards for out of town family and friends •Participation in district supported online discussion forum to share learning and receive feedback from classmates and teachers. Lee County’s is blackboard. Edmoto.com is another available forum. •Penpals with other classes or the neighboring schools. Students of mixed ages especially like to write to each other. Middle or High with Elementary, etc. •Letters to authors or local newspaper columnists •Restaurant Reviews- share on school news and also send to the establishment reviewed •Publishing of a class or school newspaper •Persuasive essay to local government or business establishments •Campaigns near elections •Letters to the principal, or persuasive essay to the principal with a new idea or policy change request •Blogging •Letters to upcoming new students •Moviemaker, powerpoint, photostory, prezi.com, or any other presentation media for a broader audience outside of the classroom such as parents, businesses, and other classes •Formal requests for guest speakers •Emails or letters to authors- When students add an alternate ending, another chapter to the book, or similar task, have them email or send off the revision to the author telling them about their class assignment and sharing their work •Family Response Journals- see www.readwritethink.org •Debates on current, meaningful issues Any time, a student writes for a purpose outside of the classroom walls and for a purpose broader than the immediate grade, the task becomes more authentic and thus generally more meaningful to the student. V.York 2/2012

Megan Hall's presentation: Megan Hall's Research Question: How to develop meaningful writing with students who have disabilities by creating a community of writers. The sounds of groans and moans fill the air as the day’s agenda is said aloud “today you will be finishing your expository essay.” Glimmers of anything, but excitement come across student’s faces as the upcoming doom settles into the room. Today they will have to write. This scenario is recurring in classrooms as students with disabilities shy away from lengthy writing; opting to complete an assignment with the least amount of words as possible. Educators, as well as myself, yearn to create a community of writers, but if students do not find writing meaningful a community of writers will be difficult to form. How does an educator foster a classroom where writers are not only welcomed, but what they write is meaningful? In order for this to happen an examination of how students with disabilities write must occur. Typically, they write what they know which in some cases is limited. Therefore creating their writing and thought process to be lacking in depth. Their pre-writing strategies are seldom used as their only goal for writing is to jot some sentences down and pray that a re-write will not be asked of them. Students with disabilities see writing as a one step process here today and gone tomorrow. Unlike other writers they rarely ponder their reader, vary sentence structure, re-read to make sure what they are writing make sense they are a one trick pony only to complete the assignment and be done with it. The task to make a meaningful community of writers seems daunting, but not impossible. For within the word impossible is I’m possible and students with disabilities can write, I have witnessed this with my own eyes. Misspelled words, punctuation errors and grammar mistakes will happen 100% of the time and this is alright. Having students with disabilities correct grammar, spelling and punctuation is great, however if all they see is themselves putting in a comma here, looking up a word there and making sure their sentence structure is correct they are going to see very little improvement to their actual writing. Focus on one aspect of writing at a time, make writing meaningful. Writing cannot be used as a form of punishment if the desired outcome is for students to feel like they are part of a writing community. Writing at first must be short and sweet with an easy destination in mind. Any way to camouflage writing may be necessary as these students are rarely fooled. A way of making writing more meaningful is to have students add depth to their essay. To make what they write a part of them. Often time’s students with a disability look at the entire essay when a revision is required of them. An entire essay is overwhelming to many people not to mention these students. Shutting down and getting into trouble sounds like a better option when they have multiple paragraphs threatening to cause harm to them. A technique that I have used in the classroom is to have students cut their essay apart into individual sentences. This way they are viewing parts of their essay and not the whole. Allow them time everyday to take a strip of their writing and edit that sentence. You may introduce students to a new way of revising/editing each day. Have them add imagery to their sentence, use descriptive words, pull out a thesaurus and change up their word choose the possibilities are endless. To enhance this editing/revising experience students can improve other students writing and in doing so the beginning of a writing community will form. The process to create meaningful writers with the goal of them forming a writing community will not occur in a day; week or month this is a process that will take time and nurturing. View this desire to create a writing community as the writing process; rarely does a writer sit down and write a perfect novel without revisiting their piece of work again and again. The same is true with creating a writing community one does not appear without effort and knowing that even though the task at hand seems impossible; for there are always possibilities within in the impossible. Sources: Dean, Deborah and Warren, Adrienne. “Informal and Shared: Writing to Create Community.” English Journal 101.4 (2012); 50-54. Graham, Steve; Harris R. Karen and Swanson H. Lee. Handbook of Learning Disabilities. New York, New York, The Guilford Press, 2003. NCTE: What We Know about Writing. National Council of Teachers of English. Urbana, Illinois

Notes and presentation from Tuesday, June 19th, 2012. April Etzold's presentation on letter writing:


 April Etzold's powerpoint version. I was finally able to put this on our blog by converting it to a Brainshark presentation. Brainshark is free. It allows you to add voice and music to your power points by calling in with an access code. April Etzold's Research Question How can teachersbuild writing communities in their classrooms to increase students’ motivationto write? By April Etzold By the time struggling readers and writers arrive at their senior year of high school,the number of negative experiences that they have encountered with writing canbe staggering. They have come to expecta writing assignment to be returned to them covered in red ink and harshcriticisms. It is not surprising thatthey have become reluctant to write; writing assignments are sources of fearand dread. If it weren’t for the socialaspects of high school, many low-achieving students would have given up longago. It is worth wondering, then, ifwriting were to become a social experience, if the negative cloud that thesestudents’ envision atop the pen and paper might disappear. By establishing writing communities in theirclassrooms, teachers can transform the students’ motivation to write. In theNational Writing Project, we wrote and shared our writing with our peers on adaily basis. Although we were expectedto write something, the activity wasnot submitted to a teacher for evaluation and critique. Through this sharing we interacted in ameaningful way with one another and established bonds (Dean & Warren, 2012;Yagelski, 2009). Writing was a social activity, and the more weshared our writing, the more comfortable and confident we became with bothwriting and sharing. There are several waysthat teachers can create such communities in their classrooms. Oneactivity that would help to establish a writing community at the beginning ofthe school year, and to introduce students to each other and their teacher, iswith the writing of “Where I’m From” poems. This lesson would begin with a reading of the poem, “Where I’m From” byGeorge Ella Lyon. After some time isspent reading and analyzing the poem, and discussing how where a person is frominfluences his or her identity, students can write their own “Where I’m From”poem (Mello, 2012). Once poems arecomplete, the teacher could pair students to share their poems (since they maynot be comfortable sharing a poem they wrote with the whole class at this pointin the school year). The lesson couldend with informal writing in reflection of the experience, and the next day’slesson could begin with a discussion of what classmates learned about eachother. This activity would help tocreate bonds among students, as discussing where one another are from can deepstudents’ understandings of each other and many students may discoverunexpected commonalities. It also easesstudents into the idea of sharing their writing with peers. In orderto implement informal writing as a part of the regular curriculum, teachers canbegin or end each lesson with a prompt that may relate to current events, othertopics that the class will cover or did cover that day, or anything that mightinspire thoughtful writing and discussion. Prompts should inspire writing, but students should be allowed thefreedom to respond to prompts in many different ways. Although a prompt could be turned intosomething more formal, most should simply be an exercise in creativity andexpression; writing should be fun and doesn’t always have to be for agrade. Students should, however, be encouragedto share their writing and provide feedback to their classmates; this isimportant for establishing a true community of writers (Dean & Warren, 2012). Sinceclass time is limited and students may not be comfortable reading andresponding to each other’s writing face-to-face (especially early in the year),there are other ways to share writing with classmates. In the activity known as “Celebration”,students can walk around the room and read their classmates’ worksilently. Then they can make positivecomments or suggestions on a separate sheet of paper (Mello, 2012). This may ease students’ anxiety about sharingtheir writing aloud or speaking out with feedback in class, and students willhave their classmates’ suggestions in writing to utilize if revisions need tobe made. Another way to establishwriting communities among students is through the internet. Whether it is with wikis or blogs, ifteachers can turn writing into an interactive, high-tech activity, studentswill be motivated to participate (Dean & Warren, 2012; Edmonson, 2012). Thereare countless other activities that can help teachers to establish writingcommunities in their classrooms. Ifwriting is fun, nonthreatening, and interactive, reluctant writers will becomemuch more motivated. Since, according toBickford and Wright (2006), “learning is a social process that works best in acommunity setting”, this will increase the potential for classroom learning ingeneral, and it will motivate students to write more frequently and with more confidence. References Bickford,D.J., & Wright, D.J. (2006). Community: The hidden context forlearning. In Learning Spaces (Chapter 4). Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/LearningSpaces Dean,D., & Warren, A. (2012). Informal and shared: Writing to createcommunity. English Journal, 101(4), 50-54. Edmonson,E. (2012). Wiki literature circles: Creating digital learning communities. EnglishJournal, 101(4), 43-49. Mello,R. (2012). “Where I’m From” (with a twist): Two poems, manylessons. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrievedfrom: http://fgcunwpisi2012.blogspot.com Yagelski,R.P. (2009). A thousand writers writing: Seeking change through the radical practiceof writing as a way of being. English Education, 42(1), 6-28.

Notes from Monday, June 18th. ( Belated Blogger's Note: These pictures were actually taken on the 26th, but Pat gave her presentation on the 18th. Pat is - however - in the picture, and that is why these pictures are on this page. The photos were taken during Remy Kaufman's presentation.

Pat Zubal's Sliderocket Presentation Pat's tic tac toe assignment sheet for differentiation:

Pat Zubal's Research Question:Strategies for Motivating Students to Write ReseWriting teachers encounter many stumbling blocks when assisting students in developing as writers but perhaps the largest obstacle of all is the lack of student interest or motivation to write. What can be done to overcome this impediment to progress? Donald Graves explains that the process of writing influences and is influenced by the community in which the writer participates (1994). Writing is a social activity. When students are provided with the opportunity to write about their own experiences with the world and share that writing with peers they develop their own personal voice and the confidence to write about a wide variety of topics. One of the defining characteristics of an effective writing community is the amount and type of conversation that takes place within that community. According to Allington (2004), classroom talk is one of the most important features in effective writing communities. Classroom talk must be respectful, supportive, productive and modeled as well as implicitly taught by teachers. Students cannot be expected to innately know how to interact with each other and their teacher within the writing process. Expectations must be clear and consistent so that students desire to and know how to actively and effectively participate in the writing process within their writing community. An important but often inactive participant in the classroom community is the teacher. Graves (1994) believes that when a teacher demonstrates a willingness to continue to learn through writing, students gain a feeling of trust in the teacher to support their risk taking and exploration within the writing process. Teachers are then able to model the role of writer for the students who in turn are able to learn by example. New (2005) explains that real-world relevance is an important aspect of student motivation. She suggests that teachers find a way to connect the writing to students’ lives. She further explains that students are more motivated when they have the opportunity to see good samples of other students' writing and understand how their writing is assessed. Providing students with choices and variety allows for ownership in their learning while creating a more meaningful and authentic writing experience. This type of learning environment helps students to develop the ability to make independent choices, set goals, and stay committed to reaching those goals (New, 2005). Teachers who provide personalized feedback, teach and model reflective skills and develop positive relationships with their students are the most effective in helping students grow as writers (Spalding and Wilson, 2002). Kelley (2002) recommends that teachers employ the following strategies to improve students’ attitude and motivation to write: · Teacher and peer conferences · Classroom discussion · Collaborative writing tasks · Writing for real audiences and purposes · Student self-assessment · Regular periods of writing · Choice of writing topics · Models of good writing The National Council of Teachers of English (2012) encourages a great deal of reading and writing within specific genres or content areas to improve writing achievement. Students must have many opportunities to use their writing skills and knowledge of conventions within each of the genres if they are to become fluent and comfortable within that genre. The National Writing Project (2002) recommends 10 ideas that NWP teachers have found successful in motivating students to write: Writing need not begin and end at the classroom door · Writing can connect kids to their communities · Kids like to write to other kids. · Students write best about what concerns them most. · Students are motivated to write when good writing is recognized. · Young writers need to do real writing. · Children benefit when parents are part of the literacy loop. · If a school recognizes the importance of writing, so will the students. · A published student writer is a motivated student writer. · With student writing, to celebrate is to motivate. Research has provided teachers with important information about the type of classroom environment and the most effective teaching strategies that can be beneficial in encouraging students to be actively engaged writers. Teachers who translate the research into practice will be rewarded by seeing their students’ writing flourish. References Allington, R. (2002). What I've learned about effective reading instruction from a decade of studying exemplary elementary classroom teachers. Phi Delta Kappan. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Writing Initiative, (2012) What we know about Writing: Key research concepts. New, Robin. (2005). Motivating students to write about art.School Arts. (105). 3. p. 44-45. Graves, D. H. (1994). A fresh look at writing. Irwin Publishing Co. Ontario, Canada. Kelley, M. C. (2002). "Best practices in writing instruction: Teachers' report of writinginstruction at a high performing elementary school" (Doctoral dissertation, University of Delaware). Spalding, E. & Wilson, A.(2002).Demystifying reflection:A study of pedagogical strategies that encourage reflective journalwriting.Teacher’s College Record.(104). 7. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on Reading and Its Implications for Instruction. Reports of the Subgroups. (2004). Bethesda, MD: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development), p.2–4. National Reading Panel Ten ideas that get kids writing. (2002). The National Writing Project.