High School/Final Reflection

At the end of this placement, I came away feeling very satisfied that I had seen a nice balance of how teachers deal every day with last-minute changes and still set the bar high for their students.  The seniors, who should be wrapping up their senior projects, are struggling to keep their head in the building.  Like previous viewings, I'm convinced that those who picked a topic they are involved in somehow, ended up with the most compelling narratives.  It's at this point where you see that, unfortunately, sometimes you drag kids through certain school experiences, kicking and screaming.  I still say there is inherent value in this type of project.  It really does force them to look at the world as bigger than the school building.  Even if they don't want to participate in this field of work in the future, they must look closely at someone who does.  Again, the role of the audience plays a big part; give feedback and suggestions, don't simply sleep through spring of your senior year!
I witnessed a cool thing last week; a teacher showing each individual student their average for the quarter that just ended. The grades are in, nothing can change; and yet why not build this bridge between teacher and student?  Not one of the students had a negative reaction that I could see.  Certainly, there should be no surprises at this point.  I also heard a magic number thrown out to my comrade and I; a morsel of information which would, I suspect, have seemed elusive otherwise.  Shoot to post two grades weekly in a grade book per student.  Hmmm. . .no time to ask why?  I'll store it, for future use.
Our instruction went well, overall.  Some engaging was forthcoming; I've seen them do it before, and it happened for us too!  It was great to finish the text with them;  our period seven sleepy-eyed wonders!  I'm still confident that the classroom is the right place for my personality.  Onward to my goal for the next fifteen days: comprehension of the semester, depth over breadth!  Successful completion of my teacher candidate work sample!!

Memo #5

I have completed surveys from 3 teachers and 5 students (one student survey was done jointly by 2 seventh graders).  I have found ample secondary source information to study my question and form further thoughts.
I now know that teachers who ask students to read their writing aloud insist on the audience playing a vital role.  Their job is to keep written notes while they listen; specifically noting compliments and suggestions equally.  Teachers I've seen give students many practice opportunities to engage in constructive peer editing of classmates' written work on a regular basis.  They do this through small group sessions after which results are shared with the class.  Teachers favor peer editing when they pair students because they will not pair up friends or reluctant writers and it most effective then.
What really surprised me was how my definition of a confident writer suddenly came to mean independent writer.  I had a huge "AHA" moment when I realized this.  I understand independent writers to be those who know how to coordinate the required cognitive strategies with self-regulating strategies.  Many students can do the right cognitive work to write; not as many have figured out self-regulating.
I am frustrated to find that my older daughter is turned off to writing!  I have heard this from her before but now it is certain from her answer to question 2.  Her teacher wrote so many negative comments on an essay about honey bees that she "just rewrote the whole paper".  Her tone is one of disgust; like no learning happened in this process.
The idea that I have that is still lingering is about using multiple low-stakes writing assignments to build confidence in student writing.  I want to know more about this process.  One question I have that is still lingering is: do students prefer peer editing even when the teacher picks the peer they will work with?
Several conclusions can be made at this point.  One conclusion to make is that the act of using ones' mind to create fiction or using ones' life experiences to create non-fiction to be heard/viewed by others is a personal journey and simpley makes students of all ages uncomfortable, regardless of their audience.  Having said this, it seems that students' preference for editors of their work is their peers over a teacher.  A good bit of feedback I received fromm 455 classmates on the blog points to fear of being judged as a major reason for not reading written work aloud.
There are several complexities that I will need to live with for now.  I wonder if the preference students show for peer editing versus teacher editing is two-fold.  One reason might be that they get opportunities for practicing peer editing with small group sessions when then share their results class-wide and another  might simply be that the traditional misconception of teacher as conveyor of all wisdom still lingers in spite of numerous newer practices which are designed to foster student-driven classrooms.  There will always be students like me who were turned off to the writing process early on.  Teachers who have many tools in their writing curriculum toolbox can turn these students around, to a degree.  Some reluctant writers will not be moved.  Here is where it is crucial to know your students!

Memo #4

I'm not surprised by my findings after speaking with students and teachers.  First, let me backtrack to earlier in the semester to take you on a path which will lead to now.  As I sat in class at RIC and observed, I started to grasp how I got off track as a young writer.  I don't think I was willing to do the nitty gritty work of drafting, rewriting, peer editing, and teacher editing which might have built the foundation for me to be a lifelong writer.  Oh, I have written several things over the years I've been proud of-a diary from my honeymoon, my trip to Vietnam to adopt my daughter, and more.  But I was not consistent and so I slipped into thinking and acting like a non-writer.  As I sat in my classes this semester and became willing (the teachers were there!) I started to feel like a decent writer.  This surprised me!  Then I had an observation in the high school in which a group of 18 students gave out a collective "ugh" when told they would be sharing their writing that day.  They had plenty of warning and a safe environment, with a teacher who had been building expectations such as thisall year.  And still they felt that collective crappy feeling. 
So writing is, as we all know, deeply personal.  My first teacher to respond to my survey  felt very strongly that she should never make reading your writing aloud part of an assignment.  I think it's safe to say these are extremely reluctant readers and writers and their teacher only asks for volunteers and may get one or two, but usually not.  My North Prvidence teacher, when giving students options to read or not,  gets students who allow other students and even the teacher to read their writing before they will read it.  That is interesting to me, surprising even.  Is it because they actually like what they wrote but don't like reading?  Or, because they don't like their writing but know it must be read to get a certain grade?  I may find out before my placement is done.  Now, I see a certain student in North Providence who actually offers to read aloud their writing and they usually ham it up.  This is rare, and I really like if we fast forward to ten years from now, we'll see this student on the stage! 
When it comes to peer editing and teacher editing, my students who took the survey felt that peer editing was helpful.  The teachers also saw it as helpful, but saw the need to restrict the corrections to content because the student editor is frequently someone who is also often struggling with proper usage and sentence structure, just like the student.  My students saw less help with teacher editing, and felt they would end up rewriting the whole paper, which frustrated them.
What it all means to me is that writing in personal-it is now, it was when I went to school, and it will be when my children's children go to school. 
The setting where the Rhode Island Writing Project has a presence was clearly the place where more writing takes place and more reading it aloud, along with editing.  From what I can see, the RIWP gives teachers needed support to push students past the personal point, where they can see that doing the extra work produces more wiritng and more writing increases the chance of better writing!
In moving forward, I wish to look at the practices of the RIWP, and the larger NWP, to the specific practices.  The teacher in the RIWP asked for help in particular areas, and this is the sign of a professional who feels supported.  This is where I wish to hang my hat!

Memo #3 Planning to use primary and secondary sources

My primary sources are students in grades 7-12 and their teachers.  My questions for students will look like these:
1. Tell me about a time you enjoyed sharing your writing.
2. Tell me about a time a teacher edited your writing.
3. Tell me about a time a classmate edited your writing.
4. Tell me about a time you read your writing out loud.
My questions to teachers will look like these:
1. What are students' initial responses when you tell them they will be reading their written assignments out loud? giving your writing to a classmate to edit? giving your writing to a teacher to edit?
My relationship to them is that of a visitor to their class.  The teacher told them I'm studying to be a teacher.  I have spent anywhere from 15-30 hours in their classes.   I was just told today that there is difficulty surveying students, that I could only interview 1 or 2, and that is only after getting parental permission.  I need to do some research to find a form that is appropriate and get it moving through the necessary channels right away.  I will make appointments with teachers to gain access to them at a time where they can focus for 10 minutes-hah!  For secondary sources I will using the following:
A Guide to Teaching Self/Peer Editing, author Linda Christensen
A report entitled "Assessing the National Writing Project", located in a research publication
A dissertation entitled "Improving Student Revising and Editing Skills through the use of Peer Editing and Writing Conferencing"
A dissertation entitled "Increasing Motivation to Write by Enhancing Self Perception, Utilizing Collaboration, Modeling and Relevance"
I plan to use these secondary sources because they speak about student writing and the methods professionals use to motivate students to write with confidence, knowing they will have an audience.  I will access these sources online and at the RIC library.  I like that these sources cite specific reasons for lack of motivation in students to write.  I will use this information to show how connections are made between strategies and what happens when they are put into place in the classroom.

The Arrival Assignment

So, because I love that Shaun Tan created a graphic novel which leaves much room for interpretation, I'm working on a design which I hope will inspire students to do the same through the use of music, comic strip drawings and writing.  First, I would "read" it as a class using the Underground Orchestra's composition as a backdrop.  I would use the laptop while the students looked at the book.  I like how the author and the composer worked together on this effort, showing pages from the book during the composition.  Students would be viewing this while we looked at the book for the first time.  Then I would have them break into groups and read the book.  They would be given some writing to do during this, with a 3-2-1 activity expected after meeting for 30 minutes together.  This activity asks them to write 3 things they learned from the reading/discussion, 2 things that they surprised them and one question they might have or one prediction they might make about the book. They could turn in a group writing from this activity, rather than individual.  After class discussion, students would have a choice of the next step in the assignment.  They could write a comic book about an immigrants' experience or assume the identity of a child from a photo of immigrants (provided) and write a letter to relatives/friends back home.

Learning German

I was a freshman in high school when I chose to take German.  I was fourteen 

when I began and seventeen when I finished.  I took German for all four years in 

high school. 

   I chose German because I had two neighbors who were German.  One was a 

family with a girl my age and we were good friends.  They had just moved from 

Germany to the U.S., so I heard German in their home all the time.  The other 

were second generation immigrants, and I heard the language in their home a 

good bit, but English was their first language.  The children did not speak much 

German, but understood some phrases.  I was close with both these families, so 

this led me to take this language.  My mother grew up with a grandparent whose 

first language was German, so she knew some and encouraged this.  My father 

did not discourage it, or say that it was difficult to learn.  I have heard since that 

Spanish is easier.  Perhaps this is a myth.  At that time, immigrants who spoke 

Spanish were not to be found in so many cities and towns as they are now.  I 

think if either of my children wanted to take a language other than Spanish, I 

would point out how helpful knowing the language would be.  

   My memory of going through the process of learning this language was 

painful.  I had Mr. McFeeley, whom I liked for his sense of humor, particularly for 

his ability to poke fun at us in a way that was harmless.  I do not remember 

feeling that he had high expectations of us, and I, unfortunately, lived down to 

these expectations.  I was not a student back then, in the sense that I am now.  

Now I look for that trait in my teachers, and I’m usually not disappointed.  I had 

great difficulty communicating in the language, and I came away knowing a few 

phrases, which I have since lost.  I received a grade of C for this class each 

semester.  However, I will say that I still enjoy listening to this language.  So, 

apparently, my love of this language survived this classroom experience.

Memo#2

The information I found while searching databases revealed several studies in which a lack of motivation to write,  low writing scores,  below grade level work in writing, and a need for improving student revising and editing skills were the catalysts for interventions.  These factors were documented from surveys that went out to students, teachers, and parents and from observations.  This information I'm citing here today is from four studies I chose to reflect on out of a larger field of 20 or so I am studying.  From their research, these experts in the field of education determined that thoughtful use of evidence-based instruction with properly trained teachers in new curriculum using methods such as:
1.Teacher modeling
2. Peer editing
3. Student Teacher conferencing
4. Student choice of tasks
5. Relevance in writing tasks to life
6. Peer collaboration
showed an increase in motivation and scores.  In reflecting upon these views/ studies I find I'm feeling validated in my pursuit of the question I posed, that is: which instructional methods produce confident writers who write regularly and write for an audience of their peers?  The reason I feel validated is that many of the methods used in these studies are methods my professors cite as effective in producing a safe environment for students to write, knowing how personal writing feels to each and every student and individual.  This information related to my search in that I believe certain instructional methods for writing produce confident writers who have less discomfort when given choices in their writing tasks, especially those assignments which will be read by others.  It also states what I understand to be true, that is-training teachers in these methods is critical to their success.  (Additional cool information: the study which assessed the National Writing Project is the only one which referred to trained teachers!!)   So now, what I'm pondering is, what if students tell us first which methods used by their teachers give them increased skills and confidence in their writing skills?  Two of the four studies did use surveys at the beginning and end of the time period, with student input equal to parent and teacher input.  What will I find as I delve deeper into the research?  Will I find that only 50% of the time we ask students which methods they prefer?