Let Me Conclude

As I looked over my previous posts I realized I said a lot. Far too much to sum up in one simple philosophy statement, but I have definitely made discoveries and decisions towards who I want to be as a teacher.  

I want to focus on the individual; I want to create a safe and comforting classroom community; I want my students to have agency in their learning; I want to model writing for my students.  

Through this experience I have realized that I want my students to have the opportunities and encouragement to take make their learning process and their writing personalized.  I feel that the one project from my semester in ENG 4840 that has helped me realize who I want to be as a writing teacher is the Teacher Interview project.  

          "First Year Teacher Wit and Wisdom" This Book is a great resource for first year teachers!

By talking to one of my most influential high school teachers I was able to see the decisions management choices that created an environment I was able to flourish in as a writer and a student.  There are many more questions I need to pose and answer to feel prepared to be a teacher and I may never feel totally prepared, but I feel confident that I will continue to work on my philosophy of teaching writing.

I am a future teacher of writing and I want to model continual learning for me students.

Success!

In previous posts I looked at what I feel students should learn and also how I want to be viewed as a teacher.  To further understand who I am as a writing teacher and what my philosophies are I need to know what success is for me.

What do I feel makes a successful writing class?

I believe that the first step in developing a successful classroom, whether it is a writing class or anything other subject, is to create a classroom community.  If a student does not feel comfortable or safe sharing their ideas and participating in the class or if a student feels that they have no control over their own learning then there is slim to no chance that the class will be successful for the students or the teacher.  

Early this fall I interviewed one of my high school English teachers.  I was able to not only understand her views and philosophies about teaching writing, but I was also able to analyze her answers and see if they applied to my own ideas.  The teacher I interviewed was my all-time favorite English teacher.  She had inspired me not only to love writing and continue developing my skills as a writer, but she also encouraged me to begin my career path towards education.  

I adore this woman! Her Husband, Mr. Smalley, was also my Chemistry teacher!  Mrs. Smalley and her husband are pictured here after inducting new member into the Portsmouth West High School Beta Club. 

During the interview I asked her how she developed the classroom community that I had succeeded in; ““During my first year of teaching I developed a classroom community by creating a comfortable learning environment with much reinforcement and support.  I tried to meet a variety of learning styles in order to help all students feel successful. Since then, I have added more options in my classroom.  By options, I mean I provide students with an opportunity to select their assignment from an option list.  Students will feel more comfortable and successful when they may choose” (Smalley 2013).  When analyzing her interview I responded with, “The idea of giving students options allows the students to feel as if they have a say in how and what they learn.  Students are more invested in their learning if they are given the chance to make decisions about it.”  

When developing my own classroom community I plan on creating opportunities for my students to have a choice in how and what they learn.  As a learner I have always flourished when given agency in my own learning.  With agency in learning the students take more ownership of their learning and their writing and then put more effort into their work.  To help support the given agency I will also create a community where discussion is safe and not critiqued.  A student should feel that their opinions and statements will be listened to and analyzed not ignored and critiqued.  

A supportive classroom community encourages the success of all the students and the teacher and allows the student to feel safe and confident in their own learning and opinions. Without a supportive classroom community, I feel that a writing class cannot be successful.  

In relation to choice in the classroom community I also feel that allowing students to connect personally with their writing topics is necessary for success in the classroom.

In an informal response to Beth Neman’s text, “Teaching Students to Write,” I stated that, “In the hope to be as balanced as possible in my class between the affect approach and the craft approach I will have to find a way to transition between the personal topics and more academic focused prompts.  As Neman discusses using personal topics to begin teaching writing composition she argues that, “there is so much to be learned with the first assignment that it would be a mistake to complicate the issue by calling for subject matter beyond that” (Neman 53).  Personal topics give students the opportunity to focus on the expository writing skills they have just learned and the pay closer attention to the organization of their papers while enjoying their topics.  Once the students have gained a base knowledge of how to execute a thesis and then support their argument through the organization of their writing they can then begin to focus academic writing prompts and move towards a more craft centered approach in learning the mechanics of expository writing."

 http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/building-community-classroom

 

For my writing class to succeed I must create a balance between an affect centered and a craft centered approach.  I will first allow the students the freedom to choose personal topics when writing to focus on the argument and content of their paper; this aligns me with an affect centered approach.  Once students have practiced developing their ideas and addressing content, I can then move on to a more craft centered approach where the students must learn and focus on the mechanics of expository writing.  A balance between affect and craft centered approaches allows me to create a successful writing class.  

There are many other elements that must be present for a writing class to succeed, but without an established classroom community and a balance between craft and affect teaching the students will not have the opportunity to succeed.  

I hope that once I am in the classroom I continually learn of new ways to make my class as successful as possible, but I will always have a community of writers that learn from both affect and craft centered teaching. 

 Building Community in the Classroom  -  This link takes you to scholastic.com. The article gives a multitude of tips and plans on how to create a successful classroom community on the first day of class!

What Shall We Learn?

With my last post I discussed how I wanted my students to view me as a writing teacher.  After looking back at my response I realized I value the individual.  I feel this is a value that a lot of new teachers go into the classroom with, but I have seen many first year teachers become overwhelmed with the reality of teaching to the test and following standards and then sadly drop individualized teaching methods.  I know that I will be unable to fully combat the stress and new workload of my first year of teaching, but I feel that if I consistently focus on the individual not only will my students benefit, but by not leaving individualized teaching at the wayside, I will create a successful classroom community early on in my career.  

Having discussed the student’s view of me, I want to now move on to what the students will gain from the class.

What do I want my students to leave my class having learned? Developed? Practiced? Why?

This is a question that I could spend years answering.  I want my students to learn and practice everything! I want them to be expert writers! But I don’t believe that I can teach them everything there is to know about writing in just one year, so I should probably focus on a few key things that I would like them to learn.  

One of the most important lessons I have learned is the difference between speaking English and writing English.  Since I grew up in an Appalachian culture, my writing teachers always focused on teaching the differences between written and spoken language, and letting us develop both.  We were encouraged to speak in our natural dialects and develop our creative writing style and voice with our personal dialects.  Written language or academic English was then placed with academic and argumentative papers.  I want to continue this practice in my own classroom.  

Understanding the separation between spoken and written language helped me to develop my own style and voice and also allowed me to take pride in my cultures dialect.  In an informal response to the article, “English Language Learners,” I stated, “How we speak English and how we write it are two different things and we as teachers need to understand the differences and help our ELL students connect their speaking with their writing.  I think that this could be accomplished with frequent short creative writing assignments.  With creative writing the students won’t feel as pressured and stressed about having to accomplish all the aspects of academic/argumentative writing, but they will still gain practice in how English works when written.  Also, I think that having students read their writing out loud to see how it translates from written to verbal can also help them see the differences between speech and written and can also help teachers understand what areas of writing the students are struggling more in.”

Creative writing not only allows students with different dialects to utilize their cultures language, but creative writing also allows English Language Learners to practice writing in English and helps them to see the differences between written and spoken language without the pressure of an academic essay. 

I want my students to understand the differences between written and spoken English so they are able to develop both their academic style of writing and also develop a style and voice that is separate from academic writing.  Allowing students to practice developing written and spoken English also teaches them that their personal dialects or other languages are not less than Academic English, but instead used for different purposes. 

While I feel that the separation of written and spoken language is very important for students to learn I also believe that teaching students a multitude of pre-writing methods helps them to see more than one way of thinking and also prepares them for future writing endeavors.

Cubing is one strategy that students can use when pre-writing.

Earlier in this semester I completed a collaborative pedagogy project where I was required to partner with a classmate and teach my class about pre-writing.  During the presentation we taught the class multiple different ways of brainstorming and pre-writing.  I want my students to learn multiple methods of pre-writing because I don’t want my students to think that there is only way they’re supposed to think when developing a paper.  I want them to develop their own brainstorming and pre-writing skills so they are better prepared for future papers, college writing, and work force writing.    

Students do not all think the same or write the same; so obviously not all students will brainstorm or complete pre-writes the same.  By teaching students different ways to pre-write, they will be able to pick and choose which method or methods work best for them.  Pre-writing and brainstorming skills are not only needed for the college bound student, but also for the military bound student, the vocational student, and the students that go into the workforce.  Understanding how they personally brainstorm or pre-write will prepare students to think on their own in whatever career they choose. 

I know that teaching pre-writing and the differences between spoken and written language are only two ideas that I want my students to learn. But both of these ideas can be taught and practiced throughout the year or semester I spend with my students.  These are not just one day lessons, but continual lessons that students will develop and personalize during their time with me, and hopefully continue to develop once they leave my classroom.  

I found this video helpful in explaining how dialects are used in literature and how writers can use them.  I would utilize parts of this video to illustrate to students how they can use their own dialects and what using a dialect in your writing does for the story.

Who am I as a Writing Teacher?

Who do I want to be as a teacher?

I am getting closer and closer to my year of student teaching, then graduation, and finally my hopeful first year of teaching.  As I get closer to reaching my future goals a reflection is necessary.  For my Foundations of Teaching Writing course we are writing reflections on what we feel is the most effective approach to teaching writing.  Instead of the traditional academic format I have decided to take the blogger route and see if it’s less rigid format allows me to analyze my philosophy of teaching in a new way.

For each post I will ask myself a different question and hopefully begin to see patterns in my philosophy.  If no pattern emerges, then I must be destined to become the scattered brain teacher that all students dread! And I can’t have that! ;)

The first question I want to ask of myself is; how do I want my students to view me as a teacher of writing?

I want my future students to see me as someone who loves writing and wants to show them why I love writing. I want to be a model for my class; I don’t want to just stand in the front and inform them of how best to write down their ideas, but show them how I write down my own ideas and help them understand that the writing process is different for everyone.  In one of the informal responses for our class I stated that, “Helping students understand that the teacher goes through the same writing process that they go through will help them become more confident in their own writing.”  If a student sees that writing can take many different forms and that there is no set way of writing carved in stone for all to follow then they will feel able to experiment with their own writing.  Also, if a student sees their teacher as a fellow learner instead of just a teacher, they can more easily see comments as helpful suggestions and not personal critiques. 

Paul Rogers discusses the importance of modeling writing in the classroom.

I also want my students to see me as helping them learn the best way that they write and then developing their individual style of writing.  Learning my own writing style and voice helped developed my own love of writing and helped to expand my writing skills.  In my 5 day Unit Lesson Plan on Freytag’s Structure I stated that, “I began to love writing(academic and creative) when I was able to find my own writing voice, by extending this lesson I hope to show my students how voice and style can change how they write and how they feel about writing.”  Writing is not just stating an argument in a formulaic essay for other academics to read; writing is personal, creative, stylistic, and influential.  I want my students to see that whether I am writing an incident report at work or a Petrarchan sonnet, my writing is always stylistically my own. 

I want my students to see me as a teacher that values individual thought and individual style.  My focus is not on a one size fits all formula of writing, but on experimentation and development of each students own unique writing voice.  All students need to learn how to write an argumentative academic essay, but that does not mean that all of our students should sound exactly the same.  For students to enjoy writing they need to have a personal connection with the writing, and that’s what I hope to develop in my class.