Week 11 Challenges

    Task 1 Revise a past piece:  Hello, it’s me letter from week 7

Original: Hello Ms. Michaels, it’s me.

I am writing this letter to you, because you were influential in my life. You were hands down the best teacher that I had in high school. I was very lucky to be able to experience a teaching class in high school and to have you as a teacher. You encouraged me and believed in me as a future teacher even before I began my journey in college. I will never forget the day that I received my college acceptance letters you hung them up in your classroom wall. You are the kind of teacher that I hope to be, a teacher that invests in their students.

Edited Version: 

Hello Ms. Michaels, it's me.

Do you remember me? Maybe not, and that's okay. I am a past student of yours that is following in the same footsteps as you. I am writing this letter to you because you were influential in my life, and you deserve to know why. You were able to create a classroom that I was truly excited to come to almost everyday. I say almost, because I was a moody teenager and sometimes I was so not feeling school. You created a classroom that was structured yet open to change, and you demonstrated adaptability on many occasions. You challenged us all the while making the classroom a low risk place to be challenged. You encouraged me and believed in me as a future teacher well before I began my journey in college. You invested in your students, and demonstrated this by hanging up college acceptance letters on your classroom wall. As the years fly by just as you said they would I am reminded of the qualities that you had, and I hope to carry them into my own teaching. 

Sincerely,

MeKay

Task Two: 

write about the influence that Kittle, Anderson, Gallagher, Crovitz, Rief, Bomer, Kirby or Murray (or all) are having on your thinking about the teaching of writing.  What are your biggest takeaways - and whose work do you think you'll return to? 

          From this week's readings I have taken away a better understanding of how to teach the mechanics of writing in a practical and effective way. Up to this point the idea of teaching grammar was a bit overwhelming to say the least, and while the readings have not completely taken that feeling away it has alleviated some fear of the unknown. I struggle with grammar quite a lot in my own writing, but as a future teacher this is an aspect that I will have to utilize in the classroom. Anderson,Crovitz, and Devereaux highlight the fact that grammar and the mechanics of writing cannot be taught as a stand alone lesson, as it has been proven to be ineffective. These authors also appealed to me in a way that Kittle did not, because they are more relevant to the classroom settings that we will most likely experience in a public school. 

           One way that Anderson was different from Kittle was that he explicitly calls out the fact that as teachers we have 150 students and only 50 minutes to teach them as much as possible. The way that he copes with this is by teaching "pseudo concepts as a way of developing a concept" (Anderson, 2005, p. 4). He intertwines grammar as a way of highlighting the craft of a mentor text. This stood out to me, because it elevated the importance of mentor texts in a way that I had not thought of before. Anderson states, "I know kids need to hear the flow of language, its patterns its cadence its surprises its syntax, and students who have limited experience with English need this even more" (Anderson, 2005, p. 2). Simply by reading and analyzing mentor texts students can understand the power of punctuation, and that their can be purpose in either following or breaking grammar rules. I also really appreciated the examples that he included in these chapters in the ways that he uses mentor texts in the classroom to teach grammar. 

           Another take away that came from the readings of this week is that thematic teaching can be helpful in planning ways to intertwine grammar within a curriculum. Crovitz and Devereaux emphasize that thematic teaching is a way of making grammar and mechanics relevant to the students. He includes ways of doing this all the while acknowledging that teachers stray away from this idea of teaching, because sometimes it means your students will react in a way that you do not plan for them to. I think that this method of teaching could be useful in my own classroom simply because it allows flexibility while still covering a wide range of content. He outlines lessons that he uses, and I found them to be very helpful in understanding the grammar that can be associated with themes. For example, he outlined a unit on authority and addressed that passive and active voices can be taught throughout that unit (Crovitz,Devereaux,2017, P. 30). This is a very practical way of teaching that I could see myself utilizing in the classroom while still being able to adapt to the students needs. 

            Even though the standards and content required of me as a teacher of writing is intimidating the readings from this week have encouraged me to think about the ways that teaching can be fluid. Prior to this class I really did think that grammar was going to be taught as an isolated lesson, because honestly that is how my teachers have taught me in the past. That is most likely the reason that I have had a mental block with it throughout my own experience. The overall tone of these chapter along with the examples of how to put these methods into place in the classroom has given me a sense of clarity, and I definitely would return to both of these articles in the future. 

References

Anderson, J. (2005). Mechanically Inclined: Building grammar, usage, and style into writers workshop. Portland,    ME: Stenhouse.

Crovitz, D., & Devereaux, M. D. (2017). Grammar to get things done: A practical guide for teachers anchored in real-world usage. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.