This article was about the importance to learning to write, and writing to learn. It discusses the importance of writing in a cross-curricular setting, bringing up the point that writing can help with many different subjects and tasks including activating prior knowledge, problem solving, and reading comprehension.
They then to go on to give you strategies of incorporating these tasks into your daily routine. This is super helpful because this article gives you ideas, not just talk about research. One strategy they suggested was the K-W-L chart and journals. These charts can be used in all subjects and many contexts. These strategies help to incorporate many subjects in many contexts and help develop writing techniques in many ways.
I think that in the 5th grade it is important to use this approach. Like we were talking about in class last week, by upper elementary we don’t use a literacy block because literacy is incorporated in every subject throughout the day. I think it is important to use writing strategies to continue fostering development in their writing and comprehension. In the older grades you are reading to learn, not learning to read. However, I do think having something that can fit across many subjects is a beneficial thing. I don’t know of how well it would fit into my current literacy curriculum. I haven’t seen enough reader’s or writer’s workshop to make a decision on if it would mesh well or not.
I think in order to be successful in teaching this we would have to look at the big picture of our teaching and create common goals and plans across the subjects. And then see how you can incorporate comprehension, discussion and writing into your subjects. I think to be successful you also have to mesh your teaching so that it is seamless between subjects. I also think that students would get into a routine of using these strategies and become better at using them if you used them throughout the day in every subject.
All of the writer’s workshop components we have learned about today has influence the way I approach my unit. Looking at writing samples to see where students are, using forms of assessments is so important when looking at the big picture and where you want to take your students during your unit. I am thankful to have been exposed to the knowledge and it has given me ideas on how to be a more concise, and meaningful teacher.
Shannon-
ReplyDeleteI just love how we all picked different topics to talk about. I am learning so much from Dean and yourself.
I think that your post is a great summary of what we have been communicating about over the last couple of weeks. In the fifth grade, students are now ready to learn while reading. However, I enjoy that you mentioned the 'big picture' while teaching. My mentor teacher and myself have talked about this. We need to set goals of what we want to students to get out of the mini-lesson, and that is what the students will be graded on. The students do no want to be handed back a sheet of paper that has an ink explosion. It should be focused on the technique the teacher taught.
In my classroom, the students have reading journals. Here they tape in any 'reference sheets' (handouts) that we give the students. Here is where they take any notes or write down important information as well. Once a week the students are asked to write the teachers a letter about their book. This is just another way we do informal assessments about comprehension and if the students are comprehending their book. It is also a quick check to see if the are actually reading doing workshop time.
Thanks for the great post.
Megan