I feel so much better this week. I did love the discussion in class last week and it helped me relax about the reading and about my classroom. Not only did the discussion give me some relief, but then to read this weeks reading was just another pick-me-up. Now I have a much better outlook. Graham and Harris gave me strategies of what teachers should be doing and then took it a step further and gave examples of how to do it. THANK YOU! They went back to what we have been talking about in class-modeling is the most important thing you can do as a teacher to help your children learn how to write. I believe that the planning is important and in my second grade we do all of our planning together. My students have a choice on what they put down but I give them my ideas about a topic and then I give them time to form and write their own ideas on their paper. I think that this way the students that just need light support for an example can twist and make the ideas their own and they usually do a great job. I also have several students in my class that are not ready to do their own plan and they can utilize my plan to start them off. Even at the end of second grade I do not think my students are independent enough to plan their own stories regularly. I am comfortable with this idea, thinking that my job is to prepare them for third grade and hopefully they will develop the skills in second grade to become independent in third grade. There are a lot of steps in planning a story and a seven year old still needs direction and guidance. Graham and Harris gave great suggestions on how to make topics authentic to students and still help them plan out strategies and information they are going to include in their writing. I love the example of going through the entire process and then asking the children how they thought it could be better. Not only was it a great idea for the teacher to ask but also the students came up with logical and important steps that were missing. I think that the facts should be numbered so the writer knows what they are writing about and when. There are several ideas that I am going to try in my classroom. I love getting information that I find useful.
Oh Joy! I am thrilled to know that you feel relief! It’s simply refreshing to have confirmation on “your own best practices.” I am interested in specifically how you teach your students to plan their stories. What kind of story map do you use?
For every negative there is a positive, and visa-versa!! I agree with you about the article. Everyone of us takes something from our reading and we apply it to our teaching and our grade level. Working with second-graders vs. fifth-graders, or any other grade level, is going to be a completely different approach when it comes to the planning process. I’m glad that you are feeling better about it all… We’ll keep you inflated!!
K.