Thinking about a topic to write about is not always easy, and sometimes the process of writing can end up being difficult. Jennifer Jacobson discusses strategies to overcome the struggles that young writers can encounter while writing. I was interested in her book No More “I’m Done!” Fostering Independent Writers in the Primary Grades because I feel like as a future teacher this could be a frequent problem among students. From reading this book, I hoped that I would learn useful strategies that I could use to help students overcome their problems with writing. After reading this book, I do believe that Jacobson has provided me with plenty of methods to use. I was surprised at the depth that she goes into in her text. There is a vast amount …show more content…
It is well thought out from the beginning to the end. Jennifer started teaching in 1986. Since then, she has written magazine articles, textbook lessons, teacher resource books, reading programs, and picture books. Jacobson is also a literacy coach and an author-in-residence. From reading the introduction, I learned that she has accomplished a lot in the writing field. I think it is helpful to read that she started out as an ordinary teacher. I connected with her experience in the classroom when she was enthusiastic to teach her students about writing while at the same time being enthusiastic to learn from her students about writing. I am excited to teach my future students too. However, with my experience as a daycare worker, I have learned that children can also teach me a thing or two (Jacobson, 2010, p. 1-3). Reading No more “I’m done!” was not a difficult task. If anything, this book was a joy to read. A part that I felt was a pleasure to read would be chapter 5, A Year of mini-lessons for growing writers. Especially the pages that included mini-lessons about poetry and riddles. I feel like poetry can sometimes be thought of as a horrible thing, and I liked that there was more than one poetry lesson in the book. I think riddles are a fun activity and can be a good way to get student’s minds thinking about writing. This chapter has plenty of useful mini-lessons (Jacobson, …show more content…
I can most likely see myself using the alphabet chart, the writing center, and some of the mini-lessons. Some of the specific mini-lessons that I liked are Idea Map, Where I’m From, and Riddles. Also, I enjoy the idea of playing music while the students are writing. At this moment I do not have any unanswered questions. Jennifer does a thorough job of leading the reader through strategies that will work in any classroom. Also, chapter 6, The Secret to independence: A Desire to write, provides the reader with a troubleshooting section. In this chapter she answers questions that were not thoroughly discussed in the main sections of the book. I think this chapter is helpful because it helped answer any questions that I had lingering in my mind. (Jacobson, 2010, p. 64, 122, 132).
I am glad that I chose to read this book for my group presentation. Overall, I think this book will be helpful to use in my future classroom. I liked that none of the chapters felt over-whelming, and I think I could implement almost any of the activities into my lesson plans. In my opinion, Jennifer Jacobson wrote a helpful book that any teacher and student would benefit from using or
Experts believe that writing workshops are an excellent way to get elementary school children interested in writing and setting the stage for a lifelong joy of writing. Lucy Calkins developed Writer’s Workshop which was based on many positions taken by her mentor Donald Graves (Feinberg 2). She identified six major components of the Writer’s Workshop, which make it so successful. The six components are: predictable structure, free choice, useful mini-lessons, daily independent writing time, conferencing with teachers and peers and modeling good writing.
How can you nurture and support the confidence of all students and help them forge unique writing identities? Through writing, people can understand themselves and other people better. We are all constantly reviewing and assigning meaning to our life experiences and putting those experiences into words—whether through self-talk or telling stories to other people. This ‘language’ is a way ‘we’ understand, organize, and relate to, making the chaos of our communities and lives coherent. In a writing environment that is loose and for the most part free we can slow down this articulation process in order to become increasingly and critically conscious of the meanings we assign to our experiences and communities in which we belong. It makes people think more about what they want to say and how they are saying it.
Authors Mayher, Lester and Pradl (1983) in their book titled, Learning to Write, Writing to Learn describe writing as a two goal endeavor. First, the only way one can learn to write is by writing. Second, “writing can be a means for learning.” The authors’ views of both goals of writing are not traditional views. Writing serves as an “engaging transaction through which the learner makes her own connections and builds her own meaning.” The addition of the writing standards for science from the Common Core standards mirrors the goals of Mayhner, Lester and Pradl (1983). Writing within the science curriculum allows students to make meaning and learning their own.
The very first chapter we read of Mindful Writing changed my perspective to see that anyone and everyone can be a writer. Brian Jackson, the author of Mindful Writing, wrote, “In this book I want to convince you that anyone writing anything for any reason is a writer…Writing is not something we do just in school. It is a vital means of influence in all facets of life.” It was through that very first reading that I began to think about writing as more than just a dreaded part of school, and I began to think of myself as more than just a student forced to write. Our very first assignment, My Writing Story, helped me to reflect on my identity as a writer. I realized that I was a writer every time I wrote in my journal or captioned an Instagram post. Throughout the semester, as I came to love writing more with each paper I wrote, I was able to create my identity as a writer. I learned that I loved research and analyzing others’ thoughts and ideas, but that writing simply on my own opinions, wasn’t my favorite past time. Through the countless readings this semester, I saw which writing styles I loved and which didn’t speak to me. Each day of class, I chipped away at creating my identity as a writer, and I’m grateful for the lessons that helped me shape and realize that
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum, Brief Edition (2nd Edition) (2 ed., pp. 413-429). New York: Longman.
Although it has only been 2 weeks that I have been attending in this writing course, I have already expanded my knowledge greatly and gained plenty of courage in a very little time period. I am not an avid reader, nor do I ever bother to take my own time to go out and pick up or buy a book, but throughout the weeks, I have been assigned to read a new article every week, and each article has made me realize the power and potential reading has to a single person. How it can change someone’s life drastically. I mostly enjoyed reading “The Importance of the Act of Reading” by Paulo Freire, “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, and “All Writing is Autobiography” by Donald M. Murray.
My name is Isabella DeCarlo and I am in your 8th period English class. English has always been the class I am most excited for because I have always hoped that someday I would learn to enjoy writing so that I would be able to write like Raquel Jaramillo, who wrote “Wonder”. The idea of writing is brilliant, authors are able to create fantastic world’s and distinct characters. However, The idea of writing and actually writing are very different. I shut down so many ideas that none can ever reach my paper because I always feel that my ideas arent good enough. In the past I sat in front of à computer screen or blank piece of paper waiting for many minutes for an idea that was less laughable than the last.
Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Tenth edition. Edited by Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. New York: Longman Publishers, pp. 371-377, 2008.
My development as a writer has flourished throughout this semester. The first week of this fall semester started out with writing responses from our readings in the textbook. Looking back through and analyzing my reading responses at the semester to now; I noticed a substantial improvement in not only my grammar skills, but also my summarizing, and in-depth studying of writing adeptness. Another way I have progressed this semester is the vocabulary of my writing has significantly improved and become more scholarly. Another advancement I noticed was that the content of my work has matured, along with my organizational adeptness.
As a teacher of writing, I realize from my experience already that I need to take a step back and allow my students some room to breathe, some room to think, possibly a model writing and an opportunity to pick up their pencils without any fears or confusion and simply write. They need to believe in their own feelings, their experiences and their own knowledge of the world around them and learn to tap into them. Without this exploration, students will remain stuck sitting with that same blank piece of paper in front of them. As a future teacher of writing, I will explore my writing by working alongside my students. I am simply amazed by what I have learned from this process already.
While the difficulties in teaching students not only to be good writers, but also to enjoy writing are easy to complain about, they are not immediately changeable. Consequently, as a teacher of young writers, one must find a way to make the system work. Ross Borden found a way with me, and I feel I have found a way with many of my students, but not all of them. So I continue to read, and I continue to write, and I continue to teach, though I also continue to struggle with the many problems surrounding the field.
Being back in grad school has been an amazing experience because it has put me back in touch with my own process of writing; I am conscious of how I write in comparison to the way in which I expect my students to write. I find myself using the information that I share with them, although at times I feel the pressure that I must earn all A’s on my papers because if I haven’t mastered the process of writing, then I must be a bit of a fraud to be teaching it. But then I have to remember what I have learned about my own process, and what I continue to learn about my own writing process. I keep in mind the epiphany I experienced in graduate school, and I seek to share this information, for current or later use, with my students in the classroom.
Surprisingly I don’t have many memories of my experiences with literacy. Early on I just remember picking up any book and reading, writing without stopping, and all those parent teacher conferences with my English teachers that became a blur. Throughout my years of school, I’ve come to realize that writing has become a bigger part of me than I had previously thought. I didn’t go into elementary or middle school thinking I was skilled at writing so my confidence came from teachers who admired what I wrote. Their compliments and encouragement lead me to have a better view of my capabilities. My improvement seems to be invisible until I finally notice the progress when I get to my last paper at the end of the semester or year. This semester and especially this class have tested me the most so far. Learning more about literacy has made me recognize who I am and what I can do so, I will move ahead through the ever continuing process.
In our focus groups, teens said they are motivated to write when they can select topics that are relevant to their lives and interests, and report greater enjoyment of school writing when they have the opportunity to write creatively. Having teachers or other adults who challenge them, present them with interesting curricula and give them detailed feedback also serves as a motivator for teens. Teens also report writing for an audience motivates them to write and write well. (Lenhart et. al.
Jones, Jill, and Jill East. "Empowering primary writers through daily journal writing." Journal of Research in Childhood Education 24.2 (2010): 112+. General OneFile. Web. 22 Feb. 2011.