Writing is an important skill to possess, writing can lead to many different paths and is useful in many different aspects of life. In addition to that there are so many different ways that writing can be taught. Speaking from my experience there were only two different ways I learned how to write and the differences between them were apparent. The first way I was taught how to write allowed a lot of freedom. You could write about anyone or anything, have any length and you didn’t need to site your sources. Just as long as the idea you were writing about made sense everything would go well. The next way I was taught has been the more present one in my life over the past several years. With this way there was a stricter set of guidelines; these …show more content…
I have always appreciated having freedom in writing. I feel that when teaching writing or anything for that matter there shouldn’t be any restrictions on your creativity. Unfortunately, I can’t provide that many stories of me being able to write this way due to the way my school taught us to write. However, there was a time in my Spanish 3 class where we were given the opportunity to create our own fairy tale. I remember my Spanish teacher giving us three rules for this project. “The paper must be at least a page long, the paper must be in Spanish, and the paper is due on Friday.” I remember being so flustered at the idea of only having three rules for a paper and asking so many more questions after class because I was so accustomed to having papers that had a full three pages of rules and requirements to go by. With the freedom I was given with this paper I was allowed to go as far as my imagination would permit and this was actually one of the few times where I was actually having fun writing a paper. Which is why I believe that writing should be taught in a more creative fashion. I feel like teaching writing this way is very effective and that there are many benefits that could go along with it. Teaching writing this way allows people to be creative and become the best person they can be. Unfortunately, it is not like that at most schools and many people don’t get a chance to be creative in their writings. They are simply tasked with following a set of rules and to write academically. With many losing their own voice in the
We would do research on a subject or a person, and write about them. We, once again, were not allowed to be unique in our writing or think creatively or critically. This is the time when I was taught the five paragraph essay. As stated in Gray’s article, the five paragraph essay is detrimental to students’ writing. This format for writing is damaging because it doesn’t allow students to express their own ideas about a topic. It does not allow for any creativity or uniqueness in a paper. In tenth grade, I wrote many papers for my English class, but I never once got an A on them. I was led to believe that my writing was weak because I could not relate to what I was writing about. I did not have any emotional connection to the research papers I had to write, and it made it harder for me to write them. I had grown up not being allowed to think critically, and therefore, my papers in high school lacked creativity and deeper
Over the course of this class I feel like I have become a much better writer. When I go back and look at some of my Journal entries and assignments that I did at the beginning of the semester, I can’t help but tense up at some of the things I wrote. Sometimes the things I was writing didn’t flow well, or I might have even have missed glaring grammar mistakes.
Over the past year I have grown as both a person and a writer. My writing has improved
As a second language learner I have never expected myself to be a perfect writer throughout the semester. Even If English was my first language still, I would not be a perfect writer. It is not about first or second language, it is about how well I understand the learning objectives. Then organizing and writing with my own ideas and putting them in my paper. I am going to be honest, I am not good at English subject and English subject is my strongest weakness than the other subjects. In this paper I will discuss and analyze my own writing, reflecting on the ways that my writing has improved throughout the semester.
The writing process is always taught as a set way of doing things when, in fact, it is a process that requires personal methods that work for each individual person. It is a necessary lesson to teach in school but there should not be so much emphasis on following the exact way that is taught. It is a contrived process that was probably created by a group of scholars who didn’t even follow these exact rules. If anything, they all did variations of the ideas and then met in the middle with what should be taught. I am in no way saying that the guidelines are wrong but they need to be exactly that, guidelines, instead of a rut that students get stuck in.
Writing is a very intricate skill that requires ample practice and exposure. For some, writing comes naturally with little to no dilemmas, however; for others writing is a rigorous task that imposes constant hindrances. Based on research findings, those who experience obstacles with writing tend to be overly focused on certain writing rules. In the article, Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writers Block, Mike Rose conducts a study on several college students. He discovers that the students who base their writing off of a strict set of rules, tend to experience writers block, another set of students who incline to write freely, with little to no concern for rules face minimal difficulty when writing. Anne Lamott discusses her view on
Writing is an important skill that allows participation in society, and ability to express oneself meaningfully. In saying this, there are various ways to teach writing, and they all have their place. It is important to teach children to learn how to write as it covers all areas of the curriculum, and enables them to express themselves and be assessed in various ways. Learning how to write involves expressing ideas through various textual means, attention to editing, and attention to text structure (Seely Flint, Kitson, Lowe, & Shaw, 2014). Effective teachers will make decisions on how they teach writing based on students needs. The effective teaching and learning of writing through the linking of theories such as behaviorism, constructivism, and sociolinguistics to classroom practice will be discussed, along with a balanced approach, and the importance of writing itself.
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader- not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon” (E.L. Doctorow. N.d). Not all children learn the same so in order to be effective with your writing instruction one must determine what they want the students to learn and be able to do as a results of the lesson. Once you can answer those questions you can determine what instruction you want to use, the realistic goals you want to set as well as how you plan to achieve those goals and how you are going to assess the work being done. The overall goal of a teacher is to help the students gain knowledge and reach their full potential in order to achieve that goal one must be willing to try different methods so
Steve, P. (1995-2003). Writing Process - Teaching That Makes Sense! Retrieved November 27, 2013 from www.ttms.org
The ability to write well is not a naturally acquired skill; it is usually learned or culturally transmitted as a set of practices in formal instructional settings or other environments. Writing skills must be practiced and learned through experience. Writing also involves composing, which implies the ability either to tell or retell pieces of information in the form of narratives or description, or to transform information into new texts, as in expository or argumentative writing. Perhaps it is best viewed as a continuum of activities that range from the more mechanical or formal aspects of “writing down” on the one end, to the more complex act of composing on the other end (Omaggio Hadley, 1993). It is undoubtedly the act of
When one looks at their life, at any stage in which they live, it is pivotal to see clearly how they are finding meaning, purpose and direction within their daily decisions. As I’ve learned to value the role of community and covenant relationships in my life, it has been a challenge to continually commit myself to overcoming my flesh and correctly align myself with God’s intentions for my life. As part of this transformative process in centering my worldview on Christ’s love, I’ve concluded that all of life’s ultimate questions are found to have been correctly answered in the Bible; repeatedly in Scripture, and specifically in one verse, I have found that it sources everything in life to the glory of God. Romans 11:36 centers our attention on Christ, from whom we derive all answers to origins, meaning, morality, destiny and identity for our lives: “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (ESV).” Not only does the most credible book ever written support this thesis, but in “Making Sense of your World,” it is strongly communicated that “God alone is the ultimate reality and everything else is derived from him (Phillips, Brown, Stonestreet, 2008, p. 44).”
Learning to write is like learning to read (Spivey, 2006). Both follow a sequential process. Writing combines more basic skills than any other subject. It is important that we define what is meant when we say writing. “Writing is the activity of expressing ideas, opinions, and views in print: writing for communication or composing.” (Binghan, Gerde, Wasik, 2012). Educators have to take into account the developmental stages and build on a child’s learning experiences. Educators have found that by focusing on the steps of the process of writing, almost everyone learns to write successfully. Many early childhood teachers struggle to find the best approach to teach writing in their classrooms. In order to have successful writing in your classroom, teachers need to model writing for their students (Behymer, 2003).
The clock reads 5:15 p.m. as I walk out the Ruston residence hall doors. I head towards the David L. Rice library, which is about a ten-minute walk from my dorm. As the sliding doors open, the strong aroma of coffee fills the air. I walk past the line at Starbucks and descend down the first flight of stairs. I turn left down the second hallway and enter room 0021. The pale, cream walls and clean whiteboard make the room appear brighter than it really is. Lovely, smiling faces welcome me as I sit down at the desk closest to the door. The clock now reads 5:30 p.m. It’s time to rebuild my faith and connect on a personal level with my fellow small group members.
Employing creativity in writing instruction is critical because of the increased emphasis on the development of ideas in standardized testing. Although I was introduced to creative writing in the initial sequence of writing instruction as a student, I was still taught the customary written form of a five paragraph essay; introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion referring back to the introduction. My sixth grade teacher changed my concept and believed purpose for writing, she allowed me to enjoy the methods and processes of writing and the implementation of creativity synonymously. Writing is a form of expression and a representation of self. Students should feel comfortable in a writing environment simply because they are given the opportunity to express themselves without judgment or disappointment. As an instructor of writing, creativity and imagination fuel the writing process. The student not only should have the basic knowledge of how to write, but they should also enjoy and embrace writing for its creative possibilities, thus creating a lively writer/reader
Growing up in a society that strictly enforces writing is very hard to bypass. Starting in elementary school and then middle and high school, writing never exits our daily schedules. Learning to establish a skill in writing became comparable to learning to ride a horse. In the fifth grade, a teacher once said,” Writing fosters our ability to explain and refine our ideas to others and ourselves.” This statement truly made a difference of the way writing was viewed. Writing helped gain knowledge of words that were unknown to my diction. Writing became significant in my life from the start of elementary school. From the day my teacher stated that “writing fosters our ability to explain and refine our ideas to others and ourselves”, it opened my mind and in various ways led me to understand text and the purpose of a text.