Blog #1 (21st -22nd September, 2017)

For the last two weeks, we learnt about the Writer’s Workshop as a form of scaffolding to support students’ writing. We explored the four different phases of the workshop and we discovered that it is a great way of implementing the stages of the writing process. As it relates to last week’s session (Thursday 21st September, 2017), we were given the opportunity to apply our theoretical knowledge of the Writer’s workshop and the writing process in a practical setting.

There were many interesting presentations that were done by our classmates in an effort to demonstrate their understanding of the different phases of the Writer’s workshop and the writing process. We liked the presentations because they reinforced a lot of information for us such as the importance of modelling and the use of engaging activities and teaching aids to help students in the writing process. We were fond of one group’s utilization of the writing time phase to teach prewriting strategies and another group’s use of the ‘Author’s chair’ to publish students’ writing. We think that these strategies were well integrated with the appropriate phase of the Writer’s workshop.

A student reading her story in the author's chair

Another aspect of the class that we liked was the overall feedback that the lecturer provided to the presenters and the rest of the class. She highlighted each group’s weaknesses, strengths and gave us some important pointers. In one instance she commended one group  for taking advantage of a teachable moment related to complex sentences with reference to an example in their piece of writing being modeled. This shows us how important it is to make the connection whenever the opportunity arises.

Overall, it was a very engaging and enlightening session. However, there are a few things that would have been very helpful to us if they were done. To begin with, we learnt that teaching aids such as charts are a very important part of classroom instruction. Therefore, we have to ensure that our charts are appropriate and legible. We felt that there should have been more specific feedback on the charts that presenters used. Therefore, for future sessions, we suggest that the lecturer comments on the legibility of the handwriting on the charts as well as the fonts and their appropriateness for the classroom.

Secondly, we learnt that one of the best practices in writing instruction is to always model to students what you expect them to do. However, as it relates to the presentation that utilized the Author’s chair for publishing students writing, we noticed that the teacher did not follow such practice. Therefore, in teaching a future session using the author’s chair, we suggest that the teacher models the process to students first. For example, show students how to sit in the chair so that they can demonstrate confidence in their piece of writing, or model possible responses that the listening students can share about what they enjoyed about the piece.

Finally, as it relates to one group’s presentation that utilized a chart with three pre-writing strategies, it is important that we focus students’ attention on one strategy at a time and ensure that the topics given to students are always appropriate for the particular strategy. For instance, the topics require descriptive writing, however the timeline and sentence outline were inappropriate strategies for the task.

GROUP MEMBERS

Angelique George

Jairon Hector

Maurika Craigg