Painting a picture with words

Blog #5 : October 19th - 20th 2017

Last week’s lecture was focused on Descriptive writing. We learnt about the purpose and elements of a descriptive piece, how to teach descriptive writing, common problems students face with the genre of writing and some strategies that can be used to solve such problems.

As it relates to the things that we learnt about how to teach descriptive writing, we discovered that as teachers, we cannot give students descriptive writing tasks without introducing them to the elements of this genre. We must teach the students about sensory words, the use of figurative language in their writing and how to use them adequately. The sensory words are those words which represent the five (5) senses and the lecturer provided us with  two simple ways (use of tables or charts and the five sense clusters) that we can use to teach these words.

 

Moreover, we learnt that as teachers we should teach students the importance of word choice and to use specific information such as specific behaviours and activities.

One thing that we liked about last week’s lesson was the reading of the descriptive passage before the beginning of the lecture. This was very useful because we were able to hear what a well-written descriptive piece sounds like. Additionally, we liked that the lecturer asked us questions about the passage and highlighted areas that we can focus on when using the passage to teach a particular concept. For example, the passage can be used to teach adjectives and adverbs.

Another aspect of the lesson that we liked was the teachable moments that the lecturer made use of during the session. Although we learnt about when to use ‘me’ and ‘I’ in sentences and synonyms for the five senses (for example; smell or olfactory) in the past, we needed a reminder and the teachable moments were excellent reinforcers. Also, we liked that the lecturer took the time to ensure that we understood the information presented in the slides.

In light of all that we learnt and liked about last week’s lecture, we only have one suggestion. We suggest that the lecturer always capitalize on the teachable moments because they are informative and we learn and/or are reminded of certain things that we should know as teachers.

Keep Calm and Spell On ( 12th - 13th October. 2017 )

“Research has shown that learning to spell and learning to read rely on much of the same underlying knowledge — such as the relationships between letters and sounds — and, not surprisingly, that spelling instruction can be designed to help children better understand that key knowledge, resulting in better reading” (Moats, n.d., para. 3). In light of this, last week’s lectures focused on the stages of spelling, how to teach spelling and how it links to reading and writing. 

We learnt that there are five stages of spelling and these stages overlap with the stages of  reading and writing development, since a child’s spelling skills are aided by reading and expressed in writing. The image below outlines each stage of spelling development and some of their characteristics. 

Image showing the different stages of spelling development for the word "pleasurable"

We also learnt about what we can do as teachers to help students with their spelling at each stage. For instance, at Stage 1 (Emergent Spelling Stage) we learnt that we should emphasize the concepts of print and at Stage 5 (Derivational Relations Spelling Stage), we should reinforce strategies to help students to remember the correct spelling of difficult words.  

   

Additionally, we discovered some general activities that we can use as teachers to teach spelling with our future students. The use of dictionaries was one of the activities that caught our attention. When we reflected on our personal experiences in the classroom, we realized that majority of our students do not know how to use a dictionary. Dictionaries are very useful tools which aid spelling, pronunciation of words and build vocabulary but students can not reap these benefits because they do not understand how to use them.  

One thing that was reinforced in last week’s lesson was teaching spelling words in context. We understand that we must use these spelling words in the context of  sentences, paragraphs, poems and more instead of isolating them. Once again, we realized that we cannot teach our students as we were taught. We were taught spelling by the teacher calling random words for us to write but, we know that we have to model how to use the spelling words in the context of sentences to our students. Using these words in context will also help them in their writing. Additionally, we learnt that we should teach our students spelling rules as well as the structure of words.

Image depicting a spelling rule

 One thing that we liked from last week’s sessions was the spelling strategy ‘ LOOK, SAY, COVER, WRITE, and CHECK’ that the lecturer taught us. We liked that she gave us the opportunity to use this strategy during the session to spell the word ‘pandemonium’.

Image showing the Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check spelling strategy

    We also liked that the lecturer questioned us about the information that was read before it is explained. For instance, “why do you think students or children prefer to use uppercase letters?”. This was something we never thought about before and we discovered that it is because uppercase letters are easier to write.

Although we were pleased with the overall delivery of last week’s lectures, for future sessions we suggest that the lecturer uses activities related to the topic we are expected to learn about to introduce the lesson. We think that the lecturer could have given us a mini spelling exercise to test our spelling abilities before teaching last week's lesson. This activity would not only help us to improve our spelling skills but also widen our vocabulary. 

Expose me to Expository Writing! (5th - 6th October. 2017)

The focus of last week’s sessions was on Expository Writing. Although we already knew about this genre of writing, we learnt much more in the two sessions. We know that the  purpose of expository writing is to be informative as it seeks to provide or explain information to readers. In the first session, we learnt about some of the elements of expository writing. We discovered that this genre relies heavily on research and cited material as well as what experts say. Although we associated expert information, research and cited materials with expository writing, we did not realize that they are the basis of the genre.

One of the things that was reinforced in last week’s sessions was that expository writing must be objective and should not include personal pronouns. When we reflected on expository pieces that we wrote in the past, we realized that we used a few of these personal pronouns, specifically ‘you’ and ‘your’.

Moreover, we learnt about the expository text structures. We discovered that introducing these text structures to students at the primary level will prevent them from struggling with the structures at the secondary level and onward. In previous ‘Language-based courses’, we learnt about the purpose of expository writing, its text structures and how to create an expository piece for  academic purposes. However, during this lecture, we learnt how to teach expository writing to students.

While we were learning about how to teach expository writing, there were a few things that caught our attention. Firstly, it was stated that we should teach the elements of expository writing to students and explain to them that there are no characters, setting, plot or a problem in the genre. Similarly, we were told that we should let the students compare the fiction and non-fiction pieces as they would clearly see the features of each genre. While explaining this point the lecturer showed an example of a narrative and an expository piece in the Keskidee Reader 2 and modeled what we should explain to the students. This was one aspect of the class that we really liked.

Moreover, we learnt that utilizing strategies such as POW, TREE, and TAP will help our students in their writing. We think that these strategies are very useful for us and students because they simply outline what the students should do when writing expository pieces.

Chart showing the POW writing strategy

Image showing the TREE writing strategy

It is common knowledge that problems will be encountered in the classroom during the teaching and learning process. We learnt that one of the problems that we will encounter when teaching expository writing is plagiarism. We understand now that no matter the age group or grade level, students will plagiarize and we have to teach them that this is a wrong practice. When we reflected on this piece of information, we realized that this is the reason why it is important to know your students’ voice. When you know your students’ style of writing, you are aware of their abilities, word choice, type(s) of sentences frequently used and this allows you to detect when a student plagiarizes.

During last week’s lecture there were some aspects of the class that we really enjoyed. At the beginning of the class, we were required to display our charts that showed the link between the stages of the writing process and the six plus one traits of writing. Although all the charts presented were very creative and accomplished the intended task, our favourite charts were the ‘Six trait train’ and ‘Linking the writing process and the writing traits with Noella’.

Secondly, we liked that the lecturer retaught the components of Language Arts Literacy block lesson plan. Although it was not a part of the lecture, the lecturer explained each component of the block, what they focus on and how we would teach expository writing using the Literacy Block. This was very helpful as prior to this lesson we did not know the concepts that can be taught at the Word Level when utilizing the Literacy Block to teach writing. We know now that we can teach subtopics such as the ‘elements or features of expository writing’ or ‘connectives’ when teaching expository writing.

Overall, last week’s sessions were informative and interesting. Despite this, there are two suggestions that we have for future lectures. Firstly, we suggest that the lecturer reads models of different pieces related to the genre of writing we will be focusing on for the lecture. This will provide us with an insight on what the students are exposed to at the primary level.

Our final suggestion is the use of exit or admit slips. Instead of writing the responses, we can provide our responses orally. By using one of these strategies, the lecturer will know whether we understand the information or not and the extent of our understanding. Also, exit and admit slips help us to reflect on the day’s learning and previous day’s learning respectively. We believe that the use of  these slips will help us to learn better.

Blog #2 (28th - 29th September 2017)

“Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on”. These are the words of an American novelist by the name of Louis L'Amour. Our understanding of this quote is that students will not acquire the skill of writing or know their abilities unless they are given the opportunity to write and practice their writing. Writing is a process, not a product and every child must be taught how to write. Therefore, teachers are responsible for fostering their students’ writing and in order to teach students how to write, they must know and understand the process of writing. Regardless of the approach or format that are used to teach writing, there are some things that children need. In light of this, we learnt in last week’s sessions about seven essentials of writing, the stages of writing development, and the six traits plus one of writing.

To begin with, we discovered that one of the essentials of writing is allowing students to have regular feedback about their writing from their teachers and peers. For this reason, writing is deemed a social act as it allows interactions with others. These interactions help to develop students’ writing as well as to build their self-confidence. As we reflected on our experiences in school, we realized that we seldom shared our written pieces with others. The interaction was predominantly between the teachers and ourselves. However, we know now that it is important for students  to share their work with teachers as well as their peers.

Moreover, we experienced two ‘aha moments’ during one of the lectures. Firstly, we learnt that students should be given the opportunity to choose their topics when they are writing. However, we discovered that constantly giving students a choice will cause various problems. Students can constantly choose topics that are simple and less challenging for them and they can also refuse to write on the topic(s) that was selected by the teacher.

Secondly, we discovered that we have to teach writing and not just give students writing assignments to complete. When we reflected on our primary and secondary school experiences with writing, we saw that we mainly had writing assignments to complete. During the lecture, we realized that we cannot teach writing to students based on our experiences and/or how we learnt. We have to be different in our teaching of writing.

Furthermore, throughout the course of the week we learnt about the traits of writing which can be used to improve students’ writing. We discovered that these six plus one traits are closely linked to the stages of the writing process.

Image showing the connection between the writing process and the six plus one traits of writing

It is important for teachers to model the use of these writing traits and emphasize their importance so that the students can recognize how they contribute to improving their writing skills. As it relates to the voice writing trait, we discovered that there is a distinct difference between the writer’s voice and tone. The writer’s voice refers to  his or her own distinctive style of writing which may be influenced by their personality, vocabulary, experience and way of thinking. On the other hand, the writer’s tone reflects the mood of the writer. Therefore, a piece of writing can encompass different tones but there will only be one voice. It is the voice that differentiates one writer from another.   

As we continued to reflect on our week, there were some general areas which we liked that caused the sessions to be enjoyable. To begin with, we found the ‘What do we know so far?’ slides at the beginning of the lectures and the questions that were posed at the end of every slide to be very useful. These “so far” slides help to recap what we learnt in previous sessions and activate our prior knowledge while the questions allow us to monitor our own understanding of the content. Despite this, we believe that the lecturer should select students to answer some of these questions instead of allowing us to answer collectively. We suggest that the lecturer chooses the students to answer the questions on the slides because it will indicate whether they understand the information or not.

Moreover, we liked that the lecturer gave students the opportunity to read portions of the information on the slides during the sessions. Although the lecturer’s voice was clear and comprehensible, listening to our peers while they read helped to maintain our attention and to an extent, retain more information. One suggestion that we have for future sessions is to have students  explaining or summarizing the information on the slides during or after they read.

Lastly, there is one thing that caught our attention in last weeks' sessions and we greatly appreciate it. We loved that the lecturer always seizes the opportunity to teach us when a teachable moment arises. Although it was a diversion from the original lesson, the information that was taught was very useful and it provided clarification. For instance, the use and purpose of the semicolon ( ; ).

Image showing the lecturer's teachable moment on the correct use of punctuation marks