Ween Ten Assignment One

Discuss the components of an effective writing program and why they are important. 

            An effective writing program enables students to perform well with and without a prompt from the teacher. Students learn to take ownership of their writing skills and to utilize these skills in their everyday writing experiences. There are three different components that make up an effective writing program. The three categories are personal connections, writing conventions and inventions. It is important that students are able to make personal connections with their writing, with their content area, and with their daily learning materials. Students should be given an opportunity to express their personal experiences in their writing. This personal connection can be done by providing the students with choices about what they want to write about.

            The next important component of an effective writing program is writing conventions. Students, of any age, need to remember the important parts of writing such as punctuation, grammar, spelling, syntax, sentence structure and vocabulary. Teachers are encouraged to work on no more than two writing conventions at one time. Students in grades 3-5 are unable to focus properly when introduced to three or more writing conventions at the same time. The final component of an effective writing program is invention. Students should be given a chance to invent a piece of writing that is entirely their own. It provides students with the opportunity to express something that they had created in their own mind and give them an opportunity to be creative. Teachers are encouraged to publish student work around the classroom so that students can be proud of what they had created. This also shows students that there is an authentic purpose for writing.

How might you rearrange your schedule to create more time for students to write in general and, in particular, for students to write about their personal experiences? 

            I would like to provide my students with independent writing time. This time would allow my students to write about anything that they want to write about such as a daily journal, a creative story, an essay for another class and so on. I have entertained the idea of allowing my students to write about personal experiences at the very beginning of class. This would allow my students to recall experience from either the weekend or from the night before while it was fresh in their mind.

How can you create ways for students to make personal connections in different subject areas through writing? 

            I would like to model writing for my students in order to show them how personal connections can be made through different subject areas. Some students might not see a connection right away but with the given examples of how it is possible I believe my students will find it easier to make a connection with the other subject areas. This, in my opinion, is an extremely hard skill to accomplish. If we have our students try to work on this at a young age I believe it will come naturally to them in their middle school and high school years. 

How can student work help you decide which conventions to teach? 

            If I take a collection of student work from the entire class and they all have the same conventional error it would make my decision on which writing convention to work with first. For example, if 18 out of 24 of my students have trouble with grammar I would be more likely to work on a lesson that addressing the proper and improper use of grammar. I would also like to show my students an example of the same error in a piece I had created and show them exactly how to fix it. This will enable my students to be able to edit their own pieces of work without being prompted by the teacher. 

When can you promote student inventions and experimentation with different formats in writing? 

            I believe as a teacher we can promote student inventions in writing at any point in time. It is only beneficial for our students to be able to experiment with different pieces of writing when they feel that they are ready. I do not believe the teacher can say when a student is ready to write a narrative piece or an expository piece unless the student feels comfortable when writing in their independent writing period.