Chapter 1 - Questions #1-5 on page 1
1. I did not have goals as a student writer, other than to express my feelings to the fullest extent to meet the needs of the prompt at hand. I was a decent writer, but do not think I realized my full potential until mid-high school (around tenth grade). Once I recognized my potential, I was able to develop a deeper appreciation for the relationship between literature and writing skills.
As a third year middle school teacher, I have goals for my students achievement and growth no matter their linguistic capabilities when they enter my classroom. Ideally, I would like my students to have a depth of reading and writing so they are able to accurately express their ideas in an effective manner. This is a lofty, broad goal and requires profound scaffolding and continuous practice.
Clear and effective communication is when the author is able to plan, draft, and revise their writing by thinking about their mechanics in relation to the overall message. Reading is helpful in this process because writers are required to analyze, critique, and edit their own diction in hopes of crafting a focused final piece of writing. I want my students to become more comfortable with this process, which is a realistic and attainable goal for the middle school level.
2. Communication, or the exchange of information, demands oral, written, and reading abilities. When thinking of this definition, I realized that communication can be hindered if a person is unable to accurately use one of the aforementioned types. These forms of communication may require guidance to reach a high level of mastery, but I believe each person has the capability to acquire the knowledge needed. This leads to my belief (and the belief of many other teachers) that each and every child can learn, despite learning challenges. Levels of mastery may also look different from person to person and that can greatly impact the audience's understanding.
Writing requires a simultaneous synthesis and evaluation of thoughts. Therefore, this is a difficult activity because it demands a combination of skills to accurately craft a message. Writing comes from a need to add variety to communication and challenge a writer and a reader to carefully develop their message. Not every piece of writing is carefully planned or follows academic conventions, but students should learn how to code switch for different types of audiences.
3. I would like my students to increase comfortability with a variety of types of writing styles and genres. Students should recognize the different methods necessary to achieve a variety of writing. I would like to help them generate these ideas with greater depth than perhaps the prompt requires. For example, many seventh grade prompts are broad in nature to allow all students a chance to craft their response. However, as students get older it will be increasingly beneficial to narrow their response. I want to lay the foundation for this more focused skill.
4. People best learn a writing system by having it modeled to them and practicing thereafter. The diversity of a writing system depends on the culture of the society. For example, proper English symbolizes someone having an educated background. However, for those less educated and exposed to this type of language, they develop their own subset that suites their cultural needs. This is similar to toddlers who are unable to say particular words and substitute with something else they are more comfortable with. Writing system develop out of those comfort levels. When I was in elementary school, I could not spell "sister". I resorted to writing "sis" as a "coping mechanism" of sorts until I was more comfortable with the correct form of the word. I was able to realize the corrected form with modeling from my teacher and practicing thereafter.
The development of a writing system is never finalized, hence why we have a ever expanding dictionary. The lexicon, no matter the language, changes with the times of the people. These communication efforts build (this is an arguably point) on the existing foundation of that language. People can also become stuck in their own timeframe and show their age when communicating with vocabulary that is now obsolete. Writing is no exception to the changes in communication.
5. Writing in additional language versus one's mother tongue involves an examination of context and comfortability. The mother language is arguably more comforting and has a greater amount of context (or influence) in one's life. However, increased context and comfortability is not necessarily correlated with improved academic performance.
Literacy in another language can hinder one while learning English if the mother language is not Latin based. For example, students from Ethiopian speak Amharic. This script language is vastly different in structure than English and can become a struggle since there are no similarities between the two languages. However, literacy in a mother tongue can also be exciting since a student is able to start at ground zero and build their skills in a more deliberate manner.
Spoken like a true Engish teacher! I totally agree with you that writing combines various skills together, making it a tough practice. Of course, it is difficult to speak about the sill of writing in isolation of reading, another multi-skilled disciplin and one that is intergral to the self-evaluation of their own writing. So, there is much at play, as you stated, in writing. Thanks for capuring that eloquently.
ReplyDelete-felicia wallace.