Christensen Chap 7

I never did a portfolio (other than an Art portfolio) in high school and it was very limited in college. It made sense to do one for art, so why not English. I really didnt' know much about writing portfolios, but Christensen shows how they are a great tool.
Christensen sees portfolios as a way to showcase the variety of genres they can write in. A portfolio also shows the changes the writer has gone through. But the most important aspect, according to Christensen is the reflection process. It really struck me when Christensen said student portfolios allow the teacher to reflect on the job they did. If students did not make desired changes, there must have been something the teacher did wrong.
As Students do their own reflection it accomplishes more than simply giving a grade for a pile of writing. i loved Christensen's suggestions for how students can format their reflections as an advice column or letter to future students. these assignments give the reflection a "real" application and are not as dull as a simple reflection essay. I can see how this would get students to think more indepth.
One thing Christensen did not add but I believe is that the reflections should be honest. This should be stressed to students, and they should not feel like they will get a good grade if they simply write what they think the teacher wants to hear. If they honestly don't think they learned everything, that is valuable information to both the student and teacher. Overall, this leads to the effectiveness of portfolios as valuable tools.

christensen Immigrathion

This type of lesson has never really occured to me. My old school was not very diverse. One of two African Americans and the Mexican students were maybe double that. The only migrations we learned about were in history class and were the textbook examples of the large migration groups from Europe. The irish potato famine, etc.

I really liked the idea of tying history into English because they compliment each other so well. Christensen also did a great job at expressin g the need for multiple sources for research. using interviews and other sources than a textbook make the issue seem more real.

Christensen also includes poems in this lesson which ties in great with some of the other chapters. The reseach should provide the student with enoguh evidence or knowledge to see through the eyes of an other.

While this lesson is very valuable in a diverse school, it is also important for the less diverse schools to learn the complete history of important issues. The things not in the textbooks are just as important as the things that are in them.

Gilmore Chap 2

Writing introductions are about getting to the point. Some of the best advise I recieved about writing intros is that they are like a roadmap that shows where you are going to take your audience. I think this can relate to Gilmore's advice. You don't need generic fluff in the intro.

On the five paragraph essay, I'm not sure that I have been taught specifically to write in that form, But I generally like it as a guideline for essays. I use it more for formulating an outline. Mostly it keeps my ideas separate, but keeping them tied together with the thesis. I never feel like it should be exactly five paragraphs either. One section may be divided into more than one paragraph.

I dont' know how long it took me to learn how to weave quotations into my writing. In a way I continually tried to revise my writing process, but not with the same essay or paper. Rather one essay was a drafft for another essay. Onely I worked on style and problems with my general structure than the content. As I have said before, I hate revising my own work , but I have come along way by learing from past mistakes.

Gilmore Getting to Carnegie Hall

I'm still a little pesimistic about the revising process. Partly because I can hardly get my self to reread my paper, let alone fix more than grammatical errors. Secondly, I have seen how tough it is for middle schoolers to be motivated. I should be careful about htat though since they do not have the matureity level of a high schooler... for the most part.

I did like gilmores analogy of writing as the same as mastering a musical instrument. Revising, editin, and writing doesn't seem like practice, but that's just what it is. I became a better writer through editing and gradign others' papers This made me aware of mistakes I commonly make. It is often so hard to see mistakes in uyour own writing, since you know what you meant, while it may not be clear to others.

Gilmore's simple version of edition shows how it is important to not fix the students' work and point mistakes out for them, but teach them how to find the mistakes themselves.

Teaching Poetry

Christensen brought up Great poetry exercizes and there were three that I particularly liked and would probably teach. The first was connecting poetry to literature. This exercize seems like a nice change from the typical literature analysis paper. It was great to get them to view one character and then share their ideas with the class to get a wide range of input. In my classes, discussion always seemed to go better when students had written something that made them think about what to say in class. It's often hard to come up with something on the spot, but writing lets you think and record so you will remember what you wanted to say. Poetry exercizes like this accomplish more than one task at once, preparing to discuss literature and then practice creative writing and thinking through others' eyes.

The other activity that I liked because I am a history minor, is using poetry to humanize history. I think that activities like this that get the student to put their mind into history would help them actually remember history better.

I also really liked the Remember me poems. I hope that I can incorperate this somehow into my pre-internship this semester. I would love to have my seventh grade students do something like this that we could make and it would be something for me to remember my experience and the unique set of students that I am getting to know. My experience at this school has been nothing like what I have grown up with, and it is and will be a great learning period for me. I think having the students think positively about eachother and themselves is also important for students at this age because of the growth period that they are going through. They need the support.

Cohesive Writing Matters

Jago's book on cohesive writing has been a great resource for me. I hope I can continue using this book as i start teaching. One thing that I really want to take with me are Jago's core beliefs:

1. In order to learn to write, one must write
2. Authentic tasks and topics generate the most cohesive student writing.
3. students need both supportive and critical feedback
4. There is no cohesive writing without revision.

I think these beliefs are a great positive enforcement to help students learn how to write. I think that many students need the extra help, encouragement, and guidance.

Cohesive writing, the product

I liked Jago's five day writing plan, however, I don't think that it fits different writing methods. My biggest problem is having students come up with a thesis statement on the first day, although it may be revised. I say this because I have a hard time writing that way. Students do need to have a clear idea of what they are going to write about and how to keep it organized. I often will gather my evidence and outline my essay first. I then analyze what I have gathered and see what fits together. This helps me understand what it is that I am trying to argue. Then I can formulate a thesis. I often write my introduction after I have drafted my essay.

I also know that their are procrastinators that simply prefer to write under pressure. I think that the timed draft writing in class is a great way to motivate students. I really believe that it doesn't matter how many weeks you give students to work on an essay, many will do it the night before. Often this method has worked for me, but many students can't write well, because they have no time for revision.

One important step that Jago has that many teachers ignore, is offering a lesson on recurring mistakes. I think that it is important for the teacher to go through the paper before the student revises. If the student hands in a final draft that still could use revising, I think that the teacher should allow the student to revise that work to get a better grade. Realistically many final drafts will be a student's first draft, that they printed and turned in. This extra step may be extra work, but it would provide the students with another chance to revise, which often takes more than just one or two tries.

politics of language

This topic of teaching standard English can be really touchy. I have had an American Dialects class that has really helped me understand this issue. Right now I am doing a pre-internship where the majority of the students speak and write in African American Vernacular English. I have had a chance to read some of their work, but I'm not sure how the teacher deals with this issue yet. It is a seventh grade class and I'm not sure what they have or have not been exposed to for writing in Standard English. It is obviously something that needs to be taught but I can see how their language can be an important tool for them.

If students can freely put ideas on paper in their vernacular, it is at least getting them to write. How to get them to correct their writing may be a much larger task. However, there is something about the vernacular that can add to their writing. I believe that if students are quoting, or using any kind of dialog that would be spoken in a vernacular, that it probably should be written like that. I think this is a way to express a value in the student's home language, while teaching them that they must also write in the standard when it is appropriate.

Pronunciation is a tougher aspect of the standard. All accross the country their are different ways of pronouncing words. The poem "Rayford's Song" seems to point out how the standard seems to be over emphasized. In a song, I believe it would be perfectly natural for pronunciation to differ from the standard. I think that teaching this poem in schools, especially where Standard English is not the standard, would encourage students to think and write about their own experiences. There is a fine line between standard and vernacular. Hopefully we can meet in the middle, and appreciate both.