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Week 15: Writing and Reading

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My first memory of writing for me was in elementary school. I remember learning how to write sentences and gradually moving up to writing stories. I don't recall ever using a writing process at that age. Do you? My next memory was when I was in middle school/high school. This is where those red ink lines played a big role in my writing. I remember we were forced to create an outline first, then write, and then our peers would edit our paper and we had to revise. Looking back now, we were going through the writing process in my classes. Did you do something similar? I would say that my experience in middle school/high school with writing was rather indifferent. I struggled with creating an outline, always. Prewriting and brainstorming was something that I had to take much time and thought into. When I finally was able to gather my thoughts? I liked writing and still do to an extent today. In Chapter 12, Creating Literacy Instruction  it explains the process approach to writi

Week 15: Writing and Reading

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Throughout your many years of going to school, did you ever think twice on how you were writing? Did you ever think that there was an actual process for your writing? I never really thought about it, I wrote my paper, messed up and went on with my life. Turns out, there is a process and it might be smart to look over it.  Process Approach, writing instruction is based on writing process that professional writers and students use: Prewriting Composing or drafting  Revising Editing  Publishing  In chapter 12 of  Creating literacy instruction for all children, it talked about how prewriting is one of the most important steps in the writing processes. Prewriting includes; picking a topic, planning, rehearsing , and goal setting. Choosing a topic will help students be more open about themselves throughout their papers, that will then help teachers get to know their students a bit more. When composing a paper, students will put their thoughts onto the paper without cari

Week 14: Writing and Reading

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Have you ever thought about your writing process? Or asked yourself, what exactly is a writing process? Me, honestly I never thought about writing process or if I had one. For as long as I can remember I just wrote what comes to mind, took a break, came back and if I didn’t like what was written I usually delete and started over. Which caused a repeated cycle until my paper was complete and I was satisfied with what was written.  According to Chapter 12 Writing and Reading , the process approach consist of prewriting, composing or drafting, revising, editing and publishing. When teaching about the writing process this chapter describes how as teachers our job is to encourage our students to see the power and importance of writing in their lives. Rather it’s from students writing about their everyday events, topics of interest, a summary on what was read, and/or writing about friendships.  Writing processes develop and change with age and experience. As future educators i

Week 13: Language, Race, and Critical Conversations in a Primary-Grade Writers’ Workshop

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By: Christian Dorsey      Have you ever been told to speak proper grammar? No? Well, I have. All throughout my life, since I've been in the education system I've been told to speak proper grammar because obviously the way I talked wasn't good enough. That's why when I read  Paul Hartman's and Emily Machado's article on  Language, Race, and Critical Conversations in a Primary-Grade I was astounded that the basis of their research was to encourage 2nd grade students to step out of the frame of mind that only Dominant American English (DAE) was acceptable in the school setting but to embrace African American Language (AAL).       Paul Hartman is a 2nd grade teacher who teaches in a working class neighborhood in Chicago. A remark was made from one of his students during a discussion he was holding. It was over a piece of poetry that lead his class onto a journey of discovery of the dynamics language and race. The student simply recognized the language
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Week 13:  Combating "I Hate This Stupid Book!" Black Males and Critical Literacy November 14, 2019 I can remember growing up I did not like to read whatsoever. To begin with I was not a good reader,  all of my peers were ahead of me getting prizes and such. Then there was me being  left behind not getting any extra help of any sort within the school. The elementary school I  went to thinking back did not have much resources but they closed my last year there.   Since I did not get the help that I needed I was enrolled into summer school every year so I    did not flunk the grade I was in. The books I was forced to read I was not interested in and  they did  not care at that point since they wanted hear my fluency while reading. Growing up  biracial  was difficult for me because it would be rare for me to see people who looked like me. I  believe if I did have books with people that looked like me or a person of color then I 

Week 12: Can we Really Teach Writing?

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I remember learning to write when I was younger. At first, it was so difficult for me. I didn't get it, and every time I would get papers back from my teachers they would have corrections all over them with the dreaded red pen! I always have had difficulty with writing, and also writing the way that my teachers have wanted me to write. I just have always wrote how I've wanted to write.I also remember having to do peer reviews. Those were the worst because I never knew what I was supposed to change for them. I also, have always dreaded to APA and MLA format. I even remember being in high school and my teacher teaching us MLA because she said "that's what you will need to know for college". Now here I am, only using APA for the rest of my life. 😂 In the video that I watched for this week, he started off by talking a lot about grammar. How grammar is a big part in what teachers look for when they grade your writings. But this isn't the only thing that teache

Week 11:Re-Thinking (Pre)School Literacies

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When we were in school, we were being taught to be prepared and ready for Istep, benchmarks, and other standardized testing we oh so dreaded. But what does it mean when a child/student is ready for that? According to Souto-Manning's book, Rethinking Early Literacies , Common Core State Standards is what deciphers whether a student is ready to move on to the next content or curriculum and whether a student is moving too slowly. Unfortunately, the literacy standards focus on formation of letters, capitalization, punctuation, spacing and other mechanical skills. Therefore, they are sculpting curriculum to be about materials, manuals, and objectives. They are not focusing on what is most important which is where the students are learning their language and how they are actually interpreting it into there academics. "The motivation to learn language comes from social, intellectual, and emotional pursuits as children explore the world" (p 165). An example Souto gave in the