Engage in an online literature discussion group on our class blog. Please read the introduction and the first three chapters of the book and make four entries 1)propose “meaty” fat questions to discuss, 2) make connections to your teaching and work with students, 3) make connections to your work as a writer. 4) Consider how what you have learned from this book might support the work of your integrated language arts unit
Please respond to at least one or more students in your study group.
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Testing
Testin my account out
This is a test for group 4. Is this entry posted?
Would you like to read chapters Intro-chap.3 for the first posting? We should set a deadline for our individual postings so that we have time to respond to each other.
This is Courtney
pg. 15 "Every teacher who interacts with children has a responsibility for the student's development in writing as it applies to their subject area." I have often thought that art, music, and gym could integrate writing into their curriculums easily. From using rubrics to evaluate strategies for soccer to researching famous black american sculptors to writing how they feel after hearing contemporary music competitions. As a classroom teacher, I wonder how I can get these teachers to reach beyond their curriculum and incorporate writing into their every day lessons.
I often struggle with student's results on CMT's. Pg. 17, "Most Americans believe that being able to write well will improve a student's ability all around and improve their job prospects."(paraphrased) I was shocked with how bluntly it was put out there. If my kids don't write well, they are as Graves said, "dead in the water." They will be stuck in subservient jobs never reaching their full capacity. The full force of this implication is hitting me hard personally. It really raises the stakes for me as a fourth grade teacher. I teach in a suburban school where the students are mostly black and Latino. Their parents want them to be good students and push them hard. We have no writing program at our school. Our reading consultant keeps saying writing workshop, but no one has been trained in it and everyone is doing something self constructed. What steps do we need to take to streamline our writing program, even within grade levels to provide a unified and structured program K-5?
pg. 23 "Compared with other pedagogic approaches, a writing curriculum that incorporates inquiry strategies has the most substantive and powerful impact on student performance." I have to reflect upon my own college experience. I hated taking exams, I still do. I loved when I got to write an essay or especially when I got to do a project. I yearned to "show" what I could do. I imagine my students have that same yearning. The wonderful diversity in my class means that they have an incredible variety of ways in which they can show what they can do. I always grapple with giving them this opportunity versus teaching them how to test taking strategies. I read somewhere that if you cover all your bases, the kids will perform well on the standardized tests. I also further read that students who are given tons of test prep actually do worse on standardized tests. But I still have trouble trusting in the first statement and have not yet been able to give up giving my students some test prep to give them an idea of what it is like and how to succeed on it. Does anyone have any suggestions to help me wean myself off of test prep?
pg. 28 "language use isn't soley a thinking activity, but also a social and cultural act." I think fondly of the first time I heard one of my students utter, "My bad." I was a little chagrined. I thought they were being rude to me. Now I see this usage as a way of apologizing politely for something and am happy to have it used. I see this verbage, and others like it peppering their writing and I have learned to celebrate this language. The more we recognize and legitimize the students language, the more the student sees him or herself as a legitimate writer. Has anyone else had the opportunity to incorporate diverse language patterns into their writing?
Question 1) I think writing takes the cake as the academic skill that is most subjective to evaluate. As Nagin points out, this allows for a great discrepancy between teachers as to what good writing looks like. He elaborates saying, If teachers within the same school have distinct or unexamined expectations for good writing, it can be confusing to students and a source of misunderstanding.” How do we work across grade levels and across disciplines to create common expectations for such a diverse population of students? How do we implement the variety of teaching strategies that our diverse students need, and write for a variety of different purposes, while maintaining our common expectations from year to year?
Questions 1 and 2) Page 18 cites Peter Elbow’s Everyone Can Write saying, “It is possible for anyone to produce a lot of writing with pleasure and satisfaction and without too much struggle.” Nagin uses this and Elbow’s other assumptions as a premise for our text. However, as a special education teacher I have to wonder, is this assumption valid? I would like to think that I hold the highest academic expectations for my disabled students based on their individual capabilities. But can we really assume that writing can become a pleasurable and rewarding experience for all students? This thought makes me consider a student with Aspergers who moved into our district at the beginning of grade four. He came to us with recently divorced parents, behavioral issues, many learning gaps, and a large chip on his shoulder for writing. His refusal to write stemmed from a disability that made it extremely difficult for him to memorize and replicate individual letter formation. Coupled with low muscle tone, even basic one-word copying was a tedious and frustrating task. He worked with our Occupational Therapist and myself to develop his automaticity in letter formation and his typing skills. Setting individualized expectations allowed his teachers to create motivating tasks that were rooted in grade level language arts curriculum. Two years later, at the beginning of grade six, this student was able to produce thoughtful and meaningful writing pieces on an AlphaSmart, both for class and for pleasure. His writing mechanics and sentence structure were significantly below teacher’s expectations, but he had achieved Peter Elbow’s goal of writing “with pleasure and satisfaction and without too much struggle”. In the case of this student, he had learned to compensate for his disability to become a successful student writer. However, I work with other students with other disabilities who are either unable or unwilling to write. Is this “happy ending” a real possibility for all of them too?
Question 3) On Page 15, Nagin identified a significant personal struggle for me as a writer and a teacher of writing. There are two ideals that writers strive for that are often at odds with each other as we use writing to express our ideas. Nagin describes this contradiction as he compares state standards to state assessments. On one hand, state standards prioritize “powerful, memorable, provocative, or moving” writing, while on the other hand, state assessments prioritize “focus, organization, style, and mechanics”. It seems that even the state can’t decide what is more important- the quality of our ideas or the way in which we express them.
Both may be equally important, because what good is an awesome idea if you can’t get your point across? The problem is, our brains don’t generate thoughts in the same linear format that is necessary to articulate them for others. For me, I find that the more abstract or complex my ideas, the more difficult it is to use words to articulate them. Sometimes I simplify my ideas in order to express them more clearly. However, I know this can’t be the right answer for me because it’s not what I would teach my students to do. Given time and motivation, instead of simplifying my ideas, I use revision and conferencing to try to make my writing more clear. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. I console myself by thinking that every writer must struggle to find a balance as we conceptualize our ideas and try to format them for a written piece.
4) In order to write to learn, students must understand the significance of the writing process. As it is, my students commonly see drafting as an editing process. Rather than drafting to deepen their explanations, clarify their supporting ideas, or link conclusions with more fluent writing, I see students looking to fix spelling mistakes or checking for initial capitals in every sentence. It is our job as teachers to use instruction and practice to encourage students to reflect and revise ideas during drafting.
After reading chapter 2, I see that if I want to change how my students interpret the drafting steps, I may need to look at the beginning of the writing process. I liked Bean’s ten strategies for teaching critical thinking and inquiry. These ideas for writing projects will spark controversy or require an analysis of the subject at a higher level of thinking. Projects like this seem like they would encourage conferencing, reflection, and a revision of ideas during drafting. I’d like to see some of these methods used to explore content by having students respond to a claim or explain a concept in the form of a written explanation to a peer. This could spark a written dialogue between two students who respond to one another in turn, elaborating and revising ideas with each new response. Such a practice could enhance a deeper understanding of content in an integrated unit. This exercise could also encourage students to develop an internal dialogue when writing independently.
This reminds me of how we teach our students to predict when reading. We ask them to predict using their initial thoughts at the beginning of the text, and continue revising their ideas as the text develops. With modeling, this seems to come naturally to many students. Maybe this skill in revising predictions could be likened to the revision of ideas during the writing process. For some this might be the way to encourage the writing process as a means for learning content and concepts.
This is a reply to Maggie. Maggie-your posts are extremely eloquent and well written. Also, fun to read! I particularly enjoyed your last one when you made the connection to reading. I work at a school that is on the AYP list, ugh! We know the prediction and seven other comprehension strategies like the back of our hands. I loved your connection between reading and writing, both are such natural extensions of children's desire to learn and to express themselves. We just had a writing prompt where a kangaroo joins the open house and children were practically hopping out of their skins to add the next paragraph to share what the kangaroo was going to do. They seemed to love having the kangaroo eat all of the homework! HA! HA! Writing can be a joyful process if handled correctly. It sounds like the children in your class are very lucky to have you.
Courtney testing again due to technical difficulties
Responses to Focus Question 1
On page 3 it states, “…inadequate writing skills, therefore, could inhibit achievement across the curriculum and in future careers…” My question that I have is, what is the correlation between students who were given inadequate and adequate writing to the careers they have in this world? What percentage of students who received inadequate writing instruction have six figure salaries? I think it would be interesting to see the statistics when answering this question. How significant is the performance of writing in the hiring process?
On page 12 it states that many American schools are not giving their students enough time to write. This is largely due to the amount of time we spend on reading instruction due to the high demand of getting test scores up to meet the high demands of the CMT. However, some schools don’t need to work as hard to increase their test scores. What factors do you feel make a school like Greenwich perform significantly higher on their CMT’s as compared to a lower socio-economic town/city? (Taking into consideration ELL learners, special Ed, and large amounts of reading.) What do you think Greenwich is doing differently than other less socio-economic school districts? Do you think they are actually teaching with a less emphasis on the writing process? Due to the high demands that education has in a very wealthy town to become successful, do you think a major component of the students’ success in writing is due to their parents and up bringing? (The way they talk, interact, educational activities, etc) Do students need as much writing instruction in a wealthy down? If no is your answer to the last question, then should the expectations and writing instruction that is delivered vary based on the district?
Responses to Focus Question 2 ( additional responses to questions 1 and 3)
The author wrote on page 2, “ What was changing was how educators and policy makers were defining our literacy needs, which in turn changed expectations for writing curricula in terms of their scope and context.” Teachers as myself are expected to spend 1-1/2 hours of reading instruction a day. With the emergence of more diverse classrooms, we are not giving them the opportunity to express themselves and practice our language through writing. I couldn’t believe the results from the study on page 6 when it stated how 15 percent of the school day was spent on writing and two-thirds was copying word for word. If you figure that a regular school day is about six hours that would mean that only 54 minutes was used for writing. My writing block alone is 50 minutes per day. My classroom routines differ from this study as my students are always writing, whether it be using a rubric to develop an open-ended response, explaining how they receive their math answer, answering the math problem of the day and explaining their answers, summarizing what they read, using note taking, etc. Word for word copying can be observed only when students are writing the vocabulary words down for a unit to put into their vocabulary notebooks or copying a new skill into their notebooks for English. Stressing complete sentences, word choice, etc, can also be viewed throughout the day. I am proud to say that I don’t contribute to this 15 percent of time used on writing.
The question posed on page 11, “ What does a school need to provide if its students are to master the complex set of skills and knowledge called writing? I pondered this question and thought about what I had done for three years in my classroom. Reflecting upon my teaching, I probably could have exposed students to more genres and authentic experiences. However, with only a 30-minute writing block, 90 minutes of reading and another additional literacy block, introducing them to other genres and writing experiences made it very difficult.
On the bottom of page 7 it talked about how the College Board has now added a writing component to the SAT. I teach SAT prep here at Central over the summer to high school students from New Britain. The book states how this assessment is a tool to evaluate applicants. What’s sad is that in reality, my focus is not on the writing because it does not count for their entrance into college, which many don’t know. Now why is that? Do these institutions feel that if the writing were counted against their score, then there would be fewer applicants accepted and in turn less money would be brought into college? Is it their plan to accept more applicants without looking at their writing score so they can easily just offer a freshman writing class instead of worrying whether they have accepted enough applicants?
Part of students’ development as writers should also be guided with specific feedback and an understanding of where they need to improve. The bottom of page 10 really connected to my work as a teacher. It talked about how teachers tend to give students papers marginal comments such as fix this and write clearer, all without direction as how to. I can remember when I was younger my teacher would write the same things on my paper and I always felt anxiety as I re-wrote what her red pen marks said, without much certainty that I was fixing exactly what she wanted me to. I couldn’t help but think about the students in my classroom when I give them feedback. I tend to give my students specific feedback and for the most part, my students and I come to an understanding as to what they need to work on and what they are strong in. However, at times I realized that I am at fault for writing comments like, more sentence flow, stronger ending, etc, without giving my students any guidance in how to fix their mistakes.
It was stated on page 5 that “the new information age, for all its high-tech gadgetry, is finally writing-based. E-mail, the Internet, and the fax are all forms of writing, and writing is, finally, a craft with its own set of tools, which are words. Like all tools, they have to be used right.” I agree with this statement strongly. Professional writing is seen more in society through such technology. That is why it is important not only to be able to write, but write with professionalism. Unfortunately, if your writing does not flow and is not free of grammatical and mechanical errors it can reflect your true professionalism. I had worked for an administrator in my educational career and the amount of grammatical mistakes made in emails, mail, etc, was huge. Although, I understand that humans will make mistakes, for others it slightly changed their view of the effectiveness this lady demonstrated. This connection to my experiences and reading made me start thinking of just how important our jobs have become to prepare students for the up-coming future. When we were younger if we were not the best writers then we would get by. Now, if my students don’t have strong writing skills then they will not make it in the advanced technological business-oriented world.
I think the biggest connection that I had with this text is under the section about writing and English Language Learners. Teaching the same ELL students in the classroom for three years in a row, I was able to see the advancements they made in their writing. It was not an easy process but it made me much stronger of a writing teacher. Teaching ELL students is not all about teaching them grammar and syntax ,etc and drilling them. It’s the experience that they receive in writing that makes them better writers. Expectations had to be clear, a reason for their writing had to be known, rich language experiences were provided, high vocabulary development activities were used, and modeling, modeling, modeling was a must. The point that the book gets across is that students need to write a lot. I think that this is also important but if students are just to write without a purpose or guidance then they are just practicing how to write sentences and not write for an audience. Speaking from experience, I had a little girl come to me that was supposed to be in a bilingual classroom. Her writing was a mix of Spanish and English vocabulary and invented words. Through rich language, literature connections with writing instruction, clear expectations, sharing of published pieces, constructive criticism, and motivation and confidence for her work, this student by her third year was writing as if she had known English all her life. She was my passion for teaching writing and it is she that kept me going. Here I had a girl who couldn’t write in all English who blossomed into a beautiful writer. Yes it is important that I taught my students grammar, sentence structure, etc. but it was also important that they applied what they learned in their writing and their writing instruction was not only drill based. Giving them opportunities to write using their cultural experiences, as the book states, is just what I did also.
I actually shouted YES as I read about how state programs that train teachers don’t train them how to become effective teachers in writing, an area that so many schools and children need to perform better in. I do feel that I didn't get the training that I needed to become an effective writing teacher. This forced me and other teachers to teach themselves through experience, hoping that their strategies and implemented routines are working. I can remember my first day teaching third grade. I went to teach writing and I was going around checking papers and realized, “ Oh my goodness, I don’t think I know how to teach writing.” After having a moment of panic, it was then that I realized this is a major problem that I needed to fix or it’s going to be an exhausting one hundred some odd days. That day changed my outlook for the subject matter. I read a lot of literature, and taught myself the skills I have today on how to become a writing teacher. Now I can say that writing is my favorite subject to teach. However, when I first encountered this fear, my first reactions were, “We will have professional developments and someone will teach me how to teach writing.” Boy was I wrong. The district that this experience came from was in an urban district whose students performed extremely below state and district goals as measured by the Connecticut Mastery Test. Our entire year was focused on getting students to read and increase their test scores in reading to make AYP. Therefore, the energy spent on professional developments was spent on reading instruction.
The book talks about on page 16 that it is up to the school to provide professional developments on writing so that all teachers are on the same page and they feel enthusiastic about teaching it. I feel that from my experiences with working with a vast number of staff members, many teachers hate teaching writing. Just like kids, they hate it because they don’t feel confident in teaching it, as students don’t feel confident in using it. Can this be one critical reason as to why students’ writing is not what it could be due to the fact that a small percentage of teachers feel confident in teaching it? I can remember a short conversation I had with my teammate just recently. She said that she hates the unit we are teaching because she doesn’t feel comfortable with it and says she doesn’t do a good job at it because she doesn’t feel confident teaching it. Does this lack of confidence contribute to reasons for the lack of students’ performances?
Responses to Focus Question 3: (additional responses to questions 1 and 2)
(Page2) The author brought up a good point in stating that universities had to start offering remedial courses for entering freshman. This made me think of how I felt when I was a freshman. I always thought I was a pretty good writer in high school. However, as I continued with my planned courses for my English major, I was receiving grades that were not acceptable. It was this point that I didn’t feel as prepared as I should be. Remedial courses shouldn’t be put into place to prepare us for college if all our years of schooling had taught us correctly. I could remember starting to critically write when I entered 6th grade. Was this too late? Maybe teachers should of prepared us more to analyze, synthesize, etc so that when we got to 6th grade it wasn’t learning it, but instead strengthening our critical thinking strategies.
I truly connected with the bottom of page 9 when it stated, “ Sometimes, the professionals tell us, this means letting yourself write poorly at the start, with the expectation of improving it further down the line.” …” You have to get the bulk of it done, and then you start to refine it.” I as a writer do this all the time. In fact, this is what I did before I wrote this blog to make sure I got all my thoughts out. I wrote everything I wanted to say in a Microsoft word document and then refined my words. As a writer, I need to get everything out, re-read it again, and get it exactly the way I like. This is something that I believe is very important to teach students. As I read farther down the page the author stated that writing composition is made up of various stages. My question is, if we know as writers that we need time to draft, refine, develop, refine again, publish, then why do we as teachers and district and state evaluators, give students a 45-minute writing prompt to reflect what they can do?
“Better writers tend to read more…” stated by the author on page 31. As I read this statement I pictured myself back in college. The more I read the better I become in speaking and writing. I noticed that as I was forced to read more comprehensive pieces of literature and write more in depth research papers, I saw a change in my writing. In addition, through the use of the language in the textbooks that I was reading, I started to write better. The same holds true in my students. I noticed that my 4th grade students, who read more advanced chapter books on a 6th and 7th grade level, were able to produce writing rich in language and syntax. The author talked about a survey on page 33 conducted in 2005 by Beldon Russonello and Stewart about how the public believes that writing enhances most notably reading. Does writing enhance more reading skills or do students need to have the skills, language, syntax, organization, and structure from reading to apply to a piece of writing?
I can remember going to interviews just recently and was asked to do a TIMED writing prompt. I was stunned to read on page 17, “ In a 2004 survey of 120 major American corporations, respondents emphasized that people who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion.” I couldn’t help but think about these interviews and realize that they were not looking for what I had to say, but how I said it. Now as I stated before, I need a lot of time to revise and re-read, etc. This very well could have been the reason that these interviewers did not select me as an applicant to go to a second interview. Which also goes to show how important it is to give students at very young age a rich experience of writing across the curricula. As the author states on page 18, that is a fast paced society and we must prepare our students for it.
Responses to Focus Question 4
This book has opened my mind up to new ways of looking at writing as a whole. Most importantly, I realized how easily I could integrate writing across all content areas. As I design and implement my unit, I now feel confident in designing activities that expect students to think using higher order thinking skills. Such as when the book shares the example on page 47 about how students can synthesize what they are writing instead of responding to a simple assignment.
Sometimes teachers have so much to teach in a school day that they sometimes neglect to change up their writing expectations across the curriculum. Reading what Bean had to say on page 23, I now have an array of ideas that I could do to elicit higher order thinking in my unit and cyber lesson so that students are engaged in their learning and are practicing becoming better writers, but also having fun getting there.
I plan to now use a variety of ways to respond to reading using writing in my unit. Students need this variety to prepare them for the variety of writing tasks involved in careers that await them in the future.
Response to Maggie
Maggie I thought the same as I was reading. They need to keep consistency in order for the test to be standerdized, yet they recognize the fact that students' creativity and insights also give worth to a piece of writing.
Powerful, memorable, provocative, and moving are all chracteristics of what writing is all about. Expressing oneself through works of writing as artists would express themselves through works of art. Good writers don’t time themselves. What’s really sad is that in my classroom, I have taught students how to take a timed writing prompt and how to write a beautiful piece of language enriched writing. I can’t believe that as a teacher I have to teach students how to take the test so that their score can somewhat reflect what their true competencies are in writing. At times we are so involved with trying to teach them so many writing skills and get them ready for the test that I think we forget to give them more time on what is truly important: developing as a writer through experience and time.
1. Discussion Questions
* How can a school district/school select a writing program that meets the needs of its diverse population and the varied writing abilities of the students?
* Since "recent studies have shown state standards pointing to key elements of strong writing are at variance with the rubrics or criteria used to assess it," how can we as educators and the "caretakers of education" create a uniform writing assessment and rubric that are objectively implemented and scored for our state, leaving no room for misinterpretation? If it is already in place, then why are there discrepancies among school districts when it comes to scoring writing assessments?
* Why is it so difficult for teachers to integrate writing across the curriculum? What can be done to ensure that writing, like any other subject should not be taught in isolation?
2. Connections to teaching and work with students:
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?...Practice, Practice, Practice! Writing is a subject area that involves practice, set-ups, steps, drafts, editing, revising, re-reading,etc. It is a process. To be an effective writer, there are certain skills that need to be acquired at students' learning stages. The importance of writing must be seen in all aspects of life and students must know and realize that writing has multi-purposes. It is a skill that must be practiced in order for improvement to take place.
I taught 5th grade Writing using the Empowering Writers Program. This program format taught writing as a product under the "guise" to some degree of writing as a process. The writing form was expository, using the Expository Pillar Framework (Introduction, 3 Main Ideas and details to support each, and a Conclusion). There was a book of prompts the students were required to write about but I tried to select the prompts that all of the students possibly had a personal connection to. I felt that if the students could "see" themselves in the writing,then they wuld be able to better connect to the topic, thus creating a piece of work with strong, developed ideas and thoughts. I was delighted to see my approach substantiated in Chapter 3, pg. 47-Organization and Development, "an effective assignment gives students a framework for developing ideas and organizational guidelines that help them analyze and synthesize the information with which they are working."
3. Connections to my work as a writer:
Writing has become one of the most important activities I do or engage in. I realize and know that it is one of the most valuable tools/forms of communication. Quotes such as "put it in writing," "It's right there in black and white," and "The pen is mightier that the sword" are just a few writing related quotes that convey the simple notion that writing and what you write matters. I employ some form of writing on a daily basis, for example: memo, a post-it note, making notes of things so that I do not forget, texting, creating grocery lists and forms, data analysis, emails, etc.
I don't recall when I really learned to write or became a writer. I remember in Catholic school that the conventions of writing were heavily stressed. For instance, the formation of my letters needed to be neat and correct; cursive writing began in third grade; diagramming sentences, review of subject-verb agreement excercises, predicates, nouns, adjectives, etc continued all the way through eighth grade. From grades nine through twelve, more writing as a product was the focus; In college I think I just "felt my way through" writing and became better at it based upon the assignments given and writing circumstances.
In response to Jenn's comment on integrated writing instruction:
The current trend at our school is that our students are performing higher on writing assessments than on reading assessments. This is apparently, on average, true of our CMT scores as well as district-wide assessments. At a recent professional development, we discussed this issue as a staff. Many of us think the discrepancy could be in the nature of the assessments rather than in the skill level of the students. On these assessments the reading inquiries (open-ended responses) are varied and require thoughtful, developed responses. A writing prompt however, follows a formulated pattern. The scoring rubric rewards organization, development, and focus. Students each write one rough draft and are not allotted time for the analytical process of conferencing, reflecting, and rewriting.
Apparently, our students have learned the writing rubrics and many can produce acceptable prompts. But when it comes to open-ended reading responses, these same students struggle to think "outside the box". Integrated language arts may be part of the answer. We all have question stems that help us formulate discussion and written responses to our reading texts. Why not extend this same language and variety into other subject areas? Hold students accountable for supporting their opinions, or questioning theories, or comparing topics in science, social studies and math. Inspire students to write in order to explore new topics. Can't that be meaningful writing that also covers content instruction? I say if we want our students to think (and write) with creative, analytical minds, we need to design content lessons that are more creative and analytical. Then we don't have to worry about how long the writing block is or how long we teach reading. The students can experience meaningful, inspired reading and writing throughout the day. Isn't integrated reading and writing the kind of reading and writing most adults do?
3A: Response to Jenn's Focus Question 3 (specific part:
I agree with the quote you referred to on the bottom of page 9-"Sometimes, the professionals tell us this means letting yourself write poorly at the start with the expectation of improving it further down the line"--"You have to get the bulk of it done, and then you start to refine it." I am extremely cognizant of my thought-process. I have to think about it for a couple of days. I then start writing down points I want to include based on the topic. I then will set aside some time to sit and don't shriek, but hand-write my thoughts because I have to see and feel what I am writing. I then read over all that I have written to see if it makes sense. You stated that you too follow a similar process by writing out all you want to say in Microsoft Word document and then refine your words. You need to get everything out, re-read it, and get it exactly written to your standards. I think that if techers were truly able to spend the time to model what good writers do and to showcase themselves as writers going through the process, then many students wouldn't look at writing as a cumbersome activity. They would the begin to enjoy writing and as educators we could continue to cultivate that love for writing and connect it to literacy activities, choice, and engagement. The students as writers would then be able to "discover what works best for them in a variety of writing tasks." (p. 38)
By reading the first half of this text, I have come to realize that as an instructional leader (Literacy Coach) in my school, I play a "vital role in ensuring that writing is used to achieve a high level of learning in content areas." This can be done through Reading and Math for sure but unfortunately Science and Social Studies are not taught in my school. I therefore, assist teachers in finding other "avenues" to teach the other content concepts. Through the reading program, MONDO, there is a vast selection of nonfiction texts both science and social studies-based in nature. The assist teachers looking at the Essential Skills and Language Arts frameworks, as well as comprehension strategies that will enable them to teach the reading and writing skills the students need to further acquire. By using an aspect of Social Studies as a concept for my integrated language arts unit, I can use various readings and incorporate different forms of writing assignments for the diverse learners. The use of graphic aids will also be used as support mechanisms to achieve this goal. I learned that the reading and writing processes are similar. The first steps for both involve activating prior knowledge and setting a purpose. This will be important in introducing the students to the social studies content I want them to learn.
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