Publish or Perish.... Sounds like LIFE or DEATH...

   I enjoyed this weeks readings because I like to believe that I am a fairly organized individual whom will use the space in my classroom to the fullest. In chapter seven of Wood Ray I liked the section that spoke about the use of space in a classroom for writing workshop. Last semester I was assigned to a first grade classroom and my mentor teacher held writing workshop. During the time for her focus lesson she would have her students come sit in the floor on her rug and she would sit as well. In this classroom it was not as big of a deal for students to move to the floor because this is where she held morning meeting as well. I enjoyed observing her lessons on the carpet because each child truly payed attention to the lesson even though they were not in their regular seats. I noticed in the book that Wood Ray suggested having students switch up who sits where. I am not sure if this is for the older children or if the reason it worked so well with my students is because they are used to sitting on the carpet .But my students never needed direction as to where to sit. Additionally my mentor teacher did allow for her students to sit any where in her room they wanted when working on their notebooks. She believed students needed their own private space to think and work. I completely agree that students should have this freedom to pick where they feel comfortable to write!

   Chapter 8 taught me that writing workshops take time and deep thought to come up with and that using kits can be trouble some. I remember when I was in school one of my teachers had such a kit. Each week we had to pick a topic out of the hat and write a paper about it. That particular year I remember absolutely dreading picking a topic each week for fear that I would get a topic to write about that I would have nothing to relate to. For instance one time I got the topic, “ Write about a time where you, your mom and dad went on vacation”. Yeah... way to make me feel bad that my parents were divorced. I know that it should not have bothered me but if I could have picked my own topics I may have been more likely to write about my favorite vacation with my mom. I hope to foster a writing workshop where students are comfortable to write about things going on in their life. I want them to feel safe to be “real” with their classmates.

   The last chapter... chapter 19 was an interesting chapter. This whole idea of publish or perish troubles me. I read this as either publish your piece or fail. In class I learned that students should feel comfortable to start a piece and either finish it or leave it and start a new. The author makes a good point that students should have a deadline so that they are working towards a goal. However I do not feel it is fair to suggest that every student must finish every piece. I know I just asked you about abandoning a piece because I was at a dead end and could no longer add anything to it. So would it be fair to say I fail because I did not finish that piece or would it be better of me because I may write an even better piece? Such a conundrum and I believe that this is something that I will have to think about...

Ephiphany

   After reading this weeks assigned readings I had an ephiphany.  In high school, my junior year we had to complete a research paper in Enligsh class.  My teacher assigned us a topic a piece and then proceeded to allow us to research it.  After doing some research we started our first draft. When we thought we were getting near finishin our first draft we were aloud to make appointments with her to look over our work so far.  During our appointment she would look over our paper, ask us about the topic and what made us chose the facts we did to put into our paper.  Looking back now I see that she was using this time to look at what we had done with our paper.  I was struggling with citations within the text whether it be from a non fiction book, website, dictonary etc.  During my appointment she taught the how to cite correctly and make a bibliography.  I enjoyed my time I had with my teacher because it was one on one.  No other students were around and I felt that I could be real with her.  I tend to be a shy person so this made it easier for me to open up.  What I mean to say is that this week after reading about conferences it triggered memories for me of high school and my own expereince in a conference.  I do agree that they should be focused on the student but I do not think that the teacher should ignore all of the other students.  I love that the author suggests seeing different people all the time so that everyone gets an opporunity.  What I am not so sure about is not allowing opportunites for students to come to you instead of the teacher always choosing whom to conference with next.  I think I would like a few slots for people who really need to talk their piece over with me and then have the other slots for people I have not seen in awhile.
    Something else that I learned about that intrugied me is this idea of making time to share. I do not normally like to share anything I write or do.  I am a very private person when it comes to sharing things I have written because I know how others ridicule each other behind their backs.  However, I really would like to try the idea of having students share pieces of their work instead of the whole piece.  By having students pick their favorite sentence or paragraph from the text then we all get to see little clips of the big picture.  It makes it kind of exciting if you think about it because you do not know anything more than what is being read.  I imagine I could have picked one sentence from my entries to share and not been too embarrassed.  I plan to use this as an option for people who do no want to share their entire work.
   Lastly I would like to talk about this idea of grading or evaulating.  When I was younger and even in the 1st grade classroom that I worked with last semester there was a place for students to grade themselves.  Children and adults know what they do and do not do.  I think by having this element in evaluation of the work, we as teachers can get a better handle on what students are doing and how well they are doing it.  By this I mean if the work is kind of lower than expected and the student writes that he/she did not work on it very much then we know why the work is of less quality.  In my first grade classroom that I worked with last semester each student was very responsible and honest as to what she/he had completed.  Students were not ashamed to write no I did not do this or no I did not do that because my teacher made an atmosphere with her students as long as they were honest she would not get mad.  I hope to have that kind of patience when I teach.  In turn she allowed them to finish what they did not do in their spare time.  In short I do think it is important to have self evaluation of work in the grading process because it helps hold students accountable for their work.