Writing Instruction Experiences

As I reflect on my writing experiences growing up I believe I was instructed in more of a traditional way. I remember copying my spelling words multiple times in my composition notebook and every day we would have two sentences to correct. We had to copy the sentence and then edit them with a red colored pencil to make it correct. Sometimes punctuation was missing, capitals, or words were misspelled that we had to correct. I also remember a significant amount of time was spent on handwriting practice from learning print, cursive, and even calligraphy. Writing instruction was also traditional. My teachers would give us writing prompts and we had to write a story. Sometimes we would write other genres such as poetry, but usually we were asked to write to a specific prompt, which did not allow room for any creativity.

As a 2nd grade teacher I believe in Process Writing. The school in which I teach at believes in the philosophy of the Comprehensive Literacy Model by Linda Dorn. I use a variety of mentor texts in Language Workshop to teach my students the craft of writing. We have written Fairy Tales, Non-Fiction, Personal Narratives, Poetry, How-To Paragraphs, Persuasive Pieces, and Fiction just to name a few. Within each genre study I use the mentor texts to help teach the genre my students are to write. Between genre studies my students also get to write creatively about any topic they want to. Sometimes they even buddy write. In my Writing Workshop I use my mini-lessons to help model what is expected of my students. As my students write, I also confer with them because it is essential that they get to read their writing a loud and talk through their pieces of writing with someone else; whether it’s with me or another child. Like David and Yvonne Freeman I believe that the Process Writing approach “creates conditions for authentic written responses and helps students express themselves in writing” (2002, p. 29). Furthermore, more than just the teacher views the draft. Child, teacher, and additional peers respond to the drafts that are written. The following link is a website called Writing Fix that I use to help me select mentor texts for mini-lessons in my Writing Workshop. I have also attached a link that was just recently introduced to me. With 21st century learners it is important that we provide students with the opportunity to authentically write using computers too. They can use this kid’s blog to write to their relatives, teachers and classrooms all over the world.

http://writingfix.com/6_traits/voice.htm#mentor_text
http://kidblog.org/home.php