ENTRY #9: Using Writing to think about Genre Project

 As it gets closer and closer to the day my group will be presenting to the class how to teach Biography's, I have been exploring different articles that could be useful to support our presentation. One of the articles that I found and think could be useful combines ideas from Tompkins on the importance of using mentor texts but through a genre study approach. The article "Teaching Memoir In The Elementary School Classroom" by Tara Gibney, really allowed for me to think more deeply about ways I can indulge future students into a genre, and one that can be considered more complex than other genres. There are two big takeaways that I had when reading this article that I thought can be valuable to our presentation. One, the importance of having time during each session to share their writing, this allows for students "opportunities to discuss problems or roadblocks... In addition, knowing that they have an authentic audience with whom to share their work makes the writing meaningful to the students and motivates them to develop and improve their craft." (Gibney, 2012, p. 245). When thinking about how I can portray this as part of our genre presentation, I'm thinking that maybe, we take time after one of our planned activities to discuss what roadblocks our students might have, just as our peers might have had when creating for example a 6 word memoir of themselves. Maybe even provide a slide of ways that we can help our students through the roadblocks they face and also tie it into how knowing our audience when writing memoirs can help, because these are such short significant events in our life, the writer needs to be really honest for this type of writing which can also be tricky for students.

Supporting Tompkins idea the second big takeaway is, the importance of "students need to read the genre to write the genre"(Gibney, 2012 p. 245). The article showed me in a different light how I can use mentor texts as a tool to teach the genre. In the article the Gibney's class uses their different mentor texts to find examples of what a good lead looks like to assist in their own writing of a lead for their memoirs. I found this to be really interesting, I hadn't thought to look at specific sections of the genre such as the lead to understand that it looks different from other genres such as an expository writing. Also if you've ever worked with a student while they are writing their first couple of sentences in their writing it is very obvious how tricky it can be for them to think of ways to grab their audience, instead of just starting their story like "There was a girl who...". This made me think about the other parts of memoirs that are going to be important for the writer to be able to do such as the use of descriptive language in order for the reader to really imagine the memory of the writers. Tompkins mentions that memoirs "...create engaging narratives by developing powerful images, incorporating vivid details..." (p.232).  I'm wondering if maybe during our presentation it would be a good idea to talk about how memoirs, and personal narratives really use their five senses to create the memory. As we talked about last week there are overlapping features in some genres to another. 

References 

Gibney. (2012). Teaching memoir in the elementary school classroom: A genre study

                approach. The Reading Teacher, 66(3), 243–253.

ENTRY #8: "Bless, Address, or Press"

 As I was reading through my peers journal entries this week I found myself particularly intrigued with my peers own experiences with the writing process from a learner to a teacher perspective. Some of my peers seem to have had great memories of using the step by step process that Tompkins has shared with us in the text (Figure 1-1) while others it's bits and pieces. I think the reason I find it so interesting is because I had thought that our experiences would be the same across the state because we all were going through the same grades at the same time and teachers were to be following the same curriculum that is given by the state. However when I was reading I realized how different all of our experiences were in regards to what we really took away. I really reflected on Elise's 1st paragraph in her  Blog Entry #2 . Elise stated "I don't specifically remember the design of a writer's workshop, as illustrated in this week's texts. However, as I dig deep, I can remember aspects of the workshop design." Elise then goes into talking about the drafting and revising stages being the most prominent to her memory and experiences as she went through creating pieces of writings. In comparison my own memories of the writing process mostly reflect the prewriting stage and drafting stage. I remember countless arrays of graphic organizers, used before putting any kind of writing draft together, and then creating the draft using the graphic organizer and just filling in extra sentences to support the ideas. 

What this takes me to is Elise's beginning comment "... what I have learned is reflected in my writing today." I agree with Elise I think that our writing pieces we create today are a reflection of what we took away from our experiences with the writing process in our K-12 instruction. That brings me to address the question, how can we make instruction as teachers that our students are vividly going to remember as they move up in grade levels? There is something that isn't connecting if all of us have memories of parts and pieces of the writing process but not a confident image of the writing process as a whole. Maybe our different memories are a reflection of our teachers not having the confidence when they were teaching writing. In Calkins & Ehrenworth article they raise the idea that "many writing teachers find writing a bit frightening, possibly because they do not often write as adults other than in the service of routine tasks."(2016, p.14).  

I'm curious if Elise notices any gaps or areas of weakness in her writing today because of this. I, myself have started to notice my flaws, I tend to use my first draft when writing without creating a second draft to improve ideas, or concepts. As well as skipping steps such as proofreading in the editing stage. I think that as we're going through the process of learning the writing process through Tompkins eyes we can more noticeable see the gaps and press ourselves as writers to be aware of what we need to do to be successful in our own writing and teaching the writing process to our students. 

Thank you Elise for being so reflective on the writing process it really made me think more deeply about how everyones experience is different and reflects how we write today.  

Reference

Calkins, L. & Ehrenworth, M. (2016). Growing extraordinary writers: Leadership decisions to                         raise the level of writing across a school and a district. The Reading Teacher, 70(1),                      7- 18.

Coon, (2022). Entry 2. Elise C. SP22 618 Blog.

ENTRY #7 Using Writing to Think About the Letter Genre

In preparation this week for our second genre presentation I read the Tompkins chapter 5 personal writing, which included both the genre journals and the genre letter writing. As I was reading I started to think about how these two genres might be confusing for students to differentiate. Journals should be more personal since when you write a journal you're the primary audience for that journal. A teacher might be reading it but it's for your own reflection. I would argue that grammar, and errors don't particularly matter, as Tompkins (2012) supports this idea as well, "Students journal writing is often spontaneous and loosely organized, and it contains more errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation than other types of writing because writers are more focused on ideas" (p.108). Letters should be a more formal type of writing because your audience is very specific, you have a very specific purpose for writing that letter and they're going to be looking at how your writing physical looks "include the date, a greeting, the body and a closing" (Tompkins, p.117). I think that where the confusion could come from if it's not explicitly taught correctly, would be that they're both a type of personal writing. Thinking about this I think a mentor text could be used to compare the two different genre pieces of writing. 

One of the mentor texts I have actually chosen this week, "Dear Mr.Henshaw" by Beverly Clearly seems to combine the two types of genre writings together. I'm wondering if maybe this book could be used in classrooms for students to reflect on how Leigh's (the main character) writing to Mr.Henshaw fits the letter genre and look at the differences when it switches to Leigh just writing a letter as a journal and not sending it. I think I would introduce this book/read the book before I want the students to send a letter to there own author, it can be a great way to talk about what the letter should look like and some ways that Leigh's letter writing doesn't fit how we should write to an author. For example the format of the letter writing matches Tompkins description of date, greeting, body and closing. A way it's more like a journal is Leigh's word choice such as using words like "dumb" (Clearly, p.14), and "mediumest"(Clearly, p.15). I really think that this book could bring about great conversations/discussion about writing a letter and journal writing to help students see the differences. I'd be curious to look into Beverly Clearly thought process when writing Dear Mr.Henshaw, to see if she purposefully combined the two genres of writing. 

References 

Cleary, Beverly. (1983). Dear Mr. Henshaw. New York: W. Morrow