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.