This weeks readings were very insightful. The idea of having structure and routines in their writing workshops is vital to the success of the workshop. I've seen how routines can make things that look crazy and chaotic but they are really organized and structured. When I asked my teacher how does it work and how does she get her students to understand what to do about getting water after recess she replied it's "organized chaos". I can imagine it taking the first week of school to get the system engraved into the student's minds. She also showed that she constantly changes the routine if something doesn't work to better fit the condition of the class at that time. These traits and qualities also occur in the classroom during instruction.
The five outlined ways to do things in the readings are also shown in the classroom during instruction. Since writing instruction was not observed in detail this week (due to an assembly and media center time) for the two days I was present, I really have not seen how the writing process and the curriculum taught by my MT really works. I'm interested to see this in action this week after reading this chapter. I will note that my teacher allows her students to grade book reports in front of the class while they all tell why the project and paper should get the grade that they do. She does allow them to select from a wide list of projects but I haven't decided if that's a good thing or not yet.
Pulling students together for whole group discussion on a project or writing or poem (as in chapter 13) would be a great solution for the "problem" above. This allows the students to see how the project should be done without letting them critique each others work in front of the entire class. This can avoid any embarrassing moments that the children may experience. The idea of the projects slightly fit along the same lines of the show and tell section in the readings also. Children learn when they can make connections to things and allowing them to learn from each other through whole class discussion will allow them to make those personal connections that will hopefully allow the material to stick in their minds.
Interesting description of communal grading. Huh. Not sure what to make of that. My initial reaction was negative but I'll be interested to hear how your observations of this go. I like communal sharing and response. I'm not a big fan of grading in general - but is there some kind of agreed upon rubric? How do the kids like this? How do they handle it?
ReplyDeleteIt will probably take a few weeks to get routines fine tuned - some say more weeks than that. (See Wong's First Days of School for more on this.) I like that the routines can still be revised and tweaked to make them more efficient.
Looking forward to hearing more about writing in the coming weeks...