Bird By Bird by Anne Lamontt

Anne Lamontt writes on page 103 in her book, Bird By Bird, "If you find that you start a number of stories or pieces that you don't ever bother finishing, that you lose interest or faith in them along the way, it may be that there is nothing at their center about which you care passionately. You need to put yourself at their center, you and what you believe to be true or right."

I identified a great deal with this passage. It created a bridge for me from my experience as an artist and the struggles I have to the less understood struggles I have when writing. There are many times I will be working on multiple paintings at once and sometimes leave a painting alone face-up against a wall (I don't want to have to look at anymore) for months before I work on it again. Usually I don't work on that particular painting for awhile because I can't figure out what is wrong, and why I don't like it. Lamontt gave me the idea that I may not like this painting because there is not enough of myself, my ideas and beliefs in it.

Maybe this is why writing has always been a challenge for me. It is hard for me to put myself in my writing so when I do write creatively or not, the writing to me seems very contrived and incomplete. I need to do what I do when I paint; give the passage a break and come back with new perspective and the idea that I am going to put more of myself in it. Is this really what I want to say? What I believe? What exists for me?

With concerns to teaching, I think it would be very beneficial to my students to know that I struggle too and how I deal with those struggles. Also I would want to be able to give them the time to not be happy with their writing, walk away for a bit, and come back with new motivation to put more of themselves in it. Is this possible? If I'm teaching language arts for 50 minutes a day to 6-7 different groups of students is it possible to let them set it aside and come back to it next time? Or if I'm teaching 4th grade and we only actually have 4 hours of teaching time from transitions, specialists, lunch and recess and a need to teach math, science, arts, social studies, health, and other aspects of literacy besides just writing.

I think my answer to this dilemma of time is interdisciplinary teaching, where two subjects are taught at once. For example maybe after studying the planets and researching one, each student will write a creative story using aspects of their planet about what life is like on their planet. In this way I am combining their knowledge of science in a certain subject area with their skills of writing. Awesome! Even more, what if we make a class wiki or the students made their stories on a classroom blog (only if available through the school district server of course). Now there is technology too and way more excitement and engagement without being too contrived.

In the end I think it would be important to help students realize that the writing process is not something that comes easy or is quick, it takes time and dedication to an overall idea and belief. Whether the belief is policy on health care or that there are martians who swim on Neptune in a society similar to that of the story of Atlantis, students need to be able to feel that their writing is not something I as a teacher have contrived for them to do but is creatively their own!

Babies' literacy development!?

Babies May Pick Up Language Cues in Womb

NPR had a story today about babies and their tone when crying. It seems we start to develop language and perhaps literacy skills as early as inside the womb. Sweet! The study linked above studied German and French babies crying and found that french babies have a high pitch at the end where as German have a low pitch indicative of the native language spoken by the parents. Wow! The study points out that crying is not linguistic but that babies are able to echo the acoustic sounds they hear either in utero or very early on after birth. Amazing! I wonder how this then relates to the literacy development of a newborn. Does it play a key role or help language acquisition leading to literacy? The article talked about how it may affect bonding with members of the family as each group liked the pitch known for their language as well. Does it only have social impacts or any really?

Shared Writing in a Dual Language Classroom

In Room 20, which is part of a dual language curriculum, at first glance I thought they used shared writing talked about in Routman. But in further observation I think it is closer to the technique of shared demonstration. The teacher is still bringing the ideas and content to write about and the content is not from the students. But at times the teacher will use their ideas from the story they read together in a read aloud form but again the teacher picked the book not the students. And fore example when it come time to write the summary of the book they read they do it independently using the main ideas they came up with as a group to help them if they want. They do not write the summary out together. These activities seem to be somewhere in between shared demonstration and shared writing.

I wonder if literacy was done in a shared writing form especially during the afternoon and mornning when it is taught in something other than the students native language, if it would help students more than the shared demonstration. Which is better shared demonstration or shared writing? It seems to me that both are good and that shared writing could be done as part of the shared demonstration in Routman’s Optimal Learning Model. In this way the shared demonstration because more meaningful to students because the students bring the ideas and content instead of the teacher. This in my opinion would make the shared demonstration less artificial and more applicable for students.

A Writing Check List

In the text, Writing Essentials, by Regie Routman (2005), she shares a list of twelve writing essentials for all grade levels which in my opinion could be retitled as Twelve Ways to Improve Critical Thinking and Critical Communication. By critical thinking I mean making decisions in an informed, educated and thought out manner. By critical communication I take critical thinking one step further in meaning by the idea that what is critically thought out should also be communicated in a similar manner.

When Routman says things like, "present ideas clearly with a logical well organized flow", "create engaging leads" and "satisfying endings", and "write for a specific reader and a meaningful purpose", I think of the idea that education should help students improve critical thinking and decision making. Why should teaching writing not help develop critical thinking and communication as well? In my opinion these essentials only help support one of the main reasons behind literacy development; to be an active member in society.

Also I completely agree that all of her essentials can be taught at any grade level but in a progressive manner. The degree to which a senior in high school can be responsible by Routman's definition for one's own writing, may be higher than that of a kindergartner. That's okay in my mind. Just as applying "correct conventions and form" may be more of a sought after goal in sixth grade than in first grade. But in both grades both essentials can be used and improved. The level of independence may change but not the writing essential behind the instruction.

The question in my mind is not can these essentials work for all grades. They can. But when do some essentials really become essential? When is it not ok for a student to misspell words, or not be interested in writing and would rather do a performing arts piece to communicate? And the really problem comes when a student does not like to write? As as the teacher have to figure out a way to literally steal their interest. That to me is harder than teaching these twelve writing essentials at all grade levels.

Creativity in Schools

Check this out! It is about 20 minutes long but very thought provoking.

Precommunicative Spellers

My kindergarten buddy D is a very active young boy. When looking at D you can just see the wheels in his head turning around and around. He wrote a note on the back of a picture for me that if I remember correctly looked like this nIcEToMEETYA. When D wrote nice to meet ya, I think most if not all letters where capitalized without any spaces between them and all the same size letters throughout his writing. In another sample of writing he wrote, “HOWDOYOULIKEOURSCHOOL?” with help from me on spelling or finding words he wanted around the room and then writing them. He seems to be a precommunicative speller in that their is no spacing in between words but other than that he doesn't show any other of the characteristics of a precommunicative speller: mock letters mixed with real letters, pictures more visible than writing, same letter repeated, writing randomly around the page. When D uses resources around the room to spell how close is that to invented spelling? Is it a step before?

In relationship to his writing D seems to be ahead in his reading. We read, "The Giving Tree" and when I asked questions about it his answer showed comprehension of the story. He also did not just repeat words and phrases or paraphrase when he read the "long parts" which he specifically asked to read.

The progressive and relationship of writing to reading is very interesting to me. It seems similar to the chicken and the egg question in that when I ask myself which comes first it seems they both support the other. I am looking forward to the reading assessment to see if my observations will be supported or not. And just to add another level of mystery and consideration for myself as I was leaving on Tuesday D held up his Hh card and proceeded to say don't forget your a Hh and with me, as he made the /h/ sound as he held up his card.

Why Literacy?

I would argue that literacy is linked with the development of critical thinking skills. Literacy in my opinion is not just knowing how to read but making choices from what you are reading; comprehension. A certain level of understanding and comprehension needs to be reached to make choices from reading. Some might say being able to decipher from fact and fiction or at the very least questioning what we read as being fact or fiction is a needed skill in our society.

A shift from learning to read to reading to learn should be made in education after students know how to read. Reading to comprehend what the author is saying is I think the first step, then being able to agree or disagree in an informed way is the next.

Policy in our country is at a pinnacle of change or could be. To help students become active citizens in society as a teacher, I will have to be able to teach them to decipher the massive amounts of information available now as fact or fiction and how to make informed decisions.

This set of skills just enforces, in my opinion, why it is important to have student autonomy in the classroom at all levels. So students can begin to make decisions and know that their actions have reactions for not just themselves.