My teacher this year would please Routman a lot more than probably any teacher I've ever worked with before, but that being said, I still see many of the tactics that Routman criticizes in my classroom now. Routman would probably have the most problem with my teachers integration of basic skills and the lack of her whole-to-part-to-whole concept. My teacher gives instruction on things like paragraph organization and making sure there is a topic sentence before she releases the kids to write a prompt. Routman does not believe in specific skill instruction to begin with. Routman envisions a classroom where the students are given an authentic context and a purpose to their writing. The tasks should be meaningful to the students and something they can take pride in when they complete them, such as writing advice for parents on a specific topic. Routman's idea of paragraph instruction would be to have the students write their paragraph and then after work go through it with them and show the student how some of the sentences go together because they are all about the same topic. My teacher does not give the students tasks that have an audience the students must address their writing to, which helps to give the students a sense of purpose. She also gives them writing prompts that are formulaic with somewhat specific requirements. I have not seen enough of ELA to know the direction that my teacher is headed in exactly, but I am eager to see if my teacher handles things the way that Routman would like it to be. Such as targeting the specific skills the student is lacking only when that student reaches a point at which that instruction is necessary and natural. Routman is adamant that by following this method all of the required standards and more will be easily covered throughout the course of the year.
A couple last things that I would like to see my teacher do more of that Routman would definitely encourage is testing the students to see if they understand the purpose of tasks and using whole-class sharing. Routman advises teachers to say things like, "Tell me why we are doing this and why it is important?" I think this is a good assessment of oneself to make sure ones students find the value. After writing a piece, it sounds beneficial to me for the students to help each other learn by going over what is good and what could use improvement in each others' writing. I just wonder if this would really work without humiliation.
The part of me that grew up using very structured ideas of writing is having a very hard time accepting Routman's idea of whole-to-part-to-whole writing. I have a feeling that my mentor teacher would appreciate the ideas that Routman expresses, however the writing lessons/activities I have seen this year are truly based upon writing in a journal. She has not set any guidelines for their writing besides that what they write needs to be true.
ReplyDeleteThe free-writing part of me is encouraged by Routman's ideas! Writing with a purpose is more encouraging to students than writing to receive a grade, or writing to be done with the assignment. I know that many of my students would benefit from this idea of writing instruction.
I also completely agree with Routman, when he says that teachers should say things like, "Tell me why we are doing this and why it is important?" If a student can find the value in a lesson or task, you know you've found a winning topic. In regards to your questioning if peer review would work without humiliation, I really believe that it would. Teachers would not be able to just ask the students to switch papers or journals with a partner--they should first go over respecting their peers, giving helpful tips or ideas, etc. I believe that most, if not all, of my students would be very respectful of each other if I chose to use peer review/sharing.
I think you make a very valid point in how can you find a balance between encouraging whole-to-part-to-whole yet still giving instruction to help guide the students to where they should be. As you’ve pointed out this is more easier said then done. Most students the second they begin writing in school are prompted on what to write and told that there are specific ways of doing things; such as Routman examples of punctuation, spelling, and handwriting. This I think is where changes should be made to help students become the kind of writers Routman discusses. In my classroom and along with the other 4th grade classrooms in our building do writers work shop. During this time students are asked to write whatever they want as long as it’s at least a page long. They’re allowed to sit wherever they want that’s comfortable for them and just write for about 30 minutes. During the first writers workshop I was shocked that students were allowed to always write about whatever their hearts desire was as long as it was a personal narrative. I had never had this type of opportunity while I was in elementary school. While some students struggled coming up with ideas, the majority used their time to write. It blew my mind. They then keep what they write in their writer’s notebooks and are only graded on if they have 4 writings a week. By shifting the focus to the students writings and ideas makes for better quality writing. Students aren’t necessarily worried about proper spelling and grammar but rather on the meaning.
ReplyDeleteRoutman also discusses having students take pride in their writing. Something I think tends to get overlooked. Students are more likely to remember critiques about a writing they spent time on and actually cared about, again bringing in how influential quality can be for a students’ writing. This is again something that I’ve seen during writer’s workshop. With students permission their writing is put on the ELMO and the class discusses stars and wishes aka what’s good about it and what they could improve on. Further making more of in impact on students writing. You questioned that this might bring up feelings of humiliation but if structured right students can learn from their mistakes. My teacher did a good job working up to this by discussing what are and are not acceptable ways of discussing their peers writing. While we’ve only ever done this as a class eventually they will do this as partners once they become comfortable with it.
I completely agree with your thoughts on Routman’s strategy of teaching writing in the classroom. I would love to change up on writing is done in my classroom from the traditional mini lessons to this much more meaningful instruction Routman describes in which the students are truly able to connect with their writing in and out of the classroom. After reading this chapter I found myself wanting to focus on Writing Workshop for my 10 lesson unit plan but as you stated it will be tough to get this new way of teaching writing workshop through to traditional teachers, parents and principals. At this point I am not completely sure how my mentor teacher would react to me taking over the Writing Workshop and changing up the teaching in such a drastic but beneficial way in my opinion. This is something I really need to think about but at the same time don’t want to step on any toes and get my mentor teacher thinking I believe his way of teaching writing is not the most effective. As Routman discusses in great detail his dislike for very specific parts of instruction in the basics of structure of sentences, paragraphs etc. This is what my teacher finds to be very important. From the beginning of teaching writing workshop my teacher began with focusing on what a sentence should look like, with a period, capital, subject and verb. Then stemmed out into paragraph structure and onto whole story structure. This is not at all what Routman feels is important to focus on as you said as well your teacher finds to be very important. The most important thing I believe Routman focuses in on within the writing process in class instruction is having the students write about something that is truly meaningful to them. Something they care about and take pride in, not simply a prompt the teacher writes on the board and all 25 students are to go write about. That is something I do not see in my classroom and believe would be important to implement. The students will feel better about what they are doing, their writing, and themselves if they are writing about things they feel are important and meaningful and will overall make for better writing pieces for all students.
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