What
surprised me in this text was how much time the students spent on reading. The
students started off taking two or three books home a night and ended the year
taking ten or twelve books by the end of the year. The books were probably not
long, but it's still hard to imagine a group of kids who like reading so much
that they'd spend so much of their out of class time doing it. I have friends
who read a lot and I know my mom and I can spend hours reading a book, but I consider
us outliers amongst other people who feel they have better things to do besides
reading. So when a teacher can get a whole class to pick up voracious reading I
must say I am impressed.
"Her belief that all her
students were fundamentally authors contributed to an overall atmosphere of
excitement, perhaps even a magical enthusiasm about writing." Young
children have so much to tell us, even if we don't always have time to listen
to them. To teach that they can enjoy telling us those things in written words
has many advantages. One is that once they have written those words down they
can go back over them and see how they have improved. They can also think about
their thinking by going over what they wrote. Maier’s method for Co-Authoring
was interesting, fun, and most importantly could be imitated by other
instructors. I enjoyed how the students were able to chip in with the story and
catching certain words, like working, to put on their list of –ing words. That kind
of attentiveness lets you know that the students are paying attention and that
they are able to understand past lessons.
A really
nifty rule that this text showed me that I could implement in my class was
"read to three then me." It gets the students to show off their work
and have it peer reviewed. I also think that it would help improve students
grammar and spelling by comparing their own writing with each other and having
the teacher help at the end, which is another rule that I enjoyed in the text.
The teacher didn't correct for mistakes until after the students had finished
their work. This gets the students in the habit of proofreading their work and
also getting all of their ideas out so that they have plenty to write with.
Sometimes as writers we get so caught up in what is the right word or how the
scene should progress, but good writers rarely ever get it down right the first
time. They have to go over their work and ask themselves if anything is
missing, is there enough detail, does the story make sense, and other such
questions. I agree with the premise that students should be this involved in
being the author. Getting the students to see the joys of reading from the
author’s view point is a wonderful teaching tool and gets them to practice
important skills in a way that they can enjoy. I will definitely try to implement
the ideas that this text has brought to me in my future classroom.
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