Writing to Learn Blog

I learned some valuable insights about these writing strategies. All five strategies were new to me and I can see the benefits with using each one. The first writing strategy I worked with was the Metacognitive Journal using the Vacca and Vacca article. This was a great way for me to create a list of what I thought was important. For example when they state, “When teachers integrate writing and reading, they help students use writing to think about what they will read and to understand what they have read.” I think this is so important because teachers need to see how these two academic areas are interwoven.  To ensure that students comprehend the text they can use writing to map out their ideas and thoughts along the way. There are several metacognitive journals to choose from. In my classroom, I would like to incorporate the activity sheet that says, “I got stuck when…, so I…, I learned…” This would be an activity I would use with my higher guided reading groups on a complex text. This activity would open the doors for conversation to take place about what reading strategy they could be using when they get confused about something in the text. They can also help one another to think about what they can do to help with their understanding of the reading. This would support the students in becoming strategic readers.

                                                       

I think the GIST strategy is a helpful approach to having students think about what they have read. The idea of this strategy is for students to divide a text into smaller parts. The students read the first selection and write a summary using 20 words or less, then after reading the second section they must write another 20 word or fewer in a summary. This continues until all sections have been read. The students’ goal is to then write a summary of the entire text in 20 words or less. I believe this would be a great approach to reading and writing in intermediate, middle, and high school. This would have the students think about the important aspects of the writing piece in order to write their extremely short summary.  After reading the Writing Next article the most important theme to me was the different recommendations the authors Steve Graham and Dolores Perin provided.  I used the GIST strategy using 20 words to summarize the article. It is as follows:  ‘Elements of effective writing: strategies, summarizing, collaboration, goals, processing, sentence combining, prewriting, inquiry, models, process writing approach, and content.’

As Dr. Manderino explained in his webcast, writing to learn allows students to reflect on what they know and the learning that is taking place. With this said, students are able to demonstrate their knowledge and comprehension of the text. I believe that all these writing strategies would encourage students to read at a deeper level and to be active participants in the reading process in order to complete reading activities successfully.

In my first grade classroom, I think good writing is a slow and steady progression throughout the year. The process begins with the students being able to write and not focusing on their writing conventions at this time. As they become more familiar with the writing process, they can then begin to focus on their writing conventions. The last step in the writing process is having students connect the fluidity and mechanics into their independent writing. I think good writing instruction has to include a read aloud, demonstrating valuable skills and techniques. The students need to view authors as mentors. The teacher then needs to model this skill and allow students time to try the skill independently. Writing time also needs to incorporate time for collaboration and conferencing.