New Jersey Writing Project

I am so excited about taking this class. I have been teaching third grade and will be moving up to fourth grade this year. I have always felt that reading and writing should be integrated into every subject area. Integrating reading was not a struggle I had, but the writing is a different story. It was easy enough to integrate, but teaching the writing process was not my strength. I have never really received much training on how to teach writing.

When it came to teaching writing I really relied on someone else. Our ESL teacher, Becky, is wonderful. She comes into my classroom for 45 minutes a day to co-teach with me. I pretty much just stepped back and let her take over the writing portion because I felt very insecure. She definitely treated it as a process and something that was always in the works. Since she was only there a short time each day we were always going back to things we had already started. I love that she shared with my students that she is dyslexic. When she would write and model for the students sometimes they would catch her mistakes. She always responded so gracefully and said, "Well, that's what editing is for." Her example to my kids, especially those who are dyslexic was that it is okay to make mistakes. I think that really helped to instill confidence in their writing.

When I was told I would be moving to fourth grade I knew I needed to attend training on how to teach writing as a process. That seems funny now that I'm in this class. Yes, certainly I need this training, but why did I think I had to be a fourth grade teacher before I could go to this type of training. What a disadvantage for our students if we wait until they are in fourth grade to really start teaching them to write effectively. We need teachers of all ages from Kindergarten to high school to know how to teach writing in a fun and engaging way.

Although it is never too late, I do wish I had taken this training sooner. It is an incredible eye opener. I'm only one week in and I already feel so much more equipped just with the pre-writing strategies we have learned. There are a lot of trainings I leave wondering how it applies in the classroom, but not this. My mind is going crazy with ideas. I really cannot wait to get back and start using them.

I took a class last summer on science journaling. it was a week long session looking at how to create interactive, science journals. I gathered a lot of great information from that class, but still I was not as effective as I could have been. My students used them to journal and draw pictures, but if I had known more about the writing process they could have learned so much more from it. However, after taking the New Jersey Writing Project training I feel I will be much more effective and will be able to apply it to all subject areas.

A lady in the class mentioned how important it is for the students to know the vocabulary. I believe one of the most important ways to reinforce vocabulary is by journaling. Like I said earlier, I feel silly for not taking this class sooner. For someone who believes so much in integrating writing into every area you would think I would have jumped at the chance to take this class. I guess part of it is I did not know about it until this year, but I also did not seek anything out. I think, especially for elementary teachers, that we need to dispel the myth that fourth grade is when they "learn" writing. Why do we think that is the magic year? We cannot wait that long to start teaching writing as a process. It should be something they see and experience every year.

In the book Acts of Teaching, that we are reading in our class, we see how important it is to use technology with our students because that is the world they are growing up in. How easy would it be for them to blog about what they are learning? Or maybe we can give them the option. Do they want to write it in their journal or blog about it? This way I am giving them the power instead of feeling like I am forcing them to do something. They are choosing what they want to do.

One of our presenters is an high school english teacher. She mentioned struggling to get her students excited about a book. So, one day she told them to take out their cell phones. Of course she had to reassure them that she was not going to take them. She told them to text someone (not in school) a question that related to the story. It was like a light switch. After that they were ready to go. Using something they enjoy is a great way to get them interested or motivated. We have to learn to embrace the technology or we are going to lose our students. They live in a fast paced society. So, why do we think a sit and listen type of classroom will be effective? We have to make the shift. Our students need to be active learners or they will just tune us out. Do we not as adults do the same thing? How many of us have sent a text or email during a meeting or presentation? Probably most of us. So, why do we expect our students to stay focused and on task if we are up there just talking or giving commands?