Wait a minute…I need to add something here…

I have just re-read my previous blogs back to back, and did not realize how critical I am about myself.  I do think that I am a good teacher overall.  I know that there are areas that I can grow more as an educator.  I do have a healthy self image. So please, don’t contact a local therapist for me yet.    I do have some really good information to share in case you would like to see that I am capable of singing praises as well as singing the blues. 

After assessing my students last week in reading, I am please to report that many of my students have increased their reading ability by at least a year and most have grown as much as 2 years since the last 9 weeks assessment. My middle to high readers are flourishing.  My two lower students have made progress, but these students are also ELL.  I am thrilled to see that both of these students have increased their reading ability.  I am very proud of my readers.  They continue to amaze me daily.

Another bit of good news, my husband and I found out last week that we have been accepted by the adoption agency that we had applied to at the begining of the month.  We passed the first application and are almost finished with the full application.  When we turn that in at the end of the week, we will have to go to a meeting in the spring and then get our home study completed.  Once we have gone through all of those steps, we will be prayerfully waiting to hear about being matched with a birth mother.  We are very excited to have started on this journey.  We have been talking about adoption for the past 4 years and now here we are on the road to welcoming a sweet bundle of joy into our family.  It almost seems like a dream.

I am sorry to have written 2 entries about myself that seem to be such downers.  Wow, what a way to introduce myself to my class and professor.  I really am a fun loving, cheerful person who usually sees the glass as half full.   I was just a little overwhelmed this weekend with some things that have been going on personally.  I just had to put some things into perspective.   I am all better now. 

Wring Instruction in Engaging and Effective Elementary Settings

As I read last week’s article I was challenged to make some changes in not only my classroom, but also personally.  I know that you are your own worst critic, but I can see where I could be … brace yourself (I had to) a Mrs. Jones (collective gasp).  This distresses me.  I have considered one of my teaching strengths to be reading.  I also know that under the auspices of reading fall phonics, spelling, and writing.  I just thought that as reading developed so would the other skills and the students would simply just somehow magically get it.  (Kind of like I just sort of expected to wake up on the morning of my 16th birthday looking just like my Barbie doll.  Imagine my surprise.  I like to call this a growing moment.)I have kind of naively imagined that writing just developed.  I was never formally taught how to write.  Sure I was shown how to do a pre-writing (sketchy story map) and who could forget the ever popular 5 paragraph theme (cringe)  that boxed writers into 5 nice neat paragraphs that would make passing the writing test a possibility.  I can remember being fascinated in the eloquent and imaginative papers that the teachers would read to us to demonstrate what a 4 paper would be.  I also remembered thinking that I would never attain that lofty 4 paper status if the examples were truly what were expected.  (I also had a sneaking suspicion that an author like Beverly Cleary just jotted down something on a really bad day when she had the flu that was unpolished so it could be passed off as a child’s writing.)  With this skewed vision of writing instruction, it is no wonder that I also have a warped vision on how writing should be taught in my own classroom.  That coupled with the fact that I do not see myself as a writer should not be excuses. 

Now I guess that I could lean on my crutches of insecurity and flawed childhood instruction, or I can build a bridge and get over it.  I am a teacher that feels that no matter how many conferences, classes, or collaborative experiences I take part in, there is always room for improvement.  I felt that math was one of my weakest areas.  When I was in middle and high school, I believe if I averaged together all of my math grades I would receive a D.  Math was difficult for me and I always excelled in reading.  (Hence the master’s degree in reading)  In my undergrad career, I constantly heard build on your weakness and make it strength and I also remember hearing that girls typically do not do well in math, so the teacher needed to make math more understandable and enjoyable for girls.  I had to do this for myself first and I am sorry to say that I let my reading slip.

I would like to say that my classroom is a literacy rich classroom.  However realistically I do not think that I can claim that, especially after reading that article.  Yes, I have a great number of books and I am working to increase the number of chapter books that I have. (Coming from a lower grade level, the number of chapter books was sufficient.  That is no longer the case.)   But I have come to realize that while the books are a vital part, I am missing another equally important part, the writing.  Sure I have conditioned myself to believe that if I put up creative posters and displays that show elements of writing that would be enough for a text rich environment.  But deep down inside me I hear a voice that is screaming ‘Christy that is all fine and good, but these students do not care about that text.  It is meaningless to them because they did not create it.’  I guess what it all boils down to is that I need to continue getting over that bridge I build a few paragraphs ago and learn to teach writing complete with all the materials that my students need to be successful.  I think that I have to get over my insecurities about my own writing ability and this fear that I am going to do it wrong and end up messing up my students.  But what I have neglected to think about is that teaching it badly is as bad as not teaching it at all.  The building materials that I need to help me cross the bridge over my personal pity party would be in part this class, and my own writer’s notebook that encourages me to write more and become a better writer to combat these feelings of inadequacy.

Promoting Motivation in Writing

In this week’s reading, I read about motivating students to write.  I have never really seen myself as a writer.  I stumble for just the right words that would evoke a deeper understanding and appreciation for my thoughts and feelings.  However, I find myself falling short of my grandiose plans in a tangle of run-ons and fragments and sprinkled with bad grammar and worse spelling.I know that cliché speech that new teachers hear all of the time… the students will pick up on your personal feelings about a subject and somehow morph your personal dislikes into their personal dislikes.  In other words, don’t show the students you do not like math, they will also come to hate math.  It is not that I don’t like writing; it’s just that I do not feel that I am a great writer; therefore I stay away from it.  Each year I tell parents that I will work with their son or daughter to make them better writers before the writing test.  Each year I fail and vow to better next year.  Unfortunately next year hasn’t come yet.  I kind of compare writing to art.  You need to be creative to be an artist.  The same is true with a writer.  You use all the techniques of line, perspective, and shading to create a picture.  Anyone can use these elements to make a picture, but there is something to say about the way that an artist can use those same elements and make a masterpiece whereas I create a mediocre sketch.  That is how I view writing.   A writer can take the same elements of writing and create an award winning story that inspires, touches, and captivates readers worldwide.  Yet, I use those same elements and find that I create a pretty good liner for a pet’s cage.  This week’s reading has inspired me to think about teaching writing in a different way.    Donald Grave’s article shows me that the students in my class can be great writers; I just need to get over my pity party about my own lack luster writing skills and focus instead on inspiring my students to write authentically about what is going on in their life.  Each one of my students has a voice that should be heard, and I as their teacher should be showing them how to use that voice.

Boscolo and Gelati’s research tells me that I need to ditch the old faithful writing prompts that my students can not relate to.  I also need to really scaffold them in their writing lessons.  I do not put myself or my writing out there for them to see let alone learn from.  Students need to have a reason to write.  Just like with reading and math students need to see a correlation in what they are doing in the classroom to real life that they actually experience.  Writing is the same.  Students need to see that they really can use writing in their everyday life to help them put a voice to a thought or feeling that they are experiencing.