During my reading of chapter 1 in the Best Practices of Writing Instruction I compared the ways in which I teach to the different ideas proposed by the author. The whole time I was reading I was asking myself, do I teach this way or are there things in which I need to change. I noticed that the mentioned traits of and effective classroom seemed true to real world situations. For example, the chapter mentioned effective teachers don’t only look at the child’s work and put it off to the side. They will conference with the student, correct the papers and make the students rewrite their final drafts, and even use peer editing in order to strengthen student writing. I also could see (in my classroom) the effect of displaying writing in the hallway. We are required to display new writings each month. Although I do have much room to improve my teaching of writing I did notice how my students seemed to want their writing to be neater (whenever I taught first grade). The principal would write us little notes telling us how she loved our writing in the hallway. I would read this to the kids and they would glow. This year I have been unpleasantly surprised at the ability of fourth grade writing. I thought they would be much more advanced than they seem to be. Maybe next week will be better.
Another trait that can be seen in an effective classroom is engagement. The students must be engaged in what they are doing. They don’t need to be handed a worksheet and given thirty minutes to complete the work. Some will finish early and some will lazily not finish at all. The teacher must be engaged as well as the students. The classroom teacher needs to be excited about what he/she is teaching. Students can tell how their teacher feels about certain subjects. Teachers must also know how to appropriately model the subject (type of writing) in which is being learned. I also loved how the chapter discussed an effective classroom does not have discipline problems. I do agree that a strong teacher can control her classroom. However, there are just some cases in which a teacher is going to have to stop to discipline a child. There may be a child who will not become engaged even if the teacher stands on her head.
Students will show progression in their writings if they are engaged. They will eventually write better paragraphs with fewer mistakes. Most engaged writers can easily spell sight words and spell non sight words using their phonetic skills (unless they haven’t been taught phonics). Those writers will also be able to have legible handwriting. They are motivated to do their best work. Not all students will be motivated but as teachers we can try our best to engage our students.
