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Post your thoughts about the reading. Try to identify what made you think, what you struggled with, and what you'll take away from the reading. Then reply to two other students.

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Every student has a story to tell. Allowing students to write their story helps to develop their voice as a writer. Narrative writing is also very engaging for students, so they are more likely to continue to edit a personal narrative versus other forms of writing. The authors created a writing map and called each phase a "lap." Lap one is short memories, lap two crafting one scene, lap three crafting several scenes, lap four crafting a story. The author's believe "multiple laps around the narrative track" will build strenth with narrative writing (140). Narrative writing can be crafted in many forms such as a short memoir or a quick write.

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It makes a lot of sense why the authors placed such an emphasis on narrative writing. Every person has a story, so we all have the ability to craft a narrative, regardless of our writing talent. It's ironic that the author's chose narrative writing as their first focus, simply because the narrative typically takes a back seat in most standards-driven classrooms. While writing a narrative is in our standards, it is the only major piece of writing that is not assessed on the state assessment. We focus heavily on explanatory/informative and argumentative writing because our students will face those challenges at the end of the year. A big point that the authors make is that narrative writing is a key to building students up as writers. I focus on narrative structure early in the year because it helps them understand our literary standards from a flipped perspective. Once we have the ability to understand concepts from different angles, it's more probably that we build a deeper understanding.

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In our BLT session on 1/18/24 Dom had mentioned that Chapter 6 was a tough read.  His comments intrigued me enough to dive in and turn some pages later that night to see what Six had to offer.

I think the biggest take away I had was about the complexities of writing and balancing creativity and originality vs formulaically.  As someone who enjoys writing and constantly tries to polish my communication skills, I think sometimes the curriculum does not help our students learn to develop original ideas or share them accordingly. Amplify seems to have a lot of prescribed formulas that may increase our test scores, but dampens creativity in our students' narrative writing. Fortunately for Briar, we have the best teachers leading our kids in reading and writing.

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It was powerful to me to see how the author were able to pull out emotional experiences of their students in their writing. The process of one event being written about, and then expanding on it by creating one scene and then adding dialogue made sense. The question of time continued to enter my head. How do English teacher find the time to give each written assignment the time it needs to provide quality feedback? Two parts that struck me in this sections were on p. 148-149. The part about if students know their work is being shared, the effort goes up. I agree. I know when I tell students we will be presenting or posting I do see more effort. Even if it is just a simple gallary walk within the classroom to share. The second was the quote "Don't be tempted to give lots of directions. Let them write". I think as teachers we need to allow their creativity to shine. Let them come up with how to present or share. If I give an example, I tend to get cookie cutter projects, if I let them choose, I am often surprised by at least one or two that come up with something I wasn't even thinking of.

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"We are at our best, when we are our most creative." Doris Lessing

This is so true. Every student does have a story to tell. By reading their stories, they become more than just our students. I love learning more about each individual child and their character. This is a great way to start the school year. One of the activities I really enjoyed looking at was when the students sketched an outline of their bodies and mapped in their scars. Also, I noticed that they used a lot of poetry to start their narrative writing. For example, when reading the poem "Hands", they would have the students sketch a hand and fill it with things that they have touched and meant something to them. After reading this chapter, I see the importance of narrative writing. We don't always emphasize the importance of narratives because state tests look more at informational and persuasive. But, narratives should be used in the classroom because they are great ways to see our student's creative sides and help them become better writers.

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The big takeaway for me was the self image Quick write. What an incite you can have on a student when they share where they have been through their beliefs shaped by their experience. This allows the students to share their human side with the teacher and maybe the teacher shares with them as well. We all have scars and some run deep but we all can heal and grow from the pain and experience. What a way to grow as a person writing through personal experiences and growth or as some would say Life Lessons.

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A few takeaways from chapter seven "INFORMATIONAL".

The author's message conveyed throughout this reading was to draw students in by relating their interest and technology to their writing assignment. They reference their writing process through LAPS. LAPS are to create interest in a topic and then segue into a final product.

LAP 1  draws their attention to writing by summarizing infographics allowing students to briefly highlight what they learned and also dive into misrepresentations or misconstrued information. These infographs are chosen carefully to help frame the critical question but a wide variety of sources are used.

From the info Infographs the students have now developed an art for quick writing and move into Lap 2: Writing a Review. Still focusing on student points of interest, students pick their desired topic.  Once their pieces were written, they created the piece into a headline article.

LAP 3 (Digital project)

We've adapted to one- on-one computers, but this has always been a piece many of us have missed. Through time restraints, pushing standards, curriculum, state testing format, different platforms, and/or inexperience with technology have missed out on the opportunity to showcase our students in their own digital language.

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This chapter I felt it applied more to what I do with science. There were two things that grabbed my attention. 1- the comment on how much our students rely on visual things(p. 170). Yes they do. I remember reading manuals and searching encyclopedias. Our students google and youtube, everything is seen. By not having to search for information by reading our students' writings is affected. This really opened my eyes to a reason why. 2- the laps. Lap on summarizing graphs. That is hard for students but something we work on through our warm ups and lessons. Jen and I have found our students struggle on the test with this and we are working hard to expose them more to this concept. Lap 2- writing a review. I apply this when our student read about a topic in science. What facts can you pull out and how do you feel about it? Share your opinion. Student often give the basics, " I liked it or I didn't like it". We are trying to pull more from them, "What did you like or not like.... expand more" With what they are doing in English this year, I have seen some changes. Lap 3- Crafting a digital project- this is where the students want to first and just google slide it. The problem is they want to to copy and paste. Teaching them to put it into their own words is a struggle. They want it done fast and easy and putting your own words into it takes time and effort. Even with my STEAM students I see growth from the start of their projects to the end. There is work to be done but they are making more of an effort.

Last comment that struck me "Improvement comes from doing poorly first"(P. 182). As a coach and teacher I see this all the time. We are not experts on day one. I get such a burst of energy when I see improvement in kids, especially ones that struggled first and didn't give up.

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Carrozzino & Moody: Chapter 8 (Argumentative)

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Carrozzino & Moody: Chapter 8 (Argumentative)

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This chapter echoed a big talking point that we try to get across to the kids when we write argumentative pieces. As teachers, we often get the question, "When are we going to use this?" We usually bring this point up before it's even asked with argumentative essays. On page 189 it states, "Argument is the primary skill essential to our success as citizens, students, and workers." The authors stress this quote and feel that argument is a key component needed to create a critical thinker. Examining evidence, questioning sources, clearly reasoning, and adequately supporting a claim are skills that are used in multiple areas of life. They build better decision-makers and make us less prone to being taken advantage of or manipulated.

The authors also do a nice job of explaining the difference between persuasive and argumentative skills. The two terms (persuasion and argument) are often used interchangeably. They stress that propaganda and lies are more associated with persuasion while facts and logic are the key components of argument. This is a helpful perspective in differentiating between the two. As students work with argumentative writing, the authors pointed out how they need to use deeper reading skills to be effective. Instead of simply looking at "What does the text say?", they need to question things like "What does the text not say? How is it said? and What influence does this have on the reader?" (page 193). This form of thinking when reading will obviously pay dividends in other areas, specifically enhanced comprehension.

Another cool idea that came from this chapter was one of their strategies for finding solid argumentative topics. The use of "The Ethicist" column from The New York Times was an interesting way to put some thought-provoking topics in front of their students. It may be a good idea for the American Institute of Research (AIR) to give this a try (enough Dust Bowl already).

A final point that resonated from this reading was how the authors commented that argumentative writing helped their students' voice emerge as writers (page 197). We can agree with this statement. Discussion about debates and tough issues usually brings out a lot more engagement from students, and we begin to hear how they really feel. Some of the expression problems they may usually have, seem to dissolve in these instances.