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In the Webcast they talk about how there isn't a "best way to teach writing" if that is the case how should we approach trying to find the best way to teach our El students? Should the way we teach them be focused on what fits them best personally?

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In the Chapter 7 reading about writing strategies, the author states "if students are to learn they must write." This stands out as when I volunteered at the George Global studies school in Brockton I was in a class where French and English were taught as most students there spoke French at home and to help them learn English whenever they learned a new word the teacher had them write it down and repeat it out loud.

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"only 28% of fourth graders, 31% of eighth graders, and 24% of twelfth graders performed at or above a proficient (i.e., competent) level of writing achievement for their respective grade level (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003)." This quote is from the ccess Center (2008) Teaching writing to diverse populations

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Connection to the Class - Ashley Mitchell

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Connection to the Class - Ashley Mitchell

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After reading "Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations," I was able to connect the article to this class. The content that we have discussed throughout the year involves the different ways that we, as teachers, can help ELLs in the classroom. This article also followed that idea and provided us with more knowledge on how to help ELLs.

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In middle school, maybe around 6th grade, we all wrote our own poems. After writing them, the teachers selected a few and the ones that were selected would share them to an audience for a program called "Poetry Out Loud."

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How has the classroom changed in terms of writing? Do classrooms still only focus on spelling and writing, or do students have the opportunity to use writing more meaningfully?

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"A significant number of students perform well below the proficient level of writing achievement for their grade level (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003). The reasons for this are varied and complex. The number of exemplary writing programs are limited, and even when available they are often not adequate to meet the needs of students with disabilities" (Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations).

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Connection to Class or Other Course-Molly

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Connection to Class or Other Course-Molly

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Having this skill of journaling and organizing has helped me to stay on top of my assignments and activities in all my other classes and clubs. It keeps me in touch and helps hold me accountable for when I need to get things done or be somewhere at a certain time.

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In high school, one of my English teachers used to have us spend the first five to ten minutes of class either writing our thoughts, worries, plans, etc. for the week so we were prepared for what was coming ahead. This always seemed to help me feel and become more organized and at ease with my week and this is something I continue to do at the beginning of my week every week.

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Teachers have to balance so many different tasks all the time and often all at once. Something that may be helpful for teachers is seeking psychological advice on how to balance emotions, tasks, and goals, and have them be completed without burnout. Teachers also use planners and journals for their "school life", but they may also helpful in their personal lives too.

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Do you believe that there are specific trainings, courses, or programs that all teachers need to take in order for them to feel more prepared in handling pressures in the classroom? Is there any advice for us as future educators to help us to avoid becoming overwhelmed with this struggle?

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"Unfortunately, many teachers feel ill-equipped to handle these competing pressures, in part because they lack the prerequisite pedagogical knowledge, instructional capabilities, and valued resources for teaching writing, and in part because writing curricula, which exert a strong influence on teachers' writing instruction, tend to be underdeveloped and misaligned with other curricula (Troia & Maddox, 2004)." (Access Center 2008).

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While reading this article I thought of education several times. Specifically when it discusses the planning skills for teachers I thought of our lesson plans. These skills include:  "the teacher should first model how to use the strategy, then give students an opportunity to cooperatively apply the strategy while producing group papers, and finally let students practice using the strategy while writing individual papers." I thought of all the supports the student needs in lesson plans, and the assessment of students finally practicing the skill at the end, as mentioned above. I like how I am now seeing the process of teaching due to the lesson plans we have worked on.

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When I  was a substitute teacher this past winter I  observed a lot of issues around writing. I could tell some students were having trouble and I did not know which difficultly it was, either: knowledge, skill, and motivation difficulties. With this information I  now know from this class, I now know how to act in these situations.

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Students with writing problems can experience knowledge difficulties (limited vocabulary, less awareness of good writing, and poorly organized knowledge), skill difficulties (do not plan before or during writing, do not analyze writing, limited ability to self regulate thoughts), and motivation difficulties (lack persistence, feel helpless, and fail to balance performance goals and mastery goals)

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The article mentioned how important establishing routines is for implementing strong writing instructions: what do you do if your routine is disrupted?

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There are many different forms of writing for students to practice their writing skills. Whether it is academic writing or creative writing, students practice their grammar and spelling skills while writing. One spelling practice mentioned in the video is inventive spelling, in which students write words with letters to make the sounds that they hear in the word. This is an important step for students to make in their writing, which means they begin to understand which letters go together and the sounds that letters make.

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"Still in other classrooms, virtually no time is devoted to writing instruction or activities... for students with disabilities who tend to develop or exhibit chronic and pernicious writing difficulties, even this type of instruction may be inadequate. These students need considerably more intensive, individualized, and explicit teaching of transcription skills and composing strategies that incorporates effective adaptations to task demands, response formats, student supports, and teacher practices." (Access Center 2008).

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Helping out in a second grade classroom, I saw that the students definitely preferred creative writing to more academic writing. The teacher gave ample amount of time to practice writing in the classroom, which may not focus on the spelling the entire time but it allows students time to practice writing on paper.

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The Teaching to Diverse Populations reading talked about students sharing their work with the class or in small groups, in order to get positive feedback. How should teachers respond if students are reluctant to share their work with the class?

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The last paragraph of this article reminds me of my Inclusive Learning class. When students are really struggling and can't keep up, it's important to pull them out of the classroom for an hour a day for more individualized instruction. Many ELLs need this.

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I relate a lot of things from this class to how my second major is Spanish. While learning Spanish as my second language, I often struggle with writing because of misspelling, not knowing where the accent goes, etc. It's hard because a lot of the people in my classes now are completely fluent and I tend to feel very behind. . . Having a supportive professor who's available for office hours helps me.

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connection to the class -- Lauren Duggan 

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connection to the class -- Lauren Duggan 

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The reading about Writing Strategies for ELs and Struggling Writers relates to a core concept of this class: providing supports for ELs and other struggling writers. One of the specific writing supports that article mentioned was sentence structures, which we have talked about in class previously to support other modes including speaking. Other supports that were mentioned include teacher examples and peer support.

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Many teachers are feeling a lot of pressure due to the increase in ELLs in the classroom and wanting the best for their students. It's hard to teach students without knowing what they're going through. It's important that the teacher is knowledgable of these situations and get guidance if needed.

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How dramatic of a change has it been in the United States over the past few years with ELLs, poverty at home, etc?

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"According to data from the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 28% of fourth graders, 31% of eighth graders, and 24% of twelfth graders performed at or above a proficient (i.e., competent) level of writing achievement for their respective grade level"

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"Even when a top-notch writing program is firmly established in the classroom, some students will require additional assistance in mastering the skills and strategies of effective writing. Such assistance can be provided through adaptations, which include accommodations in the learning environment, instructional materials, and teaching strategies" (Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations).

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This connects to what we have learned about reading because if ELs do not have adequate background knowledge and syntactical knowledge, the material will be more difficult for them to access.

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When I was in third and fourth grade, we had to write a letter to our teacher each Monday to tell her about our weekend. This allowed us to practice our writing and become more confident in our writing because we were writing about something we knew very well, and practicing a narrative genre that we might not otherwise practice in content areas.

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There are many supports that can be given to ELs during writing, as well as many ways to emphasize the importance of practicing writing. Summarization writing about content can be important because it allows ELs to write about something they have already gained knowledge in.

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Is the use of technology truly helpful to ELs or does it cause them to rely on software when writing?

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"Literacy encompasses both reading and writing skills. If students are to learn, they must write. Lack of writing proficiency has been recognized as an intrinsic part of this national literacy crisis" (Calderon & Minaya-Rowe, 2011)

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I learned about the COPS strategy in another class. Capitalization, Overall appearance, Punctuation, and Spelling is a good checklist to have as a revision strategy after writing. For example, you can use it after just one paragraph, a page, or at the end of an essay to edit and revise before handing it in. Having a checklist would also help out children that struggle to write because it is something that they have in front of them to cross off, instead of struggling to think of what to do next.

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My Kindergarten pre-practicum classroom has a center where the students write one to two sentences each day in their journals for about 10-15 minutes. The teacher changes the prompt daily and they get to draw a picture to go with it. You can really see the students’ growth in how they write, and most of them seem to really enjoy doing it. You can also track the progress by seeing how they improved day by day

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It’s easier to integrate writing into a student’s everyday academic life than you would think. It seems overwhelming but there are strategies to use in the classroom to ensure that your students are practicing every day, such as journaling about a specific subject area or writing a reflection after a lesson.

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When supporting Els and other children that struggle to write, should the teacher focus more on creation than accuracy? Meaning, should the teacher always make the necessary corrections to their work, or would that be discouraging?

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In inclusive Learning, we have learned about endless supports to provide students in general to aid their learning. The attributes and principles of an impactful writing classroom provided in these articles are very similar to the supports we learned about, such as a positive environment, writing assistants, and additional content charts.

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“Some of the most important attributes (of a workshop) include explicit modeling, regular conferencing with students and families, high expectations, encouragement, flexibility, cooperative learning arrangements, and ample opportunities for self-regulation," (Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations).

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Implementing different genres of writing is just as important as teaching any the elements of writing. Things such as poetry, chapter books, and even plays are important to introduce to students while they are learning to write. This allows them to become creative in their work and understand the different powers that writing possesses.

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"Individuals within a discipline — such as literary critics, historians, economists, biologists, physicists, and mathematicians — possess a unique way of talking and writing about the theories, principles, concepts, facts, methods of inquiry, and so forth connected with that discipline. Thus, a common goal of content area instruction and writing instruction is to help students acquire proficiency in disciplinary writing." (Teaching Writing to Diverse Student Populations)

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I am placed in a 4th grade classroom for this semester, and one of the students' favorite activities is something called Picture Prompt Friday. Students are shown and picture and asked to create a story about that picture. There are guidelines to this assignment, but the root of this activity is to have students work on their writing skills.

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In what ways do motivational, knowledge, and skill difficulties truly impact students learning? Meaning, are there barriers that can be removed to make students more motivated, knowledgable, and skillful?

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In Foundations of Education, we learned a lot about how supporting all students in ways that we don't just teach at them but we teach with them which can be extremely helpful when teaching students how to write.

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When I was in a 1st grade classroom at the George school last semester, they alternated between English and Spanish and would have to write in both languages.

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Having teachers learn ways to implement good writing skills while not just focusing on the basic skills of spelling and handwriting will tremendously help students learn how to build their writing skills.

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How are we supposed to move away from focusing on handwriting skills and spelling and move towards writing meaningful text?

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"Second, the profile of the typical classroom in the United States has undergone dramatic changes in the recent past. Many more students today come from impoverished homes, speak English as a second language, and have identified or suspected disabilities" (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003).

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In Foundations of Ed we talked a lot about how the way we expect students to write (academic language) is miss-matched with the way students often speak. Without direct instruction we can't expect them to meet our expectations.

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In a classroom I worked in, the class went to watch the 5th graders' poetry slam where they could choose to share poems they had been working on all spring.

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The nuances of vocabulary, figurative language, and deeper meaning (reading between the lines) might be beyond the language capabilities of ELs even when their writing capabilities allow for these more complex skills. Similarly challenges may face students with other language delays or disabilities.

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How do/might ELs writing skills change when they are given opportunities to write in their first language?

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"First, composing text is a complex and difficult undertaking that requires the deployment and coordination of multiple affective, cognitive, linguistic, and physical operations to accomplish goals associated with genre-specific conventions, audience needs, and an author's communicative purposes."

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This connects to this class because ELL and children with disabilities are not receiving the extra support they need in writing, listening, reading, or speaking. This causes their level of achievement to be below their grade level. In class we discuss about how we must adapt the curriculum by adding more supports to help every student succeed.

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During school, the teacher would read a part of a story and then ask an open ended question in which we would have to write down the answer on our own. Then we would form groups to discuss our answers and then share to the whole class.

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Writing is challenging especially for students with disabilities or ELL students. There should be various types of writing assignments incorporated into a writing program so all students feel supported and can learn. For example, students should have meaningful writing experiences, routines should be in place so students feel comfortable with the writing process, lessons should be designed to help students master elements and a common language should be used for shared expectations regarding writing quality.

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Should all grade levels be incorporating the four core components of effective writing instruction?

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"Only 28% of fourth graders, 31% of eighth graders, and 24% of twelfth graders performed at or above a proficient level of writing achievement for their respective grade level (Persky, Daane, & Jin, 2003)."

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How this relates to the class is because we're developing more effective ways to help aid EL's with their writing skills. This reading shows some of the difficulties that teachers face and some strategies used by teachers to set up a more effective method. In the class we each find and creative better ways to help students with their writing.

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In my 6th grade writing class the teacher would always start out her class with letting us do creative writing of our choosing. Then the class would share what they wrote for their warm up. After we shared our writings the teacher would get into the writing lessons. We would then be given a prompt to use as an example with what we will be writing for class. The teacher would split us up into small groups to come up with our example to share for the class and then after the group work we would share our response.

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Teachers are implementing ways to help students by having these routines which help shape the classroom's timeline such as the teacher implements a mini lesson for 15 minutes where the teacher leads a discussion on writing skills. Then the teacher gives the students 5 minutes to checkin with them and then the students go into independent writing for 30 minutes. Finally, the class comes back to share their responses on what they wrote during their independent writing.

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Do we still have these writing difficulties in schools with teachers being unprepared for helping students struggling with writing?

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"Unfortunately, many teachers feel ill-equipped to handle these competing pressures, in part because they lack the prerequisite pedagogical knowledge, instructional capabilities, and valued resources for teaching writing, and in part because writing curricula, which exert a strong influence on teachers' writing instruction, tend to be underdeveloped and misaligned with other curricula (Troia & Maddox, 2004)".