My View on Writing by Abigail Brown

"Writing is inherently a social activity, situated within a specific context."(Graham, 2018, p.273).

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 02:27:13 UTC

Throughout this course, we learned about various perspectives of writing such as, cognitive, sociocultural, new literacies, contextual, and culturally relevant. Charles Bazerman proposes the belief that "writing is a social tool designed to communicate among people" (Bazerman, pg. 11). His perspective suggests that the writing processes are influenced by social situations. Writing is written under the intention of being read so there is an underlying social aspect in writing. This perspective resonates with me the most. I feel strongly that people are socially motivated to write and share their thoughts.

The Writing Rope

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 04:14:46 UTC

The Writing Rope Model, by Joan Sedita, is a visual that I often find myself referencing when i'm explaining the writing instruction process. This model breaks down the components needed to be taught to students in order for them to become skilled writers. Critical thinking, syntax, text structure, writing craft, and transcription skills need to be carefully embedded in the curriculum for students to have effective writing instruction. This takes time and intentional planning! (Joan Sedita, The writing rope: The strands that are woven into skilled writing)

A Culture of Collaboration

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 04:26:33 UTC

It is important that the classroom culture fosters and promotes an engaged community of writers. In my experience with the current school curricula, there is not much time for writing instruction. Creating ample time for students to write and work together to create, will foster this writing community. In our course textbook, Best Practices in Writing Instruction, there is a study mentioned where Hamel studies a 4th grade writing workshop over the coarse of five years. In this workshop, students have broad choice over the content and genre of their writing. There is an emphasis on "independence and self regulation, with students charged with seeking out partners for peer response to their writing as well as collaborative interactions"(Graham et al. Best practices in writing instruction). Setting up a classroom with this writing culture will lead to a successful year of instruction.

Culturally Responsive Writing Instruction

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 16:22:09 UTC

It is important to know your students, their cultures, and their beliefs and have that reflected in their education. According to Geneva Gay, the author of, Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching, this may look like "using various samples of ethnic literature in teaching the concept of genre and reading skills such as comprehension, inferential thinking, vocabulary building, and translation"(Gay Preparing for culturally responsive teaching).

Translanguaging is an example of being a culturally responsive educator. This means that students are using their native languages along with english in their writing. Separating languages leads to a linguistically segregated classroom. Research shows that in a multilangual student's brain, "both languages are always active to some degree" says Psychologist Ellen Biaystock. Promoting translanguaging lets students access their full language repertoire so that they will be able to write to a fuller capacity.

Leveraging Technology in Writing

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 17:31:54 UTC

As the world is constantly technologically evolving, it is important to keep up with the technology and integrate it into our students learning. Having students type out their writing is one way to integrate technology into their instruction. Another way is digital mentor texts. In the article, Leveraging Digital Mentor Texts to Write Like a Digital Writer, it states that "providing digital mentor texts for students to read like digital writers, a more comprehensive and perhaps deeper understanding of digital writing and the memoir genre can emerge" (Werderich et al. Leveraging Digital Mentor Texts to write like a digital writer). It is important that writers understand how to effectively convey their message through a digital platform. The students "must be able to iteratively compose using multiple modes to most effectively communicate a message" (Hicks, 2009; Hull & Nelson, 2005; Hyler & Hicks, 2014). The images references the different modes that make up a multimodal texts.

Motivating Student Writers

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 17:41:11 UTC

It is important for students to understand their strengths and their goals to work towards so that they can be motivated to create writing pieces. A way to do this is to hold frequent student conferences. As mentioned in the article, Academic Praise in Conferences: A Key for Motivating Struggling Writers, "Giving feedback on a student’s performance can generate feelings of competence and therefore positively affect the student’s self-efficacy" (Burnett & Mandel, 2010; Craven, Marsh, & Debus, 1991; Margolis & McCabe, 2004). The image is an example found from the article of some academic strengths, why they are valuable, and how they are compared to the less developed strategy.

Evidence Based Strategy for Students

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 18:59:37 UTC

Evaluating Information: Applying the CRAAP Test

This test is a list of questions to help determine if information is effective to use in writing.

Currency: The timeliness of the information.

Relevance: The importance of the information for your needs.

Authority: The source of the information.

Accuracy: The reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the informational content.

Purpose: The reason the information exists.

(Evaluating information: Applying the Crapp Test)

Evidence Based Strategy for Students

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 19:00:09 UTC

6+1 Trait Writing Rubrics

These rubrics help students understand what writing skills they are proficient at and which skills they need to improve on. There are skills listed such as "textual evidence, main idea, reasoning, etc" There are 5 grading categories 1-5 ranging from beginning to exceptional.

(Education Northwest 6+1 trait rubrics)

My Students as Writers

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 19:28:37 UTC

By giving my students the necessarily tools, I hope that they become self motivated writers who work with their classmates to help each other improve. There was a five year study conducted to answer the following question, "What is the impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance?". The study concluded that "the higher a student’s self-efficacy in writing, the higher quality of writing will be produced, even on timed on-demand writing tasks"(Chung et al. The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance)

As a teacher, I need to instill the confidence in my students. The national Council of Teachers of English, released statements to address their writing instruction beliefs. There are two principles that they write about that I want all of my students to be aware of. The first is, "Everyone is a Writer." The council states that "Everyone has the capacity to write."(Understanding and teaching writing: Guiding principles) This mindset will help students when they are feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to begin in their writing process. The second principle is, "Writers bring multiliteracies, and they bring cultural and linguistic assets to whatever they do." This helps students become confident in their writing and affirms that they have important ideas that they being to the table.

My Future

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 19:29:33 UTC

This course has taught me so much about writing instruction. I came into the course feeling lost with teaching writing to my students. I now feel equipped with the tools to effectively teach my students how to become great writers. I will make sure that my classroom environment shows my students writing pieces and reflects their cultures and beliefs. I will make sure that there is ample time for writing throughout the day. I will have frequent conferences with my students and push for peer feedback. I will build my students up so that they have the confidence and motivation to create writing pieces.

brown_abigail4 — 2024-12-13 19:42:01 UTC

Bazerman, C. (2016). What do sociocultural studies of writing tell us about learning to write. In C. A. MacArthur, S. Graham, & J. Fitzgerald (Eds.), Handbook of writing research (2nd ed., pp. 11–23). The Guilford Press.

Chung, Huy Q., et al. “The impact of self-assessment, planning and goal setting, and reflection before and after revision on student self-efficacy and writing performance.” Reading and Writing, vol. 34, no. 7, 4 July 2021, pp. 1885–1913, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10186-x.

Education Northwest. (2021, March 1). 6+1 trait rubrics. https://educationnorthwest.org/resources/61-trait-rubrics

Evaluating information: Applying the Craap Test. (n.d.). https://www.pfw.edu/offices/learning-support/documents/evaluating-information-crapp-test.pdf

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2), 106–116. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487102053002003

Graham, Steven, MacArthur, C. A., & Fitzgerald, J. (2013). Best practices in writing instruction. Guilford Press.

Hale, E. (2017). Academic praise in conferences: A key for motivating struggling writers. The Reading Teacher, 71(6), 651–658. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1664

Joan Sedita. (n.d.). The writing rope: The strands that are woven into skilled writing. Reading Rockets. https://www.readingrockets.org/topics/writing/articles/writing-rope-strands-are-woven-skilled-writing

Understanding and teaching writing: Guiding principles. National Council of Teachers of English. (2021, August 25). https://ncte.org/statement/teachingcomposition/

Werderich, D. E., Manderino, M., & Godinez, G. (2016). Leveraging Digital Mentor Texts to write like a digital writer. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 60(5), 537–546. https://doi.org/10.1002/jaal.584

YouTube. (n.d.-a). How to Use Translanguaging in the Classroom. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbAQvHnvz8