There are three writing components that I would confidently be able to teach. These three components are Critical thinking, text structure, and transcription. These components can start being taught at a young age. For example, I teach my kindergarten students the critical thinking component by teaching them how to create an organizing web for their ideas. We discussed gathering all the information that we want our readers to know. In kindergarten, we start to introduce the different text structures. Some students can only copy a few letters at the beginning of the year. Every once in a while, we might get a kindergartner who loves to write and comes in writing complete sentences. With those students, we like to focus on text structure during their narrative and opinion writing. This might be as simple as stating their opinion using one sentence, backing up their opinion, and the reason behind the opinion. Lastly, Transcription would be the last component that I feel comfortable teaching. Kindergarten pushes for nice handwriting. We spend a lot of time practicing the proper vocabulary and hand movements for our students to be successful in their handwriting skills. 

There are two components that I would like to learn more about syntax and Writing craft. Growing up as an ELL student, grammar was difficult for me. My goal is to keep my students from going through the same learning struggles I faced. I would like to continue learning about these components to assist my students better.

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Ch. 1 Q. 2 How often do you assign Quick writes, content learning Tasks, and formal writing tasks?

My students are to work on quick writes often as one of their choices when completing assigned work early. For example, students will illustrate a picture and complete their quick write about the picture they have illustrated. Content learning tasks in kindergarten look a little different. We usually have students write about what they learned from that week's reading theme. For example, this week, we have learned about the weather. Students will draw a picture of something they learned about regarding the weather and write what they learned about during the week. We will have students work on writing a formal personal opinion for this progress report. They will have a few days to complete their opinion paper. Before we assign a formal paper, we ensure they have been introduced to opinion writing a couple of times before. 

The teaching principle that I regularly use in my classroom is “ Gradual release of responsibility when teaching a skill, using an I do it, we do it, you do it approach.” This teaching principle has helped me during new instruction, when reviewing classroom rules and expectations, and when helping students who may be struggling. This was a teaching principle that I am glad I implemented since the beginning of the year as I set my rules and expectations. Scaffolding to support the learning of new skills is another principle that I use regularly. I make sure that my centers are scaffolded. This is very beneficial, not only for my high students who may need a little more challenge but also for my low students who may struggle. 

Question 2: Identify a writing skill strategy or technique you would like to teach your students. 

One writing skill strategy that I would like to teach my students is “peer feedback.” I know my students are young, and feedback might not be as detailed as upper-grade students might be able to provide. However, in kindergarten, I can teach students to provide feedback using our writing checklist, which looks for capitalization, punctuation, and finger spaces at the beginning of a sentence. I have been discussing implementing this strategy with my lead teacher for a few weeks now. Because it’s already midway through the school year, I’m afraid that students will have difficulty following directions and staying on task when working with a peer to provide feedback. 

Students who are faced with difficulty in writing are Students who lack phonemic awareness. These Students may have yet to learn all their letter sounds in their primary years. This makes it difficult to put words together, as stated in The Writing Rope, "Learning to spell words is more difficult than learning to read words" (Sedita, 2023, p. 24). These Students will usually lose interest in writing because they constantly have to stop and think about a word's spelling or limit their vocabulary to words they know how to spell. Digging deeper into this topic, we can also discuss how students' lack of handwriting practice will also make it difficult for them to write. For example, students never taught how to properly grip a pencil lack writing skills because a simple pencil grip mistake can make a big difference in a child's writing.

Ch. 3 Q. 2 How are spelling and handwriting/keyboarding taught in your school? 

In kindergarten, we focus mainly on handwriting and the proper form of letters. Spelling is new to us as our students learn letters and sounds. However, at mid-school, we try to push our students to sound out words on their own first before asking teachers. In grades 1st-4th, students begin to learn more about the spelling of the English language and begin to have spelling tests. Spelling tests begin simple, and as the school year goes on, they develop, getting more complex. For example, for first grade, they may start with CVC words, and as they go on, they add more English spelling rules like long vowels, blends, floss, etc. I could only say how much handwriting practice is within my grade level. My guess is not much due to 3rd and 4th grade teachers commenting about Students needing legible handwriting. Lastly, in my eight years at my school, I have yet to learn of a teacher who teaches keyboarding to their Students. 

Telling my students that someone other than me will read their work is one of my favorite things to do. I may not always be telling them the truth but for the most part, I am because once a month I like to hang one of their writing pieces on our hallway bulletin board so parents, students, and staff can stop by and read. I teach my Students to always check their writing in case someone reads it. They check for capitals, punctuation, finger spaces, and neatness. This coming week we are learning about opinion writing and I will be informing my Students that their paper will be read by other kinder classes. We will use their opinions to learn about graphing during math (what's the best pet to have?).

Q. 2 Select one of the literary devices in Figure 4.5 and identify two mentor texts that provide clear examples of the device.

The literary device from Figure 4.5 that I selected was a flashback. A flashback is a way the author uses to return to an earlier time in a story. It can help a reader understand how characters might feel about the past and how that might relate to current situations. The two mentor texts that provide an example of a flashback are, The Summer My Father Was Ten by, Pat Brisson and The Name Jar by, Yangsook Choi.