Writing Experiences

I have really enjoyed using writing to learn strategies as an adult. I thought it was also challenging to use the GIST strategy because I was limited to 20 words.  I believe that I often have a lot to say about what I read and write and this helped me focus my attention to the 20 words. Luckily, I was able to break the article on Writing Next into the four different sections so I had 80 words to work with. For example, for the recommendations part on page 11 I wrote, “There are 11 elements to effective instruction- Writing Strategies, Summarization, Collaboration, Goals, Word Processing, Sentence Combining, Prewriting, Inquiry, and Process Approach.” I also really enjoyed using the metacognitive journal because it really helped me check to make sure I understood what I was reading in the Vacca and Vacca chapter (two different links).  I used the “Something important I learned today is…./ It is important because…” sheet when reading this chapter.  It was a good use of my metacognition because I had to give evidence on why certain points were important.  With the new changes in the CCSS, I think metacognitive journals would be so helpful because it requires the reader to use textual evidence to support what they are thinking.

Many times I have my students use strategies similar to the GIST and metacognitive journal with my students.  In Kindergarten, the students are learning how to support their answers through textual evidence.  I would like to implement something similar to the metacognitive journal with my students.  I believe they would be able to use something like this even at their age.  I did do something similar a few weeks ago when my students were researching animals.  When they were done reading about an animal they had to write what they learned and what evidence they found that said why that was important.  This really taught my students to think about what they were writing and how they can support their statements.

Overall, I have always really enjoyed writing and I find that I enjoy teaching writing.  In the past, I have had some great teachers who have supported my growth in writing and would like to extend the same support to my students.  My teachers would challenge me in an appropriate way, so that I wanted to make my writing better.  They also found ways to keep me engaged by letting us pick topics and do our own research about topics.  After reading about various ways to keep students engaged at middle and high school levels, I can see that my writing teachers all did a great job with my engagement and growth as a writer.