I’m a bit late with this posting, but better late than never.
Part of the week’s readings dealt with writing conferences with students. One of the suggestions that Routman makes in Writing Essentials was about whole class conferences. My automatic reaction to this reading was mixed. While I can see the benefit of conducting whole class writing conferences, I automatically was hesitant because we have read so many articles about keeping grades and student progress anonymous. Would conducting these kinds of conferences be complying with that idea? I have a hard time thinking so.
Personally, I have felt pressure and shame with my own writing after hearing others’ writing, but that was in high school more than elementary school. One of my peers, in particular, was a very good writer and after hearing her read her writing, or while peer editing her work, I felt that my work was not as good and could never measure up. Then, I would wonder if my writing ability and work was worse than my peers overall. In this case, I pushed myself to be a better writer, but still felt anxiety with writing, of which I still hold today. I still compare my writing with that student, years later, thinking if it would ever sound as good as hers.
Considering this experience, would having whole class or peer conferences cause students anxiety with writing, a concept that we’ve been learning how to overcome through our teaching practices? On the opposite side, will implementing these forms of conferences push students to work harder? It seems like a fine balance for the teacher and will take a lot of preparation by the teacher in building a safe community within the classroom (as we’ve been learning about for the past two quarters).
Another reading, in Fox’s Word Identification Strategies, talks about working on literacy with ELL students. This is another subject that I’ve been thinking a lot about because it is one that I know I will face in a near future. I know that it will be up to the teacher to provide many ELL students with the opportunity to learn English, since many of them will only have English exposure at school (it seems like many students speak their native language with their families when they are at home). Phonemic awareness is key to helping students because their pronunciation of words may be different, therefore making it hard to sound out words.
Many languages, especially the romantic languages, have similar words between languages and with English. For example, the months in French are very similar to the months in English, so building off the commonalities will help students’ progress. In regards to reading, finding books that can relate to students’ lives or incorporate both languages may help the student engage in the book and learn a little bit more. Though I had mix reviews of Gary Soto’s My Little Car during my book review, the book was good at incorporating Spanish words into the mainly English book.
This class has made me think of literacy in a whole different way. I’ve mainly been exposed to older students, so I had not really thought about how I would teach the basic literacy skills, though I will most likely find myself needing to teach these skills to students of higher grades. Even if I end up teaching middle school math, I will run across literacy issues when it comes to reading or writing story problems, no matter whether the student is in the general population, a student with an IEP or 504, or an ELL student.
