Blog # 10: Bless, Address, or Press

Each week I find myself reading and checking out my classmates’ blogs, I love the feedback and responses to my blog I have received and I hope that my fellow classmates also find my responses to be helpful. I have especially learned so much from my classmates’ free writes. I noticed that many of them have been writing about their genre presentations and discussing how they feel about their genre they are responsible to teach the class about. These posts have been especially helpful to me to see where my classmates’ views on certain aspects of teaching come into play. The other free writes that my classmate’s are writing about include all different aspects of teaching. 

Katie M’s blog post # 7: Choice with Reading and Writing, really stood out to me when I first read it. She writes about how important choice is in her classroom, she even uses an example of how choice in her classroom affects how she teaches. Katie M states:

       “...But by giving him a book he picked, I am sure Peter will get more out of it than he would have with The Hunger Games...This idea of choice with reading ties into choice with writing. After taking this class I am more aware of proving my students with choice when it comes to writing. Students will have a more meaningful interaction with their writing if they have ownership of it.”

This quote encompasses the main idea of Katie’s post. She believes that if a student is given a choice in reading and writing they will be able to find connections between the text or will be able to interact more meaningfully with their writing.I completely agree with this.

I know from my own experiences I write better when I have a personal connection with what I am writing about. The same goes for reading, when I am reading for enjoyment often times I am much more connected to the book than when I am reading for a class. I found the same thing happening when working with my second graders. Although some of my students did not like free writing, others really enjoyed being able to write about whatever they wanted to. My other students who struggled with choice were my struggling writers, I found that with them it was important to give them a prompt to help them organize their thoughts better than having them come up with their own prompts. 

When it came to reading, all of my students loved to pick out their own books that they could related to. So, for my class, choice when it came to reading was much more exciting! I do believe that once students get a little older they enjoy free writing more. Meaning, once they begin to develop as writers they will begin to write for enjoyment much like Katie’s students. 

I really enjoy reading my classmates blogs, especially when they are about older students and how they respond to reading and writing. It gives me hope that the joy of writing and reading can improve with age!