Entry 6

Dear Dr. Jones,

I was a little nervous coming into the class. I love writing, I love engaging in the writing process, and I love teaching writing to students. However, I get VERY nervous knowing people are going to read my writing. I do not like to be vulnerable with my writing. I enjoy writing letters to my boyfriend or writing in my journal, but that is because those writing pieces stay private, I am not sharing them with a whole bunch of people. However, I was excited to begin this class because you were a familiar professor to me, I have a pretty good understanding of your expectations and what a class with you would look like. I previously had heard what some of the assignments were going to be, and I was fairly excited for the creative freedom we were going to be given. I loved the idea of writing with some freedom, and not writing a research paper. I am surprised we spend a good chunk of class time working in a writer’s workshop. I am grateful for the time; however, it was not what I was expecting.

The habits of mind discussed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, & National Writing Project. (2011) is a relatively new concept to me. After reading this journal article I took a step back and really thought about which habits of mind I am strong in, and which habits of mind I am still developing in. I wrote in a previous blog that I am still developing my flexibility and persistence with writing and reading and I would still agree with this. I said in blog 4 that, “I need to commit to the writing piece and follow through. I also need to take time to focus on the conventions of my writing piece and not neglect my work.” While I know that I am slowly but surely making small strides to becoming better at these two habits of mind, I know that I need to continue to work on them.

Writing workshop is a somewhat new idea for me. I know about the Daily 5 for reader’s workshop, but writer’s workshop was not something that I was too familiar with before diving deeper into Tompkins’ (2019) work where he discussed all aspects of writer’s workshop in detail. Tompkins (2019) share the four components in the writing workshop: writing, sharing, interactive read-aloud, and mini lessons. Before reading the beginning few chapters of Tompkins book, I assumed that students simply engaged with writing independently and asked for support when they needed it. After reading Tompkins, I now know that there are many different elements that go into developing a well-structured writing workshop such as introducing the writing process, arranging the classroom, creating a community of writers, differentiated instruction, and incorporating technology. (Tompkins, 2019) I am incredibly grateful for being taught about writing workshop, it is something that I would love to incorporate into my future daily schedule as a classroom teacher.

I think right now I am just feeling a bit overwhelmed from being out last week and being kept very busy with funeral stuff that I am falling behind on my school work, not only in this class but in all of my classes. I am not sure what you can do to help me with this. All I do know is I that I need to use all of my time very wisely right now, so I do not fall even further behind and my work does not start slacking because that is not who I am. I look forward to starting the genre expert projects next week.

References

Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, & National Writing Project. (2011). Framework for success in postsecondary writing. Retrieved from http://wpacouncil.org/framework

Tompkins, G.E., & Jones, P. D. (2019). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product (7th ed.). NY, NY: Pearson.