I have offically reconstructed the focus of my Change Project.
New Research question/topic: How do teachers of writing go about adapting teaching expressive writing to those students in their classroom with learning differences?
Annotated Bibliography
Gersten, Russell, Scott Baker, and Lana Edwards. “Teaching Expressive Writing to Students with Learning Disabilities.” The ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education (1999). 21 Apr. 2009 <http://www.ldonline.org/article/6201>.
The authors in this article examine some methods for teaching expressive writing to students with disabilities. They include examples like how to write a personal narrative, persuasive essays, and other genres.
LeFever, Gretchen P, Andrea P Arcona, and David O Antonuccio. “ADHD among American Schoolchildren: Evidence of Over-diagnosis and Overuse of Medication.” The Scientific Review of Mental Health Practice 2.1. 14 Apr. 2009 <http://www.srmhp.org/0201/adhd.html>.
The authors in this article (two from Center for Pediatric Research and one from University of Nevada School of Medicine) examine statistics on different communities to learn how EDHD diagnosis has fluctuated in recent years. They also seek to research how psychotropic medication has an outcome on the diagnosed students.
Baum, Susan M, and Richard F Olenchak. “The Alphabet Children: GT, ADHD, and More.” Exceptionality 10.2 (2002): 77–91. 14 Apr. 2009 <http://0-web.ebscohost.com.maurice.bgsu.edu/ehost/pdf?vid=6&hid=5&sid=1cf58cd5-9e74-4e9d-9739-e8b9f46579be%40sessionmgr8>.
In this article, the authors discuss the effects of misdiagnosis of young students in the classroom. They discuss the lack of considering behavioral characteristics among children and how they can lead to misdiagnosis.
Solanto, Mary, and Xavier Castellanos. Stimulant drugs and ADHD. Oxford University Press, 2009.
The authors discuss the diagnosis criteria that go into diagnosing a student with ADHD. They do this by providing data and statistical trends through the years that demonstrate over-diagnosis of ADHD and the dilemma that comes with it.
Richards, Regina. “Strategies for the Reluctant Writer.” LDonline. 21 Apr. 2009 http://www.ldonline.org/article/6215.
Richards is a well-known therapist in the special education field who has researched and created many treatment programs for students with learning diabilities. In this article, she offers ways in which teachers may adapt their lessons on the writing process to fit the needs of students with learning differences.
Reuss, Thomas. Personal interview. Date TBA.
Reuss is a veteran instructor in the School of Intervention Services program at BGSU.
Neman explains that in expository writing a writer states their points and arguments directly, but in narrative writing writers state their ideas in a more subtle context. Though I feel that writing one’s ideas in a narrative sense is much more effective for the reader. When writing our Change Projects, which would be considered more expository writing, could it be helpful to write some ideas and points in a narrative sense?
Neman proposes that rhetorical analysis is important to all grade levels. I wonder then, how do we teach rhetorical analysis differently depending on the grade for which we are teaching?
I would like to research how exactly to go about translating students’ abilities of reflecting in their journals, into actually writing a formal draft. I think the task of getting them to write in their journals will not be difficult, it’s how to those idea place formally into a paper that I see as an obstacle.
Shawn Bally
ENG 484
4/6/09
Writing Center Observation Reflection
On April 2nd, 2009 I observed a writing consultation in the writing center. From the moment I entered the main writing center room with the consultant and the student, I was intrigued by the setting and surrounding. The room is set in an extremely welcoming design. It is set to look like a living room with a fake fireplace, couches, center table, flowers, paintings, etc. It was obvious that this setting was placed to establish a warm welcoming for students who need help with their writing pieces. Furthermore, the consultant was nothing shy of this warm and welcoming atmosphere. Whether planned or not, her voice was also easy-going and soothing to listen to. It was clearer that the student trusted this consultant because immediately when the consultant showed up, they began talking about how each other has been doing and if things have been going well. In this way, the consultant built a relationship of trust and rapport with the student.
When the consultation began, the first thing the consultant asked the student was if she would be ok with the consultant using the “comment button” feature as a means to correcting and working with the student’s paper on the computer. She also explained that she wanted to allocate their time together as efficient as possible. Both of these acts motivated the student to stay focused and work productively from the start.
As the consultant read through and edited the paper, she would use both praise and encouragement with the student. For example, when she would read a passage that she liked or found effective, she would tell the student “I really like what you did here.” Similarly in spots where the consultant saw room for improvement, she would tell the student “this is not a big problem. This is definitely something we can work on.” This was effective in helping the student because it never got her down on her inabilities or flaws.
I also noticed that the consultant focused primarily on content as opposed to mechanics when assisting the student. While she did pay attention to the student’s organization, her focus was more on the support for the student’s argument and the argument that she was making. As a future writing teacher, this correlates with my priorities of working with students’ writing. That is, that content is always more important than the craft-centered aspects of writing.
Shawn Bally
3/19/09
ENG 484
Poetry Analysis and Response
Instructor: Shawn Bally
Class Period: 4 (50 minutes)
Grade Level/Course Title: Sixth Grade English
Materials/Texts: Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson
Time/Date of Lesson: Week 8 of Classes (November)
Background of Text: As a class, we will spend the first 3 days of class reading the novel Locomotion by Woodson (100 pages). This book tells the story of an 11 year old boy who is faced with living life in a foster home after his parents are killed in an accident. He is split apart from his little sister Lili between two different foster pairs of foster parents. As a result to his jumbled emotions and feelings, his teacher suggests he express himself through the art of poetry. The entire book is told in a series of different poems ranging from Sonnet to Haiku. These poems are all written in a first person point of view that seek to describe the main character’s (Lonnie) feelings.
Activity: Upon finishing the book in class, students will break into groups. Each group will be assigned a type of poem from the book. They will then work together to research the rules and fundamentals of the poem, as well as the background history of its creation. Each group will then choose a theme from a provided list of topics for which they will compose their style of poem about. Finally, each group will create a presentation to inform the class of their research, followed by the poem that they have worked collaboratively to create.
Objectives/Purpose: This lesson will teach students about the various forms of poetry. However rather than be lectured by their teachers, they will be taught by their peers. Furthermore, this lesson will encourage students to work in groups towards a common goal. They will have the opportunity to divide work up amongst the members to create a final project. Finally, the lesson will ignite students into thinking creatively by having them produce their own poem. While poetry is a shorter version of writing, it will facilitate students into the idea of creative writing that will reflect their experience with the theme.
Challenges: There are always challenges and issues that come with group work. This may be the biggest challenge as the educator because I must be sure no to intervene too much into the group work while assuring that everyone is holding their weight. Another challenge may be getting students to write one creative piece that represents them all. Some members may push their ideas while others contribute very little, causing a poor representation of the entire group’s creativity.
Informal Response for March 17th, 2009
I find Neman’s dilemma of students’ trouble with writing to an audience was particularly interesting. Students often get the idea that they are not writing to an actual audience and that their writing is merely practice for “ real world” writing. This is ironic because students in the middle grades likely will not be writing to an audience in the “real world” or facing any real life situations to where their writing is so critical. One solution to this problem is the teacher establishing a target audience for the students to write to. However this method is flawed because the students know that their writing will actually be read by the teacher and not by the target audience. As teachers we must be sure to stay objective as possible in grading these works by not grading them as teachers but grading them as the target audience.
I also like Neman’s approach of students finding the voice of their “better” self. This idea suggests that the most persuasive voice is that of the author. The task however is the author’s task of achieving himself/herself as a credible source in making a persuasive argument. This is achieved first when students establish their expertise with the content being discussed. Such an obstacle is tough for students who have had little previous exposure to the content compared to other students who may understand the content better. It is for these students, that teachers must stress the idea of research in the classroom and study time that will build their content knowledge of the subject area. This will be specially significant in my future classroom as an English teacher when assigning research papers. I think an affective means of getting my students to learn and express their feelings about a topic will be to assign a research paper that they likely know little about. As a former student, this is a task a did not particularly enjoy but one that always made me work and built my content knowledge of specific topics.
Response Question
1. Neman explains that while road-mapping assignments are useful and helpful to students, we must be sure not to constrict their creative thought. She goes on to say that discovery-based assignments are one of the most effective of assignments. With such a large part of these assignments weighing on research, how can we as teachers be sure to incorporate creative thought along with research findings into a discover-based assignments?
Shawn Bally
ENG 484
1/26/09
I found Jack Wilde’s idea of having students begin the first week of his class with writing sentences. Furthermore, he explains then when he does this process; he has his students share one sentence of their choice to the class, without any response from the student’s peers or from himself. I think this is great idea for building a comfortable writing environment for students. Neman commented in her writing that a goal of an English teacher is to create a classroom where students are able to openly discuss their ideas without the fear of being ridiculed. By having students read initially without being judged, they are gaining confidence in writing to express their ideas as well as share them with the class. Also, with this teacher being responsible for teaching the fifth grade, he is building their confidence early in their writing career. Writing as a form of expression and the idea of sharing writing with the class is something that seems to be more common among the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. If they can feel safe early on, then they will likely be more willing to share their ideas in the later grades.
Velvet McReynolds’s idea of writing on Mondays about recent experiences is also a nice way to build writers’ confidence. In this warm-up activity, students can write about anything from their life. First, this is great because students of all ages enjoy sharing something about their lives because it is something that any student can do at any time. At the same time, it not only builds on their reading skills, but also their confidence in sharing their stories. When students only have to share their stories, there’s no way for them really to be right or wrong, which builds their confidence. Each student can relate to the other students’ stories as well, for they are likely all experiencing similar situations in their lives. If students can relate, they are more likely to listen intuitively and keep attention. Facilitating conversation and discussion between students and the instructor is helpful in building a relationship between the students and the teacher that can be beneficial throughout the year.
I like Mr. Wilde’s use of read alouds. I can tell as he is reading the students are listening closely to the words he is reading. Furthermore, it is helpful when he pauses in between readings to ask questions about the story. He asks open-ended questions so that students really have to think about the story in order to respond. When students respond with answers that aren’t quite what he is looking for, he lets them finish their response and still accepts it as a valid answer. This allows students to feel confident in answering even when they are not sure if they are on the right track. It is also helpful when he asks the questions about the literary elements that the author of his book uses. In this case, he asks how the repetition of the story affects the feeling of the book. This element is something that can be used across many aspects of an English class as well as in their own writing.