Entry #1

Based on my experiences with teaching writing I really believe children need time and space to write everyday. Writing should not be a threatening task for children, but rather an opportunity to express themselves or to reflect. Writing should act as a safe outlet for children to discuss things that are going on in their lives, things they are learning in class and connections they are making between home, school and the world. I feel that there should be time reserved for writing every day, which may include a combination of modeled, shared, interactive, guided or independent writing. I want to incorporate formal and informal writing activities that provide children with choices which will engage them in the writing process. One of my goals is for all children in my class to feel comfortable with writing by personalizing the writing process so it becomes their writing process. I want children to understand what works best for them when they approach a writing task.

At the same time, I also want the children in my classrom to know that I am their to assist them in their writing process, whatever that may be. I would like to establish a trusting relationship with my students with the understanding that if they choose to write while sitting on a bean bag chair with a clipboard or using a marker I will support that as long as they prove to me they are working hard. I want to create a calm writing space that may include soothing or classical music to help writing pieces to flow. I would also like to have writing groups to allow students to collaborate with others on the pieces they are working on. Other times I might call a writing group to meet with me at a round table to do some conferencing or set up individual brainstorming or editing conferences.

I feel that it is important to demonstrate to children that writing is important to me in my everyday life as well. Some ways that I would like to do that is through modeling writing and choosing topics that are relevant to my life, which I feel comfortable sharing with children. Another way would be using something that I wrote to introduce a lesson and get students excited to write on their own. I have done this in the past when I taught a unit on poetry. I feel that this makes writing relevant to my life and shows the students that I am human as well. In one of  my undergrad classes we talked a lot about immediacy behaviors during communication. The reason I bring this up is because by using immediacy behaviors as a teacher, children begin to feel closer to the teacher as if they know them better because they have shared something personal with the class. This could be as simple as sharing stories about a pet or something that I read in the newspaper that was interesting. I want to show children that I am curious about the world around me in order to motivate them to be as well. These simple tasks may help children to notice things about their world that might inspire them to compose a piece of writing.

As far as adopting a digital writing workshop goes, I would love to incorporate whatever technology that I am provided with into my classroom. There are so many ways to use technology in the classroom today. For example, I have shown YouTube videos to motivate my students about writing and to get their brainstorming wheels turning. I have often used PowerPoint on a SmartBoard in an interactive fashion by writing a class poem. I have also assisted children in creating their own podcasts by reading their written pieces into the computer. As I get started with my teaching career I hope to continue learning new ways to incorporate technology into our daily practices. I would like to explore creating electronic portfolios with students and outlets that I can use to expand the audiences that students base their writings around. I would also like to have a central class website or wiki, which would allow me to post useful and appropriate information and websites that students can explore. A wiki would also enable students to respond and comment on questions that their peers and I might post (depending on the grade level and abilities of the class of course). Overall, I am all in favor of finding new ways to merge the writing process with the digital outlets that are available.

Some challenges that I anticipate with attempting to blend writing and technology will be making sure that students are using appropriate websites and acting appropriate when using technology. Another issue may be the availability of technology in the school. It seems that many classrooms only have a few computers in them (if that), but in order to do something with the whole class I may have to sign out the computer lab or a laptop cart. Also, the technology that I have access to will be dependent on the district. Many suburban districts all have SmartBoards now, but I am willing to bet that not all urban districts do. It is also important to have a backup plan in case technology fails that particular day. Most of the time we can rely on it, but not always so I want to make sure I am prepared to face all the challenges that come along with incorporating technology in the classroom.