Ch. 7 in Writing Without Boundaries

After reading this chapter I realized that a lot of the research and things that were in there are things that when I have observed higher grades I see going on in the classroom.  Most of the teachers that I see doing writing use peer editing, author’s chair, and teacher conferencing.  I think that this chapter makes some very good points.  One point they make is that students must have good reading skills to be able to identify problems within their texts.  If they do not have good comprehension then how are they going to know what they need to change when revising if they do not understand the context in which they need to write.  I also think that elementary student have a hard time revising and writing at the same time and I agree that this is why we have to come up with steps and goals to help make it an easier transition into this.  I also think that by making these steps and goals studnets are going to be more cautious and aware when they are revising, because they will have certain things they are looking for in their texts that need to be changed, they are not just aimlessly wondering through their paper not sure of what they are trying to fix.

I think that by combining a lot of the ideas that were proven to work in the research a teacher will get a more well rounded writing and revising program.  I don’t think that just one thing can make a student good at revising.  I think it is lots of practice and being shown many different ways to do it and different strategies to remember when revising.  I also think that the teacher and peers play a major role.  A person does not know how good their paper is until they hear feedback and I think it is important for a student to get feedback from peers their age and from the teacher.  All these things will really help to make a paper the best that it can be.

Poetry Assignment

Here is my poetry assignment!!!

 Project writeup

Ants-invitation

Rubric-for-acrostic-poem

Ant-poetry-powerpoint

Poetry-analysis

Reflections on Class Multigenre Projects

Wow!!! I can’t even begin to explain the amazing projects that I saw tonight.  I am really impressed with the topics people chose and the creative genres and designs they used.  I thought the group  I was in had great ideas.  I loved listening to everyone present their information because you got to see their personality shine through.  I really loved The genres Robin has in her book called A Tale of Mickey and Ricky Mouse.  I thought the idea of creating a dialouge between the two mouses was great.  It really made me laugh and want to create something like that.  I also liked her cinderella’s castle concrete poem with all the information right inside the design!!  Great Job Robin!!  I loved Erica’s project because I thought Sarah Winchester was so interesting to learn about.  She covered her whole life with great detail in all her genres.  She made them look old like they came from that time period.  She is such a great poet.  Her I poems are amazing.  I also was touched by Cher’s Ruby Bridges project it was very touching.  I loved the report card and the letter from a student to ruby wondering why they couldn’t play together.  I think this really represents how chidren think.  They do not see color at all.  They just see themselves as kids that can all do the same things.

Multigenre Project

Here are my pieces to my multigenre project.  I hope you enjoy!

Butterflyology-cover-sheet

Butterflyology Pictures of my scrapbook

Table-of-contents

Defense-for-multigenre-butterfley-project

Bibliography

Invitation

Multigenre-reflective-essay

Chapter 3

I believe that since I work in a Title I school a lot of my children do not attend preschool and therefore may have not been exposed to story telling like what is at the beginning of Chapter 3.  I think that I have had to take a lot of the narrative features and use them in my classroom this year.  I have to make up for the fact that some of my students did not go to preschool and expose them to things that they will not be exposed to at home.  Most of my students do not have children’s books at home to read.  Therefore if I do not show them good literature in school they will not be exposed to it.  I also do see more retell in kindergarten than I do recalling of events.   I know that this is not a bad thing because this is one of the steps for them to take before they can make up their own stories.  I think that by me reading to them everyday with different types of text and different types of stories they get a wide range of what they know a story can be and then they can incorporate the things they hear when they are trying to write.

I do love how my students writing has gotten more exciting over the year.  At the beginning they just copied ideas that I had put on the board, but now a lot of my students are really starting to come up with their own ideas and sound them out.  Teaching kindergarten and first, and student teaching in 2nd has really allowed me to see the progression of writing.  It is very interesting to see how they start to add more and more detail and use words that they have picked up here and there.  I really loved how this chapter gives you ideas on how to scaffold writing and different methods to use.  It really seems to me like the lessons or blocks that they use really get the students excited about writing and really help them to create better pieces.

Wordless books

I really enjoyed reading these two articles about wordless text.  I think that using wordless text in the classroom is a great idea and one that I had never really thought of.  I have in the past tried to steer clear of wordless text because you could not do anything because there were not any words.  After reading these articles I have really heard some examples of ways to use this in my classroom.  I think this would fit right in for kindergarten.  They love to come up with their own stories when they look at books we have read together since some of them are to hard for them to read so I know they would love to make their own books. 

I also agree with the articles that it would really help in the upper grades.  Students that are older would probably really like that they could express their creative side and put the stories into their own words.  I am really interested to see how this will work in my classroom although I worry about how long it would take with kindergarten.  Some of my students have a hard time writing a sentence.  I think however that they could do it with enough guidance.

Thoughts on Multigenre Projects

After reading these chapters in Writing Without Boundaries I really see how engaging it can be for the students to complete genre studies and multigenre projects.  I also think that students would get great satisfaction from completing this project.  I wish that I could do a whole project like this in a class that I had.  I know there is no way to do a whole project in Kindergarten but you can definitely select many genres that would really grasp the students attention .  You could complete easier genre projects together as a class or some of them even independently like a short letter, greeting card, picture book, or poem after completing many examples.  There are some possibilities for Kindergarten that they would really enjoy.  I am really excited but a little stressed about this multigenre project.

 What is a multigenre project?

• A multigenre project is where students select a person, place, or thing such as an animal and complete research on this topic.  They then take the research they found and find at least three genres that they would like to use to represent important information.  These genres can be picked from a large selection.  The student must write and create using the genres that they want their audience to view the information in.  These genres will help to make students research on the topic more interesting and eye catching.  These projects also involve the student in more engaging tasks then say a regular research paper.

What is your recipe for HOW you might create a MG project?

• I would selecting a  topic I wanted to do it on.
• Then I would see how much information I could find on that person, place, or thing.
• Write down ideas of the major information I thought was important about that topic.
• Then I would select the most important information that I wanted to present through the project.
• I would then select three or four genres that I thought would work best for the topic I chose.
• Find the sources you need for the genres you want to do.
• Find an interesting way to put it together to display it.

What topics are you considering for your multigenre project?

• Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• Grace Kelly

What would you add to the list?

• Wedding Invitation
• Wedding announcement
• Baby announcement
• Party Invitation
• College Diploma

 Which genres have you already taught?

• Nursery Rhymes
• Letters
• Illustration
• Picture book
• Fairy Tales

Which might you choose to focus on in your classroom?

• Fairy Tales
• Illustrations
• Picture books

“Love That Dog”

I just had some time to read “Love That Dog” and I really loved it!!  I think it was such a great easy read, with so much emotion in it.  I loved how the teacher really tries to help Jack find his way through his writing.  At the beginning he hated poetry and at the end he grew to love it I think as much as he loved his dog because it helped him to express his emotions.  I like how he tried out different types of writing and he finally agreed to let his teacher reveal his name on his poetry.  To me that showed that he was starting to feel comfortable in his writing and in letting himself be vulnorable to others opinions of his work.  All I can say is what a great book! 

This is my new favorite book!!!  Thank you Erica for giving it to me!

Found Poem

This is my completed found poem about Key West.  Oh how I wish I could be there now!!!!

Multigenre articles

Wow!!!  I am so excited about completing this project after reading about all that it entails.  I think that it is going to be so fun to do research on someone that you don’t know much about, and to be able to create some of the artifacts through genres will be fun and challenging at the same time.

The Moulton article was quiet interesting.  When she started the article I thought that it was real neat how the teachers she talked about had tried some new approaches to teaching research skills.  I really liked the I search paper.  My favorite though was the multigenre project by Ramonos.  I feel that through doing one of these projects the students will really benefit so much more than by doing just a boring research paper.  I do feel however that the students that the writer was teaching really had a hard time understanding what they should be doing because Moulton went into the project without having any kind of example or a ready grading rubric.  The students didn’t know what to expect and how their final project should look.  Being that these students were going to be teachers I feel like they were probably like our class is about knowing every little thing that has to be done, how it should look, and when it is to be turned in.  That is just how teachers and pre service teachers are.

After reading Writing without Boundaries I was really excited to see all the different genres that we will be able to incorporate into our multigenre project.  I am probably going to do Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis or Princess Grace Kelly.  I haven’t really decided which one yet because I want to know more about both of them.

I think that the book is right there needs to be modeling of genres for the students in the genres that you expect them to use in their project.  I was amazed by the examples of elementary school mutligenre projects that I saw in the book.  They were so well put together.  The definitions that the students gave at the beginning of chapter 1 were so well presented.  When I first read them before I moved onto the rest of the reading I thought they were written by much older students. I was amazed when I found out they were elementary schools students.  The fact that the students could sum the project up that well really showed me that you can teach the students about the different genres and how to put a presentation together and make it work.  I know that it would be near impossible to do a project this size in kindergarten, but I know that you could still teach the students about the different genres by showing them examples such as the Jolly Postman (I love this book and always have, I have had it since I was in elementary school and have used it in my classrooms to talk about letters), and creating them together as a class.  I really think that this chapter gave great detail on how to implement a project like this into the classroom.