Reflection on Unit 1- (Trends & Challenges in Teaching Writing By Matrisha Williams)

Hello There!!!!

We often many times wonder why is it that our students struggle in their writing. We often see that students lack knowledge of information so it affects their writing skills.

However, I have been introduced to a solution to the problem.

There are 25 wonderful trends of writing that teachers can use to minimize the challenges that students experience in their writing.

These activities are not giving alone but also challenges of writing are included so the teacher can become more competent in what areas students are having issues with. This information also assists a new Language Arts teacher.

Being exposed to these strategies such as time to write, regular responses to writing, think aloud, writing to start class, sentence combining, gallery walk, digital story telling, summarization, grammar instruction, maintaining a collection of writing to create a portrait of students writing history, teaching writing explicitly (Gradual Release of Responsibility Model)etc just to  name to a few can assist the students in becoming exceptional writers. These strategies are not only for a certain grade level but it caters for all grade levels. It also helps them in their different subject areas not just Language Arts alone.

The two trends that stood out to me are Teaching Writing Explicitly ( Gradual Release of Responsibility Model) and Digital Story Telling. 

Teaching Writing Explicitly (Gradual Release of Responsibility Model) is a method of learning that walk students through the learning process. This showed me that the students are not just given the task to write a story, poem etc alone but both the teacher and students have a vital part to play. The teacher models the technique and instruction to the students first so all the responsibility is on the teacher while the students watch which is called I DO then, students will assist the teacher so the responsibility is on both teacher and students which is called WE DO and lastly the students are given the responsibility to complete the task by themselves however, the teacher still observes what the students are doing which is called YOU DO. I find this strategy to be useful because it acts as a reinforcement, students are now able to complete the task given to them confidently and independently.

Digital Story Telling allows children to tell their stories through voice, animations, videos, text and images. This strategy is useful because the world is becoming more technologized students are not interested in taking up a hard copy book and read it. Some students are interested in becoming animated artists and use technology. Digital Storytelling encourages students to communicate, collaborate and research how to implement the animations and texts in the digital story telling. Students will be exposed to different apps and thereby will gain a deeper understanding of the history.

One of the seven challenges that students face in their writing is writing does not have prosody, body, language, facial expression. Out of the 25 writing trends, one of the trends that can be used to minimize this challenge is the use of Digital Story Telling. This is beneficial to the students because they get to collaborate their own story and bring the story written to life. The animations in the text  will create a form of excitement to the students and they will become interested.


It is my aim to implement the 25 different strategies in the classroom to assist my students in having an appreciation for writing and mastering the skills. I will gladly share these strategies with my other colleagues as the main goal is to ensure that these students are equipped and ready for the world of work and to help them in their career goals for those who wants to become authors, publishers, story tellers, journalist etc.

                                                                       

                                                                          Written by Matrisha Williams