I think that the take-home message from Gamill’s article was that writing is not only useful in Language Arts, it can be beneficial in every other part of the curriculum as well. Also one sentence that I thought helped summarize this point was, “the writing process is very similar to the speaking, thinking, and learning processes” (p. 1). This point that writing is similar to thinking made me think about how schools would never eliminate thinking because it took too long, so it makes no sense to skip writing. The article also talks about KWL charts. I think these are important in all subjects, and Gamill makes a good point that they can be done easily as a whole class or with individual students.
I think it definitely makes sense to take this approach with first graders. When teaching lessons, we are supposed to represent information visually and verbally, using as many senses as possible. It makes sense to give the students options like this too. A few students in my class have trouble getting their words out, and it seems to take them forever to answer a question, but one of these little girls always finishes her written work very quickly. She organizes her thoughts on paper better than she organizes them orally, and it would not make sense to take this option away from her. Using both types of answers helps the struggling writers learn to write while expressing themselves orally, and it helps the struggling speakers learn to speak while expressing themselves on paper.
As a professional, I think I would need to get a better understanding of the social studies and science curriculum before I would feel comfortable changing it to include more writing. I think that maybe my first few years in a grade I would try to stick to the curriculum as much as possible, but then as I became more comfortable with the content and student skill levels, I would add more writing into the everyday assignments. As I plan for instruction, I need to get a better understanding of what the students are actually capable of putting down on paper. For example, most students have no problem putting an idea on paper through a picture, and a lot of these students are able to match their picture to sentences about their picture, however; I have not seen students simply write an idea down. They always start with the picture. I think that it would be nice to see what happens when I only have the students write a sentence before I begin my teaching. This will help me understand which students are capable of this and which students are not. My guess right now would be that less than 50% of the class would be able to confidently write a sentence down answering a question without drawing a matching picture.
Laura-
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that it would be beneficial to incorporate writing into the social studies and science curriculum for the mere fact that it would add another dimension onto the curriculums. Like we have been taught, engaging the learners using the most amount of senses, and reaching out to the various types of intelligences in our classroom, makes for the most effective lessons and teachers. Thus, I think it would be really important to incorporate writing for those learners, like the little girl in your class, who is stronger with written language than with spoken language. Furthermore, I believe that incorporating writing into the science and social studies curriculums would be beneficial for learners writing. It would provide them with another time of the day in which they could practice the skills they learned in Writer’s Workshop. I am someone who personally loves to write so I am for implementing writing into social studies and science. After reading your post, I started thinking. I had never thought of incorporating writing into other subject areas as a problem to implement in a kindergarten class. This was until you pointed out that the learners in your class always have to draw a picture before writing anything. My learners are the exact same way. I had assumed my learners would be able to write on a topic without having an illustration and never took the time to think that developmentally, they might not be there yet. Thus, if I were to implement a writing component into the social studies and science curriculum, I would have to be aware and try to pick writing activities in which the learners could draw a picture and then write. This would be until my learners were at least comfortable enough in writing where I could start to slowly scaffold them away from needing pictures. All in all, I thought it was a really interesting point that you made and it is definitely something I am going to think about now. Also, just out of curiosity, in your blog post you talk about different approaches within the article. I did not read the article, so I am wondering what different approaches you are talking about. You mentioned that you feel they would be beneficial in your class and so I was curious as to what they were. I know you talked about the KWL charts, but I was wondering if there were any other approaches.
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI have also been having the concept of using multiple senses within a lesson drilled into my brain for a while know. I think it is extremely beneficial to provide a number of different teaching styles and sensory options to the class because of all of the various learning styles in our classroom. Even though every child would not directly benefit from writing as much as others, there are no detriment to children practicing their writing in all subject areas. Being proficient writers is such a crucial skill to master as children get older. Think about it. What is one skill that we continue to use in college that is required in every class we have taken (regardless of your major), writing. Writing could and should be incorporated in every subject matter in some shape or form. These skills can only promote more successful students in the future.