Chapter 7, 8, &19

Chapter 7
While reading chapter seven, I learned that it is very important to have strong teaching presence in the classroom. It takes alot of time and effort to work and prepare a writing workshop for my classroom. Not just writing workshop but all of work and lessons that we as teachers have to plan. After being in the classroom and in this program, I have learned that teaching is not that easy. We don't just get to go in a classroom and teach students materials. We actually have so much work to do in and out of the classroom and it takes so much more time than most people expect. I have learned that I have to manage my time so much different now that I have started to have to actually plan for my mentor classroom. I think that it is crucial to allow the students to be able to work in different areas in the classroom and work as groups throughout the day. I know that i get bored and loose concentration after sitting for a long period of time much less an elementary school child. Having quiet spots and corners are a great idea. I will definitely have this in my classroom. This allows students to be able to have their own personal time and think about things if they need too. If I have a lot of things going on or just need to be alone for a little while, I want to be able to go to my room or somewhere that is comfortable to relax and just think.
Chapter 8
I thought that chapter eight was interesting. I never knew that they actually had writing workshop kits. I do not think that I like this idea because I personally think that students should be allowed to pick any topic that is appropriate to write about and not have to be instructed to what to write. In my opinion, this is a cheap way out of teaching the students the correct way and as a teacher not having to put any time or effort into planning and preparing for the workshop. Being told and the kits are so structured would make me think that the students and teacher both are missing out and not able to write like they would if it was a long throughout lesson.
Chapter 19
I learned many new things while reading chapter 19. I found this chapter to be really helpful and informational. In my opinion, I do not think that it is fair to give students a deadline on when their writing should be done. Yes, the students writing should be checked and read over by the teacher, but someone's work could always be better and more thought out. The whole "publish or perish" is a little too much for elementary school students. Writing is something that someone should enjoy doing and express their thoughts and feeling, not to be drilled and told dates that it HAS to be completed by this day and time. Students should be monitored and made sure that they are actually doing their writing and making progress on a regular basis but not an everyday thing. If we as teachers were required to do this in our classrooms, I would et my students share their work with their peers and maybe even as a class periodically. This way, none of the students are nervous or afraid when their work is actually published to everyone. I liek the fact that Ray mentioned that it is a celebration when students works have been published. This could be a good thing because students could set goals for their writings and finally when completed they can be proud and know that they reached their goal they had made. This chapter had many great and useful ideas throughout.

Chapter 14, 15,&17: Conferencing, Sharing, and Assessment/Evaluation

 I think that the section about conferencing very interesting and important. I like how they let us know that sometimes conferencing can be really complicated and stressful. I have see this is my classroom already this semester and a little from my previous placements. My mentor teacher is a male from Porto Rico, so he speaks Spanish as well as English. This is a great thing because many of the students in my classroom are hispanic, so he is able to communicate not only with the students but also their parents or guardians. I consider myself to be outspoken and able to say what I am thinking. I do not think that conferencing with students, parents, or administrators will be a problem for me. Being able to sit in and listen to teachers, parents, and students have meeting about their work and behavior has helped me and shown me how it actually work and the things that may come up in the meeting. I think that knowing that Ray keeps her conferences a short as possible was a helpful tip to remember. In my mentor class, when we write, I feel like when I walk around and help students or read their work during writing workshop that I am getting to know the children on a personal level and getting to know them better. Being able to help the students on a one-on-one basis and communicating with each student individually makes such an impact on the students and their writings. The four components mentioned in the text are very important to know and follow.

Having the students talk during reading workshop about their work is something that every teacher should make sure that their students do. Ray thinks that this is also a very important thing to do. In my mentor classroom, there are not really and children that are not talkative or shy/embarrassed to speak out and voice their opinion or share with their classmates. Even though I am not shy at all and will talk to just about anyone about anything, I would sometimes get nervous or embarrassed when I used to be called on in class to answer a question. I would always be afraid that if i answered the question and it would be wrong, my classmates would make fun of me and laugh. I finally grew out of this and learned that if you don't step up and say what you are thinking, then you will never learn and more than likely someone else in the classroom is thinking the same thing as I was but they were also just afraid to speak up. Sometimes I like getting called on now and getting an answer incorrect because I learn from it and I will always remember the answer now that I got it wrong. It is a great thing to be able to speak my mind and being able to share with my classmates and I will encourage all future students to not be shy to speak up and making sure that they fell like it is okay to get something wrong and ask questions. NO one in the world is perfect and we all make mistakes sometimes.

Personally, I do not think that I will be very good when it comes to assessing my students. I think that it is going to be challenging to me to be able to assess students writing because writing is a personal opinion and my opinion may be different and I may not agree with the things that some of my students write about. I believe that we should not have to assess students and their writings but we should with their reading and reading comprehension. The is a right and wrong answer to something like this but not with a child's actual writing. I can see that its fair for deducting points from students work for sentence structure, spelling, or misusing of words and their content. If students always get punished for their writing and never getting positive feedback, then the students will eventually start getting worse while writing and not trying their hardest because they won't have anything positive to look forward too.