Okay, I hope I'm doing this right! This is officially my first blog. :)
First of all, I just want to say that I love the way this book is written; I prefer this memoir-style writing as opposed to a traditional textbook format. Plus, I find it pretty interesting.
I appreciate Atwell's honesty about her first attempts at teaching the process of writing. I think that is the best way to learn: trial and error. Of course, I appreciate the fact that she has done some of the erroring for us so that perhaps we can skip that part and use the techniques that she has in place in her classroom presently.
I do have questions about the in-class writing workshop which I'm certain will be addressed later in the book (I've only read the 1st chapter). For instance, how often is a writing workshop held? Is it part of a daily routine, or weekly? I wonder if her class was solely devoted to writing, or was this a basic English class that also included reading literature, grammar, vocabulary, etc. With class time being so limited (usually 50 minutes in high school), how is it possible for one teacher to address 25+ students in an individual conference?
Something that Atwell said really hit me: "...writing well is not a gift" (p. 14). I'm not sure why this never occured to me before the moment I read it and I'm a little ashamed to admit that. I guess since I've never really had a problem expressing myself through words, I thought it was just a natural talent (I've never considered myself "gifted") :). Of course, I do think that some people are more naturally inclined to writing simply because they enjoy it (like myself). I started thinking about it this way: I hate math and don't really care for science; yet, even on the college level I made an A in each of those classes. I don't enjoy it, it's not something I ever wanted to pursue, but I was able to be "good" at it when needed. I think the same goes for writing. Even those who don't like it or don't have any desire to be writers can still write well when needed. And since writing is heavily required in academics, it's definitely something that should be taught heavily, in my opinion.
In theory, I love the ideas presented in the first chapter. I love to write and I know that as a teacher, I will expect much from my students in this area; therefore, I am looking forward to learning strategies and methods which I can implement into my classroom to help them grow as writers (and perhaps myself, too).
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Kristen, as an answer to one of your questions about how often a writing workshop is held, I would assume it’ll take place at least and at most once a week in Nancie’s classroom. In her chapter on teaching about reading, she’s mentioned how reading workshops are held throughout the whole week. At the same time, she mentioned that “in-school reading, like in-school writing” is truly beneficial to students’ learning. This is also in response to your question about including reading literature, grammar, and such. Throughout reading the chapter, I pondered on the same question, how does Nancie do this all in such a short time period? My assumption was that she does these reading workshops for a certain periods at a time, not throughout the whole year. My assumption is likely to be wrong because she’s mentioned the amount of books her students have read during the year. For instance, one girl had completed nineteen books by May. I was bewildered when I read that statement because this does not seem possible in a normal English classroom! Obviously, Nancie’s classroom is not normal because normal equates with “tradition.” My response entry ends with a question: how does she do it? I look forward to reading on and finding out. ☺ I hope my thoughts have helped you out. =)
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