Memorandum Thoughts

I already blogged about the Memo but I will update my blog. Upon reflecting on the blog, I feel that I could have written a better paper than what I produced. By the end of writing it, I had the feeling of being so burned out. I spent 3 hours with my group in the library writing the beginning of the paper and then probably another 5 hours on my own time. SO, needless to say, at the end I was done! I think I could have done this assignment better if I just wrote about the articles I read. I felt like in my memo, I spoke the best about the article I read. When I was writing about the articles my partners read, I felt as though I did not have complete understanding of what I was writing about. I do like how in the end my works cited looked really long as though I was really smart and had a lot of knowledge regarding the topic, hehehe. I like how I was able to use a lot of reserached material throughout the article, but felt like I was BSing at times in the article. Anyhow, I definitly spent a lot of time writing this memo and felt super stressed by the assignment because I felt like I was working just outside my zone of proximal development (as talked about in many articles). I guess it's good to challenge yourself and feel slightly uncomfortable in your writings because then you better yourself.

Memo

The process of writing this memorandum has been difficult. It was interesting how I sat stairing at the blank computer screen, feeling anxious about where to begin and all the while thinking how students feel anxious about where to begin with their writing, as talked about in one of the articles. I enjoy this semesters projects in the fact that they are all different types of papers we are working on. I like the fact that this is a memorandum...I think it's good to work outside your comfort zone a bit. I'm so use to writing regular papers that it's nice to mix it up a bit. I have yet to finish my memo, I think I'm on page six so far with quite a bit more to go. I hope it's not going to be too long. Alrighty, I guess that's all I have to say about the memo. I'm not exactly sure what we are blogging about so I figured I'd just write about my process.

The importance of correctness

After scanning the Rules of Thumb book by Silverman I immediately feel stressed. I have never been good at the rules of grammar. I hate all the rules, such as "do this before this except in this case and that case". I have always been fine at writing papers and have received good grades but have never totally felt confident in my correctness. It was good to skim and look over the pages 2-60 in Silverman to refresh my memory, also now I will know where to turn when I have a question. This book is a good investment because it's something you can just keep next to your computer and have instant access to when needed.

I am nervous about teaching grammar to students someday. I will definitely have to study ahead of my students to make sure I'm teaching it the right way. I hope to have a teaching style that can be fun for the students so they don't dread it like I do. I have no idea how my sister is a high school English teacher, aye!

The Teaching of Writing

I have actually enjoyed reading my articles. I am beginning to feel that I am learning stuff that I will apply to my classroom (hopefully). The main thing I have gathered from reading the first three articles in set one is that when teaching writing to your students it is best to have them be engaged in writing something that is personal and meaningful to them. In the article "Seeing Writing Instruction Differently: Lessons with Lasting Impressions" by Jill Dillard the reader came to understand that having your students engage in writing stories that are personal to them such as past events in their life that the students in turn created better text. Jill, an elementary school teacher, had her students try writing on three separate occasions using three separate prompts. One prompt was showing a picture to the students and have them write a story about it, a second prompt was having her students write about a medieval event that was about to happen at school, her third prompt was to write about a life experience. Throughout her experimentation of this she found that when the students wrote about their life experiences they generated more text and better writing styles. When the students wrote about stuff they were not connected to they produced less text and focused their writing towards what they thought she/Jill would want them to write on. This method also proved true for Brett Elizabeth Blake in his article "Fruit of the Devil: Writing and English Language Learners" where he taught writing to EL's (English learners)in a summer program. He found that when he showed compassion to his students and really got to know them as individuals that they were more willing to open up in their writings. He also had them write about their life experiences which he found also helped them open up in their writings. In conclusion, these readings have been helpful to me and I enjoy thinking about what I am learning when reflecting on them.