"If I locked my students in my classroom..."

“If I locked my students in my classroom and stood outside the door, what could they learn about writing without me even being there?”

This weeks readings in Katie Wood Ray’s The Writing Workshop help calm my NERVES about how to TEACH, using CURRICULUM and WHOLE CLASS involvement. I feel a little bit more confident about executing this in a classroom. The idea is becoming more real.

“These are places where you can look at things, try things out, read things, touch things…You learn in these places because you are surrounded by things to learn from.” Thing statement is so powerful because I believe as teachers we need to provide students with an environment wherein they can act as FREE AGENTS and in doing so they need the proper materials and resources. When surrounded by things to learn from one’s brain can be constantly stimulated with new ideas and thoughts about their writing.

“Either we can be walking, breathing, talking examples of all we advocate for our students, or we can have them sitting around wondering why we are trying to get them into something that we are obviously not into ourselves.” I CONNECTED with this statement because when I was in Elementary School I asked myself that very question many times, why am I doing/learning this when my teacher doesn’t seem to care about it? When I saw this in my teacher(s) is left me very UNMOTIVATED to do the work they were asking me to do. If I had, had a teacher that walked and talked what she taught because she had been there, then I probably would have been more willing to try harder/give it my best. That is one thing that I look forward to in being a teacher…being able to RELATE to my students. Be a teacher that is able to look at things through her students eyes, not just through empathy, but through ACTUALITY and AUTHENTICITY.

I was wondering if a teacher was suppose to write during writing workshop? My question was answered in this reading. Katie said, “I teach during writing workshop-from start to finish.” After she explained how she taught through the focus lesson and then one-on-one that made more sense. Although, the planning side of teach through one-on-one conferences make me NERVOUS because you can’t really plan because you don’t know what the student is going to say. So I guess a question for this would be how can I get myself as prepared as possible for student-teacher conferences?

I like the idea of having homework as the student’s “WORLD WORK.” Thinking, looking, analyzing the world around them and writing their thoughts/feeling/etc. into a notebook. Perfect HOMEWORK!