July+22

July 22, 2010 By Lisa Wiersma AM When we walked in for class today, we saw that Ted had written a list of restaurants on the board. Our first order of business was to choose a place to eat for lunch. We settled on Hunan Palace. We spent the rest of the morning working on plans for our classrooms, reflecting on what we’ve learned, reading and returning books to the IWP library, and putting finishing touches on parts of our book. Rod suggested that we start tomorrow by sharing our reflections on how we will use what we learned over the past three weeks in our classrooms. We went to lunch as a group. PM Marty gave us a copy of the record form that Jim Davis designed for keeping track of students’ writing and what response(s) that writing received. Then she read a short piece written by a seventh grade student. We shared many things we liked about the piece. Then Marty gave us a copy of what the student had written with all the mechanical errors marked. (There were at least 34.) We talked about how to teach students who really struggle with the mechanics of writing. They often become discouraged because the focus is placed on their errors instead of their ideas. One strategy that Marty has used with students in her Basic Writing class is to type some of their pieces without errors. The students were able to see the strengths of their own writing and became motivated to improve. Praise and mirroring are especially important for struggling writers. Marty recommended the book //Framework for Understanding Poverty.// It is written for teachers to help them understand some of the issues that students experience who live in poverty (not that all mechanical issues are directly related to living conditions, but sometimes they are). Ted added that the environment that students grow up in has a significant effect on what students can do. Next, we discussed the progress of our book. Tomorrow we’ll have a folder with a print copy of the book. The bios and table of contents are on the wiki. People are welcome to comment on them. UNI will be printing the books for us. We will receive our books after school starts. Lisa read the preface to the book aloud. We proceeded with the silent reading table. A few people added new pieces. We took some time to throw bouquets of praise to each other. Marty shared with us some opportunities for publishing our writing. We should be aware of all the possibilities for us and our students to share writing. Writersmarket.com (which is also usually available at public libraries) is a great resource for writers looking for a place to publish their writing. It lists the specifications that various magazines (and other publications) require. Other publication opportunities: post writing. When you want to publish, don’t be afraid to share something that’s rough. Get feedback instead of filing it away. We looked over the pieces that we wrote, and wrote a portfolio reflection. We brainstormed some questions that we could ask students who are writing reflections about their own portfolios: What are your strengths? What are your emerging skills? What genres do you feel most comfortable writing? What people or resources supported you in your writing? How did this piece come about? What is your writing process? How did this piece evolve? Did writing this change how you felt or thought about something? What did you learn/discover? Where do you want to go next? Why did you choose the pieces that you chose? We can send our reflections to Marty. Rod and Marty packed up books while we wrote. We changed the left and right margins for our book to 1.25”. Marty shared that some of her students this fall have a service learning component to their writing class. If anyone is interested in having some college students work with some of their students, contact Marty. She also said that any of her English majors would be willing to come to any classes to share about their experience as English majors at Morningside. Marty finished reading //The Bat Poet.//
 * Online poetry contests, such as on poetry.com. (Be careful. Some sites are scams.)
 * English Journal and ICTE often publish stories about life in the classroom.
 * Attend conferences. People there are often collecting articles and stories to publish together.
 * Create a writing group
 * Write collaboratively
 * Mugglenet.com—editors read and respond before publishing online
 * //The Journal// wants book reviews. There is a required format. If you are interested, talk to Marty.
 * Goodreads.com is a social network about reading and writing. You can form groups and