reflection on memorandum (blog 8)

This past unit helped me gain a lot of interesting information in regards to classroom management, classroom teaching techniques, various students and their needs, and much more. I enjoyed how we were set up and how we used designated class times to interact with one another before attempting the drafts of the memorandum. I was a little confused about what exactly we needed to include, but, after going over it in class, I knew exactly what to expect and what I wanted to include. I think that this assignment opened a lot of our eyes in to the "real" world of teaching and that we may be asked to research on recommendations for the school(s) that we will be working at. I feel that someday we may be asked by our fellow staff members, principals, and/or possibly our district to find what can be used differently in our classrooms. I took on this assignment as if I was already an elementary teacher and tried my best to convey that my recommendations would definitely help our school.

I worked on two drafts before turning in my final draft last week and felt that my time during peer editing gave me confidence that my memorandum was leading towards the right direction. In my memorandum, the recommendations that I listed included that students should have a choice of what to write about, modeling is key, ensuring the classrooms that writing is a social process and the power of feedback. I thought these recommendations are something that teachers need to work on more and by doing so, I feel that students will learn to enjoy writing more and respect their teachers when they accomplish the same things in the class with the rest of the class. Did that make sense???

The wiki site took the time to get used to, but, I did feel that it helped a lot. Our particular inquiry group made the graphs on the actually annotated bibliography page so that we can go to it anytime versus the large paper the teacher ad given us. I felt that placing the graphs on the actually wiki site worked much better that the paper form. In the future, maybe that could be a requirement so that other inquiry groups can use it for quick reference.

Overall, I do think that this was an excellent assignment. It made me realize that we can be put into this position and our recommendations could possibly make a difference. In other classes, group discussions always lead to what can we do as teachers change what needs to be change within our schools, communities, districts, classrooms, and etc....wouldn't this be a great example of attempting to change what we would like to see change. I think the assignment gave us an insight and a good experience with writing memos in our future careers.

correctness

Chapter One talks about all the aspects of correctness when it comes to writing. The entire chapter took about 50 pages and talked about different aspects such as spelling, sentence structure, capitalization, abbreviations, numbers, most commonly confused and misused words. I thought that this was very interesting because it caught my attention on some of the things that I actually do when writing. For example, atleast, actually it should be written at least. I do this all the time until my computer catches the mistake and lets me know that I should change it. Since I brought up how computers sometimes help with spell check and grammar, I should include that the chapter also covered this topic. I always use spell check but previous teachers I have had for writing and other classes has warn me that spell check does not always catch every error. The chapter on correctness also reiterated that statement.

Another thing that caught my eye while reading the chapter on correctness is the rule: I before E except after C. I remember learning this when I was just a little kid in Language Arts but it always bothered me that the word receive never fit that rule....I never knew that the rule had more to it. According to the book, it says I before E except after C OR when the word sounded like an A as in neighbor. That really surprised me and think to myself "all these years I thought the rule was a joke" but in reality i just didn't know the whole rule.

Reading the chapter also reiterated information I already learned such as how to write and place numbers in your writing, abbreviations, and using commas. However, one thing that still tricks me here and there when writing is capitalization!!!! In the book it says that you shouldn't capitalize diseases but I always thought you had to...I understand names, brand names, and etc. but some of the things listed in the "no need for capitalization" page surprised me!

learning from these research articles

well most of what i learned and thought about was written in the previous blog. so im not sure if i am suppose to reiterate what i mentioned or add something new. well, after meeting last week in class i come to realize that i still feel the way i do in the last blog i had written. on the other hand, talking about article 3 and reading article 4 had me thinking about my future in the classroom and teaching english structure, stories, grammar, and etc. it seems like the language and its components should be easy to understand because i was born and raised here but in reality its probably one of the hardest languages to teach, speak, write, understand, and comprehend. i have learned that it is up to the teachers to teach their children and make sure they understand what is happening. i have to practice what i preach in sharing my work, sharing my fears about writing, and my expectations from them as students and learn what their expectations of me as a teacher are.

as mentioned before i think of these research articles as a stepping stool to my own experiences with writing. these articles gave me a chance to look at others points of view and put that in the experiences i will encounter and possibly those i have already encountered. it also gave me a window of thinking, meaning what would i do in that particular situation that this teacher did or wanted? by interacting with the others in class it seems like the overall aspect of my articles were similiar to the articles they read and it seemed like they felt the same way i did.

research articles

so far these articles have really opened my eyes to what others (who are professionals too!) think about writing. it also gave me an insight of what others already in the field think, experienced, felt, and disagree with when it comes to teaching their kids about writing. im reading the set of articles in set three and these articles have surprisingly made me think twice and ask myself (many times through reading them) "what would i do?" "is that appropriate?" and notions that made me feel as if i would never do those things to my students and etc.

i really enjoyed the last two articles thus far in my set, because it made me realize that free writes are not necessarily "free" and that teachers are actually in control of those free writes as well. so i ask you....who is actually in control of the free write? you (teacher) or the student? the article mentions that the teacher is always in control of what students write about in class and i tend to agree with that statement after reading the article. on the other hand if you were to ask me before reading this article i would have said that free writes are great and that it enable students to write whatever they feel, want, or experienced that day in question. WRONG! the article gave me insights on how its sort of like a chain reaction when it comes to writing. the teachers have control of what the students should write as far as genre, style, format, and sometimes even ideas. the school board and higher administration has control over the teachers and what they have to teach the students. the state of california or any other state you may work in has control over the higher administration to tell the teachers what they must teach the students. get it? wheres the freedom in that?!?

im curious to get into groups today to really concentrate on what the other articles are about. i would like to actually here experiences in classrooms that did not work out as planned or expected to be...maybe the downfalls rather than the postives to see the spectrum. i would also like to possible hear the students points of view of writing and see if their thoughts and ideas are somewhat similiar to those of teachers. all these are good questions and research is inevitable but i think the main aspect of this is that we never know what we do in a situation until it actually happens to us...time is running out... =(