Chapter 12: Make Every Minute Count

Although short, I thought this chapter had a lot of information in it. On page 282 I like her list of "Secrets of Good Writers." Something that will be very easy to follow.

I agree with her on getting to know your students & letting her students get to know you. It is very important that our students feel that they know you & trust you.

Last but not least, we have to have our own life outside of school. I think nowadays teachers need to take this to heart. It seems like a lot of teachers get burned out easily & either don't enjoy their job or turn to something else.

Chapter 11: Build on Best Practice & Research

What I took away from this chapter was that whole districts, schools, & grade levels should be working together to make effective & successful writers in our schools. I feel that team 6 shares ideas & practices with each other. We all talk to each other. I know a few of us feel that writing is weak point in our teaching. We all support & encourage each other.

Friday at our PD day, Obee staff came together & agreed that we would align our writing with every grade level. Everyone on the staff was very positive and willing to do this. Something that we want to implement at the beginning of next year.

One thing that I do not agree with Regie on is about the ELL learners. I come from a district where 90% of my class were ELL learners. Some were higher than others and yes others sturggled, but we never isolated them and took them out of language activity classes. This was a Pre-K thru 6 school.

Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count

"Eighty percent of students' writing needn't be graded, same as reading."

I couldn't agree more with this, but how do you do this and get grades for each nine weeks. Then she turns around on page 251 and makes one of her categories "Assess Students' Writing Every Day." So are we suppose to assess every day or not? To me assessing & conferencing are two different things.

I really liked her idea on page 249 of having each student write to a prompt at the beginning of the year & again at the end of the year to the same prompt. I think this would show excellent growth.

The idea of creating an audience for students to write to is a good idea. Sometimes I think they have a hard time picturing an audience. Any suggestions??

Anxiety! What anxiety for state assessments? I couldn't agree more that we need to relax our students for state assessments. If we as teachers are as stressed as we are, I can't imagine what kids feel like having to take the assessments. I think they sense it from us and can feel how important assessments are. I'm not sure they understand why though.

Chapter 9: Conference with Students

I was excited and a little scared to get into this chapter. First, I was ready to see what I needed to be doing in order to be conferencing with my students. Second, I felt like this is one area of writing that I have not been doing at all or doing the right way. It was quite a pleasant surprise to read that I was doing a few things that she considered to be conferencing, roving & whole class share. I have never considered whole class share to be a conference, but now that I stop and think about it the students are still learning as we do this. I also liked the quickshare conference. When time is crunched you are still getting some conferencing in.

One-on-one formal conferences is something I really need to work on. It was reassuring to read that we will not get to every student on everyday for this. That it will take a week to get through our class.

The class list that was used on page 217 for roving conferences will be very beneficial to use in my room. I also like the editing conference list on page 234. Very easy to follow and understand for students at their desks or at a conference.

Chapter 8: Organize for Daily Writing

I found a lot of great ideas in this chapter and will being referring back to it every year. However there were a few things that I found overwhelming and one that didn't make sense.

On page 179, she gives a list of prewriting. One of them is researching a subject, but I thought she has stated over and over again to let them choose what they want to write on. If they choose, shouldn't they already have the background information on that subject. Please someone explain this to me if I am reading it the wrong way. Also, on page 185 &186 there are examples of daily schedules with writing. How did a teacher change this so easily without effecting the entire school? We are set on schedules that are set on other people's schedules. It just seems that their schedules don't add up to everything I feel I have to accomplish in a day or along with everything else that goes on in a school day.

I did find several ideas that I liked and am ready to try. I loved the 3 ring binder idea for keeping all of their work together. I especially think this is a great idea for my grade. I also liked the ideas of writing on every other line, writing only on one side, and dating everything. Very easy concepts, just need to apply them. The last thing I really liked was the short writing projects listed on page 198-199. I feel our students have gotten away with handwritten projects due to all the technology. We did one postcard activity in social studies this year, but need to find ways to incorporate this more often.

Chapter 7: Be Efficient and Intergrate Basic Skills

Here again I felt like she is the teacher of all teachers. It seems that Mrs. Routman can make any child do anything she wants them to do. No matter how many times I show whole class, small group, or individually revising & editing, I cannot get them to put their "heart and soul" into them. I guess I need her to come to my class and make them fall in love with revising & editing.

There were a few things I did enjoy about this chapter tough. I love the word wall idea. I think it would be great to have words that they will hear, need to know, & know how to use up for them to see and use everyday. It think words that contain our prefixes and suffixes would be excellent.

I love the fact of minilessons. I have heard and heard about them, but have never actually seen one taught or even an outline of one.

I also like the yearly layout on page 144. I really like the May categories. Our 6th grade writing layout is similar to this, but I am sure that we have way to many isolated skills being taught & prompts for Mrs. Routman.

Chapter 6: Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

As teachers, we all know the importance of the reading-writing connection. I found myself enjoying this chapter. Maybe because it made me realize that I do do more writing in my class than I thought.

"What we're after is a written response that deepens comprehension, causes the writer to reflect on the content, and/or fosters appreciation for the text." pg. 125

This saying really grabbed my attention and made me think of my own class. I have my students write a 2 minute summary when we are done reading from our social studies text. At the beginning of the year I didn't think they were understanding what I really wanted, but now thinking over the year they have come so far. In the beginning they where in their text trying to find what to write and now they may reference to their text every once in awhile. They are getting the meaning of "important information" as to "unimportant information".


One thing I took from this chapter and am excited in trying next year was mentioned on page 128. It says to have them write summaries as a group before I have them do it by themselves.

The other thing I thought about was book blurbs. With the technology we have, I thought that it would be fun to have students do this with comic life. I have to actually admit I am excited to try this with my students

Chapter 5: Do More Shared Writing

I enjoyed this chapter and found some thing that I would really like to try in my class. A lot of the activities seemed to be geared towards the younger grade levels. When I taught Kindergarten I did the cut up sentences. They kids loved this. How could I change it to adapt to 6th grade students? The other thing I really like about this chapter was she should an example of how she dialogues. It was nice to see how she would lead the students, something I didn't think we were suppose to do.

These are some activities I would really like to try in my class.

* Holes activity, would be grade appropriate in any of our novels we read as a class. pg.87
*To start a story as a class and then have them finish it in partners. pg. 89
*Cloze exercise

I have always seemed to try and make things harder than what she did. She showed how easy and quick it really can be. That is what I want quick, easy, & fun.

Chapter 4: Raise Your Expectations

Quite frankly, I cannot believe that she opened this chapter the way she did. Saying that teachers don't have high enough expectations for their students. Not one time have I ever NOT set high expectations for EVERY student in my class. Nor do I know of any teachers that I have taught with not to do the same. Of course we want our students to do everything and anything better than they did at the beginning of a year. It doesn't matter whether it is academically, musically, in sports, or whatever they choose to do.

"Our teaching style and demeanor toward our students determine their attitudes and efforts toward learning. In too many classrooms-where students may be disruptive, resistant, learning English as a second language, or have parents who have difficulty communicating with teachers-we give students permission to fail." (page 82)

The first sentence I could not agree more with. We teachers set the tone for the whole year of learning. The second sentence though I COULD NOT DISAGREE with more. Having taught in districts where my whole class were ELL learners, never once did I set my expectations low or even consider letting them FAIL. I expected the world from them. The same went for their parents. Just because there was a language barrier is no excuse. You do what you have to do to get those kids ready for the next year and to be able to survive in life. I had several parents who would come up to me and tell me that they were learning along with their child because of the skills I had them doing at home with their parents.

Chapter 3: Share Your Writing Life

In this chapter she talks a lot about writing & sharing with your colleagues. As uncomfortable as I feel about writing in front of my class, it is even worse with my colleagues. I remember an instance where we were suppose to write about something and I just sat there. It was like I had never written before and had no ideas popping in my head that I could write about. Which makes me think about pg. 45 where the author talks about making "a safe haven" for all writers.

"You only have to write a little bit better than your students for them to take something away from your writing." pg. 45 I have always felt like the teacher on this page, in which I have to have everything perfect in order to feel that my students can get anything out of my examples.

In the section about writing at the beginning of a year, I did start feel a little bit better about some writing in my class. I stopped and thought about all the writing we did at the beginning of this year: All About Me, Autobiography, Summer Memories, etc... The one thing I stop and reflect on is that I need to continue this throughout the year and do MORE modeling myself.

Start with Celebration

Or as I like to call this chapter "The I Don't Do Enough of That". I don't do enough sharing, celebrating, letting them choose, or displaying. I do like how she points out that you celebrate whatever your student has on his/her paper. That is something that I overlook a lot. I get so caught up in making sure everything is right, that I forget to let them know what I really like about their paper.

Poetry is a genre that I have always been scared to touch, but do. I have a hard time believing that this is the one that "brings most joy, ease, and success for both the students and teacher." Please let me know if this is happening in your classroom.

The one thing that I did think about at the end of this chapter, is how much I would like my class to be able to blog with another class in this district & in another state. Having the students see how other 6th graders write & what they like about writing.

Chapter 1: Simplify the Teaching of Writing

As I read this chapter I kept picturing my class. We MUST follow the 6 trait writing, a procedure. As I stop and think about this years class the student's groan when I talk about writing. I think if I enjoyed it myself or felt more confident with this, my student's would enjoy it also. What I want more than anything from this class is her opening words on page 5, "One of my main purposes in writing this book is to make teaching writing easier, more manageable, and more fun." Fun is what I want. There are times that my class enjoys sharing their writing, but most of the time it is like pulling teeth. I want them to want to share ALL of the time.

The other thing that I got most out of this chapter is on page 8 & 9, giving students time to talk before they write. Something so simple, but a "belief" that I have not lived by. This is also a "belief" that I could use right away in my classroom.

In this chapter she talks a lot about teacher modeling. This is something that I am not real comfortable with. I do it, but not as often as I should. Our team 6 has talked about this quite often and I hope it is a "belief" that I can become quite comfortable with throughout this class.