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.