Making Writing Meaningful

In my third grade classroom, we have spent an immense amount of time trying to get students thinking about writing. We have asked them "What makes a good writer?" and "Why is it important to be a good writer?" Students appear overall disinterested about writing. When students are asked to write, I get very opinionated responses. This includes sighs and comments about how writing is "boring" and "takes too long". I am not sure where these negative attitudes about writing come from. Putting myself back into the third grade classroom, I do not remember disliking writing. However, I do not remember any specific writing instruction. With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards, writing is of utmost importance. Writing is a way in which students can demonstrate their understanding from texts, convey meaning, and support their own ideas. I believe students are overwhelmed by writing and it is our duty as teachers to ease their fears about the writing process.

This week's reading really got me thinking about myself as a writing teacher. The opening quote by Mem Fox that "Writers don't improve their craft unless they have a real purpose, a real audience, and a real investment in their writing", definitely supports my writing philosophy. If students do not see a purpose in what they are doing, their motivation and performance will definitely struggle. Students need to feel that their writing has importance and is being viewed by others for a true reason. Routman shares that we have made writing way too complicated by breaking the aspects down (141). This practice causes students to lose engagement. By making writing super specific and focusing on little skills, students are missing the overall picture that writing is meant to convey important ideas. I understand this rationale and definitely agree. However, I am at a loss of the best ways to do this. How can I have my students working on writing in meaningful ways without over-focusing on how they format the piece, their grammar, and the details they include? I am not sure how to find the perfect balance. Routman breaks it down very nicely on how to begin and I definitely believe the suggestions are beneficial. One idea I would enjoy examining further is to focus on the quality first. It is better to look at the formative process over time rather than summative components. One study by fifth grade teacher Debbie Fowler demonstrated a teacher's conscious decision to move away from the rubrics and to focus more on the quality of writing (143). The changes Debbie made to her writing curriculum definitely benefited her students. Once shying away from specific guidelines, Debbie and her colleagues were able to identify true improvement with better quality work written with a meaningful purpose to real audiences (145).

The work of Debbie and her colleagues brings me back to the classroom discussion we had this past week. How can we as teachers include these nontraditional teaching methods, but still reach each Common Core Standard? I definitely see this as an opportunity to finesse instruction. It is important to maintain the school curriculum while implementing new ideas into the classroom context. Routman suggests how to keep standards in perspective. Routman assures teachers that when they teach writing well several of the standards will be covered (153). I definitely believe that in order to accomplish a comfort of incorporating standards into my own teachings I will need more practice. I believe this literacy course will be a great asset into teaching me how to best do this.

In terms of daily writing in the classroom, I believe that once my students become more acquainted with the daily five, daily writing will become much more visible. Lately, students have been taking part in free rights to questions and we have also practiced writing in constructive response form. I definitely believe writing is going to be covered daily in my classroom. I really think that Routman's ideas of peer talk will be a good asset to these daily writing activities. The students in my classroom are very chatty and enjoy talking to one another. I would love to get them talking about their writing processes. I know that this will not be easy, but with lots of practice students will begin talking about content and becoming better writers with the support of their peers. It will definitely require me to circle around the classroom and make sure that conversations focus on the content (183). Students need to learn how to discuss their writing as a way to communicate what they need help in and the overall reasoning and message they are trying to share.

I definitely hope to get my students more excited to write. I know this is going to be a challenge. However, this is a problem I see a solution to. If students are given multiple meaningful writing activities, they will consistently begin to recognize the importance of writing.I definitely want to work with my students on a regular basis and discuss with them how they feel about writing and what they struggle with. I also believe that classroom discussions on how writing is going will help the class as a whole understand where everyone stands with the writing content. Sharing as a class and teacher how we feel about the writing process will bring it even more relevance. During our classroom free writes, my mentor teacher has told me the importance for me to write as well. This way, students will begin to recognize just how important writing is and realize that I think the task is valuable enough for me to take part in it to. I would love to hear both of your thoughts on the writing in your classroom, the attitudes of your students, and how you hope to making writing look by the end of the year.