What did you learn about yourself as a writer?
I remembered how frustrating it is for me to write academically. I am somewhat of a perfectionist, and writing is not my strongest area. I occasionally have to write essays for my other courses, but not usually as often as we have in this class. This is not a bad thing at all, as it has given me a chance to practice often and improve my writing. This class has reminded me why I do not write very often, and why I should write more.
What did you learn about digital writing or being a member of a digital writing community?
I learned that creating a blog is actually really easy to do! Before this class, I had never made one. I really like that it is public and anyone online can read it. Keeping a blog is a great way to practice writing, and reading other people's blogs is a great way to get ideas and learn new things.
What lessons can you take to your classroom or share with future teachers about integrating blogging into instruction?
I think all teachers should know how easy a blog is to make. Having students keep a weekly blog is a great way for students to share and publish their writing, as well as to help them build writing habits. It is also an easy assignment to give with little prep work for the teacher. The teacher can assign them a prompt or an open post, and just give a minimum word or sentence count. And it saves paper!
Challenges/Successes?
Really, my biggest challenge was finding the time to write the blog posts in my currently hectic schedule. I enjoyed the open posts, since I could write about what I am interested in, while the other posts were more challenging since they often involved outside research (such as learning a new form of technology to write about) in addition to writing the blog post itself. Another challenging aspect was writing about reading, writing, and teaching, which are all not my best subjects.
I consider it a success that I have completed all of the blog posts for this course! I also really liked creating the word cloud for the technology blog post. That is one more thing I can take away from this class that I can use in many other areas of school/work.
Overall, I found writing the blog posts somewhat difficult for me, but looking back on all that I have written this semester is very rewarding. The blog posts were easily my favorite assignments of the course. I especially liked that they were different each week, ranging from open posts, to tech-related posts, to Wordless Wednesdays. I hope my other classes in the future utilize blog posts as course assignments as well.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Professional Book Overview
The professional book that I read for this class was Teaching Arguments by Jennifer Fletcher. This was a great book for not only teaching me argumentative writing (since my background is not in writing) but also giving great ideas for how to teach the content to students.
I thought the author was both realistic about schools and what students can accomplish and an overwhelming sense of optimism about student potential. She explained complex rhetorical ideas in ways that students can easily understand.
The last chapter was easily my favorite, and could have been a book of its own. The chapter, titled "Aristotle's Guide to Becoming a Good Student" took a hard turn from the strategies and methods discussed in the former chapters, and jumped into the motivations and struggles of students as writers and life-long learners. After the author spent 6 chapters explaining argumentative writing and how to teach it, she then discusses how getting struggling students into "academic flow" is critical for improving students' writing. It focused on students' self-perception and confidence, as well as general teaching techniques such as modeling, mentoring, and imitation.
My favorite aspect that was apparent throughout the entirety of the book was the personal experience the author included. She used her years of teaching and researching to not only keep the book readable and personable, but demonstrate the methods as realistic and attainable.
This book would be invaluable to language arts teachers, and--at the very least, chapter seven--could be beneficial to teachers in any subject area. Not being a reading or writing major, I personally enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would. There was plenty that I saw could be applicable in a mathematics class, or any other subject area for that matter. I am quite happy to add this book to my small but slowly growing personal collection of nonfiction books.
I thought the author was both realistic about schools and what students can accomplish and an overwhelming sense of optimism about student potential. She explained complex rhetorical ideas in ways that students can easily understand.
The last chapter was easily my favorite, and could have been a book of its own. The chapter, titled "Aristotle's Guide to Becoming a Good Student" took a hard turn from the strategies and methods discussed in the former chapters, and jumped into the motivations and struggles of students as writers and life-long learners. After the author spent 6 chapters explaining argumentative writing and how to teach it, she then discusses how getting struggling students into "academic flow" is critical for improving students' writing. It focused on students' self-perception and confidence, as well as general teaching techniques such as modeling, mentoring, and imitation.
My favorite aspect that was apparent throughout the entirety of the book was the personal experience the author included. She used her years of teaching and researching to not only keep the book readable and personable, but demonstrate the methods as realistic and attainable.
This book would be invaluable to language arts teachers, and--at the very least, chapter seven--could be beneficial to teachers in any subject area. Not being a reading or writing major, I personally enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would. There was plenty that I saw could be applicable in a mathematics class, or any other subject area for that matter. I am quite happy to add this book to my small but slowly growing personal collection of nonfiction books.
Sunday, April 9, 2017
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