Ashley

There were several things that stuck out for me in these last few chapters of the book. I found the layout for the architecture of a mini lesson to be very helpful. The layout of focusing on a connection, teach, have-a-go and linking will help me to stay on track with my mini lesson. Through mini lessons I’m able to teach new kinds of writing work and through conferencing I’m able to confer with students to deepen their understanding of that work and to extend their thinking. Two strategies that stuck out for me were Students say something to Neighboring Students and Students Look at their Writing and Make Plans. I’ve never considered letting students turn and talk to their neighbors about the mini lesson and discussing how they can use it in their writing or examining their own writing and thinking about how they can utilize what was taught in their writing sample (using post-it notes is also a really useful tool to use for this step).

                Chapter six answered one of the questions that I had about writing conferences which was…when do we confer with students? I conferred mostly during revising and editing stage (which the author points out as a common misconception of when to confer). I learned that we can confer at any stage as long as it helps to improve their writing.  “We have to keep in mind that our goal in conferences is to help students become better writers. If we confer with a first grader about how to find a topic to write about, we’ve helped him become a better writer” (p.166)

                Lastly, the toughest thing about teaching writing to my students is having them become really fluent independent writers. Some of my students are very dependent on me to help me move them through the writing process. I realized that I should have spent more time building writing stamina and how to help them find ideas to write about. The strategies listed on page 176 were very useful as I think about how I can help my students develop their independence. Strategies like: making a sketch, using objects and people to spark ideas, free-writing, and thinking about previous readings for ideas are all great ways to help my students become more independent.

                This book was very helpful in how I teach writing.   As I wrapped up the book of How’s it Going? I have to say that this book has really helped me to evaluate how I conduct writer’s workshop in my class. Although I’m not teaching ELA explicitly, I’m thinking about ways I can help students improve their writing and become better at writing like mathematicians and historians.

 This resource has been SO helpful. I'm looking forward to implementing some of these strategies next semester and incorporating more writing in math and social studies.