Keeslers Writing World

I really enjoyed Anne Lamott's excerpt from Bird by Bird. I think the reason that I liked it so much was because I feel like she identifies with amatuer writers. She's basically telling us all that every writer goes through much of the same things. They have trouble starting the paper, their writing is shorter than they expected, they write horrible first drafts. I think that to many this is kind of relieving to hear because some of us have taken writing classes or had that teacher that expected that every word of your paper be absolutely perfect. I think it's very important to let students know that we all go through these sort of things and that they need to just sit down and get things on paper. Then go back and fix it up some. Their writings don't have to be perfect the first time and that they need to utilize others and the opportunity for polishing to make their writing great.
I know that I often can't plan to write a paper. I need to just sit down at the computer and start writing. I think this is very important for studetnts to realize this happens and it's ok. I as a teacher shouldn't expect that my students are just going to sit down and have their paper all planned out and that it's perfect. Some of the greatest authors have went back and edited their work years later. This is an important fact that students should know. It shows them that writing is a work in progress and that no writing is every perfect. There is always going to be room for improvement in anyones writing.
I believe that through experience with writing students will be able to plan or write a paper with less and less difficulty. For this reason I intend to take time out of my class each day for students to just write a journal of whatever they would like to write about. This won't be graded other than for participating in it. I know that we do this in our class, but I never really did spontaneous journals in high school and I think that it could be very beneficial in helping students with their writing.

I really liked the idea that Donald M. Murray is talking about in his article. After reading the articile a lot of the points made a lot of sense to me. I really do think that writing does find it's own meaning. Often times you sit down to write a paper and have an idea of what you want the paper to say, but then for some reason you find yourself writing and expanding on other things that you had not considered previously. It's kinda like the paper work has it's own mind and knows what it needs to become.
I also really liked his idea of writing, reading, collecting, and connecting all relate. I know that personally I believe that writing and reading affect each other very strongly. By reading great works I think your own writing will improve. I also think that it helps you notice the relationship between these four and be able to use them better. Collecting idea's and connecting them together is an important part of writing. So how does one teach students to do these things? I think repetion and demonstration are the best teachers in writing. By continually writing and reading other works one can begin to see what good writing should or can look like.
In my own classroom I would use journals as a way of repetition. I know that some people don't like the journal approach, but I really believe it helps your writing greatly. I would even consider doing it in a blog for like this. I think that the importance with the journal method though is that you allow your students some freedom to write about what is on their mind, but still give them a way to connect their ideas to the curriculum. This is where the demonstration of great writing would come in. I would ask them to tie their journal entries to the literature that we are reading at the time.
As for the use of the actual prewriting process. I would leave that up to the individual student. I would of course teach them various prewriting techniques and how they can be useful, but in the end if they choose to use them would be their decision.

I really have enjoyed using the blog as a tool in the classroom. I think it's a fun way to do a journal and it allows you to see and comment on the oppinions of your classmates. I think that this is a more exciting way of writing journals than just a folder filled with notebook paper. I also like the fact that you can include pictures or websites on the blogs. I look forward to using blogs in my classroom and would really think that this is going to become a very popular tool in classrooms across the America. It's also a great way for students to communicate with one another about class projects or assignments. I think that the blog is a huge resource that with some development could totally change the way that we as teachers teach our studnts about writing. I can't wait to see how it affects the classroom and be a part of the teachers that do see this as a useful tool and integrate it into their classrooms.