Entry #6: Dear Dr. Jones

 Dear Dr. Jones, 

Overall, I do genuinely enjoy being in this class and learning all of these different approaches to writing and different strategies that we can adopt in our future classrooms. Before beginning this class, teaching writing seemed very daunting to me; I have learned how to write throughout my schooling and throughout college but I have never really known where to begin to teach young writers how to write or what strategies to follow. I would say at this point that this class is what I expected and I am happy that we are learning and reading about strategies that we implement in our classrooms now and for future uses. I don't necessarily think that I am surprised about how I am being asked to engage with my learning, but I do like that we are actively trying out different strategies and using them to gauge whether or not these would be useful tools to use in the future. Up until this point of my graduate degree, we have learned a handful of theories regarding literacy and I am glad that we are learning teaching strategies that we can implement in our future classrooms. 

For example, using the "Status of the Class" chart has definitely helped me to visualize and see how helpful this could be for students to utilize their time in class wisely and to practice being responsible for their own learning and progress in the writing stages. Not only could this writing strategy be useful for the students to note where they are in the writing process, but as a teacher of literacy, to see where students are struggling and what areas I can help them in and to provide mini lessons to aid their struggle. I think this status chart can even be helpful when planning out future lessons in the classroom for the teacher's use just by keeping track of progress for what has to be done by certain weeks. In regards to aspects of the class that have benefited my own literacy development would definitely have to be taking the time to annotate our class texts that are either vocabulary heavy or just rich with information. I have always known how to annotate texts, but I feel like I am genuinely taking the time now to slow down and write my thoughts down in order to process the text that I am reading. Additionally, I think the writing strategies that we are learning about in class and then physically doing them in class has definitely increased my literacy development because these strategies are helping me to look at the way that I approach writing in a different way. If we weren't physically trying the writing strategies in class, I think I would be afraid or intimidated to try them in a real class setting so I am grateful that we do that during class time. 

The only struggle I seem to be having in class is just being able to keep track of and make sure I am completing all of the asynchronous assignments. I remember every week to make sure I am doing my blog posts, but I did forget an assignment for the at-home portion of class and I am usually on top and timely with my assignments. One way I can improve the situation is by writing down everything I have to do and then physically check them off to make sure I complete them. I am going to try it from here on out and make sure everything gets completed. 

Your student,

Holly