Entry #8: Bless, Address, or Press

 For this entry, I look towards Kayli Krossber's, "Entry 5: Putting Aside the Notebook and Bringing Forth the Hands-On Thinking Tools." One of the questions in her blog entry that I would like to address/think more about is about half-way down her entry where she asks,

"Why are we often taught to go straight to a notebook for brainstorming or a graphic organizer? Why not use hands-on materials to represent how we learn/build our ideas as we progress forward..." One of the things I am noticing now in my classroom, more so this year after the isolation period of the pandemic, is that kids need to be doing hands-on activities. Since they have been so isolated over the past two years I have noticed the extreme need for learning to be interactive and hands-on instead of the traditional pen to paper brainstorming that I experienced when I was in high school. Even though I think there are times when students need to sit down and write pen to paper or on a computer, I believe giving students the option to brainstorm ideas for writing assignments like the Card Strategy Lesson allows them to have a visual space to map out their thinking and manipulate their thoughts where they see fit. In my current classroom, I have a handful of students who are visual learners and to have them use a strategy like this would positively impact their growth as writers. For a future assignment I am going to have them work on where they have to come up with their own personal narrative, I am going to use this strategy or at least provide it as an option for my students to choose as they generate different possibilities to take their writing. Not only will it help them to generate ideas, but if they figure out a new way to sort out their thoughts and develop a new learning strategy, it could help them out in the long run.  

When students are in the "Ideas" section of the writing process, "Often, the best ideas deal with familiar topics that are examined in fresh and unexpected ways" (Tompkins, 2012, p. 59). This Card Strategy Lesson portrays yet again just how helpful it is to visualize your thoughts and then have someone else look at your categories and sort them in a way that makes sense to them. This way, there are a couple perspectives that can be looked at and students may find a pathway to their writing process that they had not thought of before. I also have to take a moment and bless/give praise to Kayli for thinking this way about brainstorming because I have to agree with her that most teachers do not think this way or teach their students to think this way when they are involved with the writing process. I think just by asking this question, Kayli is going to think outside of the box for her students who may not think in the traditional fashion that the majority of us have been taught in schools. I can tell she is going to work hard to make sure that all types of her kids are going to be able to learn in a way that makes sense to them, not just because it is convenient for the teacher.