I thought the most important thing in the chapter were the two questions to ask yourself before you start a lesson. What exactly am I teaching and Why am I teaching this? How will it help my students as writers. I am sure that if you as a teacher cannot answer these questions of your lesson, then your students for sure will not know what you are teaching or why you are trying to teach it to them. I have had students go through a whole lesson and then say "What are we doing this?" to the teacher and it seems like that would be the most important thing is to make sure that what you are teaching is relevant and that your students know why you are teaching it.
I think the way that I see a lot of teaching model writing is to model it through published Literature. I think this is a great way! Kids love books and if you can give them a good example then they will see the connection faster that just standing up in front of the class and trying to explain it without help from a book that they kids can connect with.
I think a writing conference is an amazing thing for teachers to do with their students. I had a teacher that did these, and I always liked the one on one time and it made me feel like the teacher was actually caring what I was writing about and I could bounce idea of of her or she could share writing strategies with me. It kept me more engaged in my writing and allowed for me to get another point of view so that I could strengthen my writing skills.
I think the special craft of using brand names, peoples names, and using as to connect sound to a visual are really important to good writing. It can give the reader a better visual of what you are trying to explain. If you say you are going to the store, the reader can picture any store, if you say you are going to an Old Navy, then anyone who knows what an old navy looks like, or any one who has been into an Old Navy can picture that in their head and get a much clearer vision of what you are explaining in your story without having to describe what the store looks like or what type of product the store might carry.
That's all for now!
Erin
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I absolutely agree. Voicing these questions also makes the purpose clear to you as the teacher and focuses your instruction!
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