Module 6: Self check

1. Do people often give face to face feedback in your country?
In Korea, face to face feedback is not common. Usually, I received the completed scores or interim scores as the course is in progress. It was very common for us to accept them. Only when there was a big gap between what I expected and what I actually received, I raised a question. In such a case, teachers or professors gave me reasons or revised them accepting my points. Unless students ask the reason for specific scores especially, it is very natural in Korea that teachers notify the completed assessment and students just confirm them.

2. What kind of feedback is most useful? How can you give feedback in a constructive, helpful way?
I think the feedback that has both compliments and suggestions is very effective. A one-sided feedback including only suggestions or pointing out students’ faults can cause them to be in low spirits. It would be contribute to writer’s low desire for writing. If appropriate compliments are offered for writers, they can make an effort to improve their writing, believing their possibilities. I think I can give constructive and helpful feedback by articulating what aspects are making their writing strong and weak. Also, surely feedback should include all concerns about organization, content, and grammar.

Ch 6. Letter Writing

People write letters for numerous purposes, sometimes for making or solidifying the friendship and sometimes for exchanging information. What I want to emphasize about letter is that it is very special in having specified audiences. Tompkins (2008) supports this by saying that increasing “students’ awareness of audience help them think more carefully about what they want to say, write more legibly, and are more inclined to use spelling, capitalization, and punctuation conventions correctly” (p. 130). In addition, “receiving a letter from a loved one or a surprise connection is a pleasant feeling” (Indianchild.com, 2000). Through this experience, students can learn the nature of writing, which is communicative. I think that students become adept in expressing their own thoughts and in accepting other’s thoughts by writing letter.

According to Ja Eun Kim, “when children learn to write a letter, teachers need to demonstrate how to do it.” This is because the unique form of letter including friendly letter form and business letter form. Teachers can explain this by using some examples and should make students write and send letters personally. How to write address, greetings, and complimentary closing is useful to make their letters look like a formal letter! However, when teach the form of letter, teachers should make sure that the form cannot be emphasized more than content. The most important thing is how express their thoughts or feelings with proper form.

http://www.indianchild.com/letter_writing_help.htm

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ch 1. Teaching Children to Write

We can expect more dramatic effects when making students understand the whole process clearly, encouraging them to developing a rubric to score their own writings, and offering compliments on what they accomplished. These aspects show the important point for us, which is that teachers and students all can only grow and learn GRADUALLY. According to Sylvia Read in the magazine 'Reading Teacher', "the writing process was modeled, keeping true to its recursive nature. Prewriting led to drafting, and drafting led to revising, but I returned to our prewriting or to drafting when the need arouse." There’s no need to fit one into the process strictly, instead we can interact with one another, associated writing with various topics.

 According to Ja Eun Kim, The teacher can demonstrate how expert writers write in front of the students, or create a text with the students together. I strongly agree with this statement and want to add my opinion. Beyond showing how expert writers actually write, making students feel them as a real writer is also important. This can happen through writing conference, sharing or publishing their writing. Such a feeling gives students' confidence a boost, promoting them to make more efforts at their writing. And understanding the emotion as a writer help them consider how express their thoughts effectively. This possibly make them professional competent writers in the future!

 Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.
Sylvia, R. (2010). A Model for Scaffolding Writing Instruction: IMSCI. Reading teacher, 1, 47-52.

Ch 4. Assessing children’s writing

“Assessment is the gathering of information for the purpose of guiding instruction. If the information we gather doesn’t directly inform our teaching, then it’s not true assessment” (Steve, n.d.). Assessment plays a significant role in the whole writing process, making students identify the requirements of the writing and examine their strengths to enhance them and their weaknesses to improve them. Teachers should conduct assessment elaborately and carefully and remember that the purpose of assessment is not completed writings but how students develop and enjoy their writing. The whole process of monitoring and measuring writing is not performed after writing, but starts at the moment when students prepare writing. Before starting writing, specific rubric or criteria should be open to students to stimulate them self-assess and set the next goal for the following writing project.

I agree to Julien Sanghyo Park’s statement that “teachers need to document the data collected through observations and conferences using a variety of records.” I think anecdotal notes is one of the most effective way for students to go through right direction when writing and feel they are cared about from teachers. When they experience expectations of them, they tend to make more efforts into their writing. I also want to stress out the importance of prepared rubrics for each writing project because “it provides the opportunity to teach children valuable lessons about what makes strong piece of writing” (Tompkins, p. 90).

http://www.ttms.org/

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ch 10. Descriptive Writing

Descriptive writing is “painting word pictures with details, dialogue, and sensory images” (Tompkins, p. 221). It makes writing more enriched, vivid, and alive, having readers feel like they are in the story actually. Students should learn descriptive techniques to use proficiently them in writing. They can add specific information to give writing sense of reality, and choose vivid and color words to convey contexts effectively. Sensory images, comparison, and dialogue provide readers with story in three dimensions. Teachers can teach descriptive writing with enough examples for students to experience power of description immediately. Through these direct experiences, “the students must understand that the writer's goal is for the reader to picture what is in the writer's head through the use of descriptive words” (Diliberto, 2004).

According to Kyoungchun Kim, metaphors and similes in comparison look like poems that children can read with ease. I totally agree this opinion, and I want to add one more thing. Comparison is also very effective when making students brainstorm or associate existing one with a novelty. It stimulate them think a variety of idea clusters without boundary back to back, teaching them how to develop their thoughts and how to generate inspirations. I believe ideas from such a free method certainly provide their writing with more ample and rich expression to give audiences interests in reading.

Diliberto, J. (2004). Improving Descriptive Sentence Writing in Elementary Students. Preventing School Failure, 4, 34-36.

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ch 9. Narrative Writing

"The narrative writing could be considered reflection or an exploration of the author's values told as a story" (Jennifer, 1988). One of the reasons why narrative writing is important is that it can develop students’ ability to comprehend the story through understanding concept of story. Deep understanding of story generates more complex writing that “plot structures are more tightly organized, and characters are more fully developed” (Tompkins, p. 200). Children’s concept of story starts from reading the story again and again to examine the elements of structure, making students acquire knowledge about plot, setting, characters, theme, and point of view. Through numerous exploration activities, students’ perspectives grow from focusing on what the author says to how he expresses his intentions. If a teacher considers not only students’ finished stories, but how they developed their own story and applied structural elements to their writing to make it more interesting and vivid, his or her assessment will help students write interesting stories for audiences and themselves.

According to Juhyun Lee, in narrative writing, children use various methods such as retelling familiar stories, writing sequels and new episodes for favorite characters, and composing original stories. These methods can give students colorful experiences for rewriting what they read. They can use many literary devices, such as comparison, hyperbole, and so on, and learn how to use elements of story structure to convey their thoughts effectively. Teachers should promote students to build up writing experience as much as possible that finally produces well-knit stories.

http://www.roanestate.edu/owl/index.html

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Ch 8. Expository Writing

 

“Through early, successful experiences with expository writing, children not only learn how to write reports but also gain knowledge in different subject areas” (Tompkins, p. 73). Students can do many activities individually or collaboratively, and all activities should include reading and writing to learn about the characteristics of each genre firstly. Also, students should be taught five expository patterns: Description, Sequence, Comparison, Cause and effect, and Problem and solution, with their cue words. Expository writing is one of the most common in everyday life, so they should be informed of the danger of plagiarism, as well as its rubrics that guide them the right direction and of expository writing.

My colleague Anica said, expository writing “could be very helpful for students who do not write formally to be taken use of since they can think like this is kind of fun.” Through multigenre projects, teachers can increase students’ interests in expository writing well. Not finished with one try, they can develop their ideas back to back to gain different understandings, remember facts to a deeper, and enhance critical comprehension level (Tompkins, p. 182). Overall process can not only give students rich and keen information from researches for answering the questions, but provides them with enjoyment of paraphrasing or making their own version. This repetend “helps move students closer to mastering the hows, whens, and wheres to select different oral and written expository styles for a variety of real world contexts” (Marshall, n.d.).

http://www.stanford.edu/~arnetha/expowrite/index.html

Tompkins, G. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.