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.

Ch 7. Biographical Writing

To introduce new genre, teachers can use the themes for students to understand it practically and also gain other knowledge. Biographical writing is writing about people and their lives, and it is very helpful to stimulate students’ imagination, making them experience another life and world. There are three categories: personal narratives, autobiographies, and biographies. While personal narratives are used to increase the interests in writing by choosing a topic by themselves, biographies and autobiographies can be grafted onto social studies or science thematic units to make self-awareness high through gathering and organizing information. “Children think more critically about the important events in a person’s life as they read and plan the items they will use to symbolize the person’s life” (Tompkins, p. 153).

According to Sunmi Kim, Being reflective and having differentiated ideas and perspectives is a key to creative writing. “Biographies allow students to connect historical events with real people, and at the same time, they provide role models of leadership and good citizenship” (Flack, 2002). Through reading and writing biographies, students can learn not only how to organize vast information, but how great men in biographies thought and acted. Students can broaden their point of view to a variety of directions by reading biography and can express their new found perspectives by writing biography.

Flack, J. (2002). Creative autobiography: Adding a meaningful dimension to social studies.

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

Module 5: Self Check

Korean students feel uncomfortable for feedback. It gives them a sort of pressure and they usually feel that they should be changed and they are wrong. As one of Korean students, I have always received one-way evaluation and scores for my performances. I didn’t have any opportunity to change or develop them. However, I think giving or receiving feedback is not the biggest challenge because it is just unfamiliar, not harmful. In this module, I experienced revision stage. It was very fresh and helpful for me. Once students would be able to know that feedback is giving the opportunity for you to revise your performance and make yourself better. This procedure is useful for students because they can know what is their shortcomings and can find there is room for development.

Module 4: Self check

I don’t have any experience that I taught writing but have some that I was taught. I was given each form’s concept and characteristics and opportunities to apply them to my own writing. As I remembered, I made an effort to follow form’s shape or rule without any emphasizing my meaning or purpose. In this present time, I become to know that the most important point in writing is its content and communication with audiences. So, I can adapt this chapter to my teaching writing, especially creative writing, stressing out more how they use each form in order to express their thoughts and give audiences enjoyment rather than what devices should be showed in their writing. The purpose of my lesson would be enjoying appreciating all writing forms and experiencing them, so that students can understand each form’s characteristics and when they use specific form effectively. Through these approaches, students would be able to be possible writers.

Module 3: Self Check

The important thing is when and how. What is more or less important between both is meaningless argument because they are used with different time and different purpose. Teacher can guide students through writing strategies and skills. For example, let them to use appropriate strategies and keep up process as they are writing and to employ skills proficiently and convey his or her notion effectively. For successful writing, what teachers should focus on is “structuring meaning from texts” with “a variety tactics”(Tompkins, p.68) through direct or indirect instruction lessons in different situation.

Ch11. Poetry writing

<diverse poet forms that give students interests in it>

Although in this chapter the fact that children are instinctively in favor of poem because of its rhythm is absolutely true from the way that children love chant songs, in Korea, the poem is thought of not as exciting or interesting form, but just SHORT literature from. I assume this phenomenon is due to the absence of a variety of approaches to poetry and poet, such as poet forms or poet devices, changing one’s attitude toward enjoying and appreciating it. Students not just learn poetry, but should experience and develop a concept of poetry through many instructions such as minilesson, writing workshop, as well as reading workshop. Then, what Tompkins really stressed out and focused on is students’ own voices and its expression permeated naturally into the poetry. In this point of view, teacher can incorporate writing poetry with other units and make students understand “how writers search long and hard for words to express their meaning and the delight that comes when writers realize their poems are finished.” (p.259)

According to JaEun Kim, "The teachers tend to simply explain some common poetic forms and let the children choose any form, but this method is not effective." I think this is the most common mistakes from teachers, providing students with misunderstanding of poetry that it has just a few fomulas and we should follow that. As described in the site 'Famous Poetry', "We have already considered a limerick as one form of poetry but there are many other forms to consider such as ballads, sonnets, odes, epitaphs, elegies and many more." The biased teaching of poetry would deprive students of the opportunities to feel pleasure and delight that can be gained from diverse poetry forms and experiencing them.


Tompkins, Gail E. (2008). Ch11. Poetry writing. In Tompkins of Teaching Writing : Balancing Process and Product. (pp. 240-263). New Jersey, Pearson Education.
Famous Poetry. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2010, from http://www.poetry-online.org/

Assignment #3, 4: Graphic Organizer + Problem-Solution Essay Rough Draft

Rise from the Ashes of Your Slump by Achimisul Park

Slump. I think all of you know this word and also have ever experienced. It refers to a period of decline or deterioration, which a person performs slowly, inefficiently, or ineffectively. Unfortunately, a lot of people fall in a slump and have a hard time, not being able to focus on their tasks and getting frustrated more and more by a series of disasters. However, we don’t know how we can cope with that difficult situation and what is worse is that we are so disappointed that sometimes cannot view a matter as it is. People have no idea of why a slump draws in, what it exactly is as well as when it would come round. Then, what on earth is a slump? When and why does it visit us? And how can we get over that calamity?

Lately, I had slipped into a slump. I don’t know exactly where the beginning of it was, but when I had a doubt that it may perhaps be a slump was the day when I left my book behind in the bus. I spilled coffee on my pants right after realizing the absence of it. In succession I fell flat on the floor, going to the toilet to remove a stain from coffee. This was not the end. In the weekend, there was a call for me that informed me that I had scratched a man’s car without care. I was so distressed that wanted to relieve stress. I thought having a party with friends would be helpful for refreshing myself, but it led me to drinking too much and brought out miserable outcome that I not only was late for the class next morning but lost my watch and new wallet. It was a matter of course that taking a taxi not to be late was not a good idea because of terrible traffic jam. I could no more be calm. I wept loudly on my bed, having rancor against Heaven. “What is happening to me? Why should I experience things of this sort? Why me? What is in the world my fault?” I totally lose control of my life. I missed the deadline of assignments, dozed over my work and shed tears for no particular reason. It was full of irritability ill humor, and lassitude toward everything. I felt like alone in the whole world. My friends were worried about me and gave me many advices. Although several of them seemed to be helpful, it didn’t last long. I was thoroughly exhausted.

One day, I got up and stared at my room vacantly. I gazed at my desk with a pile of books, a stack of clothes on floor in disorder and numerous dishes put one upon another, all of confusion. I stepped foot on a toilet, looked at the woman in a mirror and very surprised at the haggard face. Immediately, I took a shower and started cleaning my room. After that, I went out with only a piece of paper, a pen, and no cellular phone. I had a seat in the coffee shop and looked at lots of busy people out of the window. I became so clear. I started writing down my circumstances including affairs which I was involved in, purposes that I initially participated in them for, and my goals and objectives for them. I turned into calm. I closed my eyes and recalled a chain of events that happened to me. This time I wrote those events that bothered me, realizing that they were just small part of my life, could happen to anyone else, and didn’t aim at especially me.

Where does a slump come from? No one say that you are in a slump. One who calls it a slump and submits oneself to its will is just YOU. A slump reaches you at the very moment you believe it is a slump and because you believe it. “You, and only you, have control over your attitude. You must make the first move to a positive attitude” (Marvin, 2008). When you fall down, when you lost your watch, when you fail the exam, when you quarrel with friends, you can be baffled and make yourself a loser. Otherwise you can accept them as a trifle passing through the life and make yourself a winner. That is your choice about how you look at your life and live it. “If you are down on yourself, you are certainly not relaxed and not even heading in that direction” (Jeff, 2008). It’s up to you whether fill your time with full of fortune or full of misfortune. Then, do you think you are still in a slump?

Module 3: Writing skills - structuring skills

Writing skill(Achimisul Park)

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This is my presentation about the writing skill, structuring skills. And it is especially in terms of expanding sentence.

Ch 3. Writing strategies and skills.

   In this chapter, Tompkins describes what is writing strategies and skills, when they are needed, why they are important, how we can teach them, and so on. In fact, students already know and use some strategies and skills in their writing process, waiting for our suitable and precise instruction about them “including why they are important and how and when to use them adequately” (p.56) which helps students be capable writers. Teaching strategies that make writers “take conscious and deliberate control of the writing process”, and skills that can be applied to authentic reading and writing, are no optional but compulsory. They not only enable a writer to produce a writing that is reflective and able to communicate with its audiences effectively, but affect other areas and offer active learning in them. This is supported by Matthew Wibaker’s saying that “literacy is central to all learning and literacy is learning through the work of dedicated and caring teachers at every grade level. (Teaching word recognition, spelling, and vocabulary, 2000) For those reasons, both of strategies and skills are important and especially beneficial for ESL/EFL students, making them “understand the connections between mechanics, craft, style, and meaning” (p.62) though combination of a variety of direct and indirect instructions.

   According to Sunmi Kim, “rather than imposing traditional skills-focused instructions in EFL writing classes, teachers need to experiment with an array of heuristics and techniques to provide a more effective and balanced guidance.“ I agreed her opinion that teachers should provide students with the balanced guidance and think that the reason why the traditional skills-focused instructions were not successful was not balanced, but biased. What is important is not whether strategies or skills are in order of priority. We should only focus on which methodology can work well in improving their understanding of writing and actual writing and making them like and enjoy writing.


Tompkins, Gail E. (2008). Ch3. Writing strategies and skills. In Tompkins of Teaching Writing : Balancing Process and Product. (pp. 52-72). New Jersey, Pearson Education.
Timothy V. Rasinski. Teaching word recognition, spelling, and vocabulary : strategies from The reading teacher. Newarek, Del. : International Reading Association, 2000.