When I read about the A-Z list in chapter two, I thought "Okay, that's a cute activity and something different that will help students think of ideas. I'll keep that in mind." After I applied it to our genre assignment from class, however, my opinion of the strength of the activity changed. The letters I was assigned were obnoxious, and I was entirely surprised with how many ideas I came up with. This activity will help students focus and come up with things that they didn't even know existed in their heads.
In addition, I have read the book Joyful Noise, and I loved it! It was a lot of fun to try and coordinate voices. It gives the poem more meaning when certain words are said alone and others in unison. Having students write a poem like the ones that are found in the book will really make them question what is important to them and their topic of choice.
3 comments:
I love using art as jumping off boards for writing, especially when metaphor is emphasized. On page thirty, the use of art for inquiry into writing helps students recognize, identify, and then impose the "I' into art analysis and then in their writing. This is a great exercise, and I have successfully tried this myself.
I tried this on the portrait, "Women with Parasol," by Monet... It's funny how one picture can mean so many different things.
My favorite part of this chapter is the list of "Writing to Learn" activities. I never considered exit slips, lists or freewrites to be WTL activities, but it now seems to me that most writing can be "Writing to Learn."
I also like the comments that inquiry should be a part of all writing; inquiry is not just for formal papers.
Through reading chapters 2 and 3 I learned a lot of useful information. In chapter 2 when Dean is explaining "Experience" I loved her example of the girl who thought there was a monster in her room each night. Through experience she was able to figure out that the monster was actually lights from cars driving on the street. If we can teach our students how to draw on experience it will further their understanding both in reading and writing.
One of my favorite points in chapter 3 is the effective use of models in understanding genre. I loved the quote Dean uses by Greene that the goals of teaching students to mome text are two fold, to help the student know that they have options as writers and also to help them learn to articulate their reasons for their choices in different situations.
I have truly enjoyed reading this book and I know that this is a book that I will refer to often in the future.
FYI, over the weekend I read Seedfolks, Mind's Eye, and Speak. LOVE LOVE LOVED Seedfolks. I will be purchasing my own copy and I will read it again! Mind's Eye was only OK for me, also loved Speak and could not put it down.
Post a Comment