Reflection # 1

My unit for writer’s workshop covers learning to write in cursive using different strategies and tools. They are not long mini-lessons and are important for students to become aware and familiar of. Recently, from sitting in on meetings and grade level “block” time, I have learned how overlooked cursive is. Teachers are feelings extremely pressured with the amount of curriculum that needs to be covered and the deadlines for Benchmark Assessments. Their argument is simply that technology is increasingly becoming more prevalent in the classroom and students need to learn to type before writing in cursive. I disagree; I believe that if students can not read cursive writing, we are promoting a sense of illiteracy.
After many discussions with my CT and especially after hearing parent concerns at Curriculum Night back in September, we thought it would be a great idea for me to plan and squeeze in a unit on handwriting. My CT would still plan other mini-lessons for writer’s workshop, but a solid 25 minutes of our 2 hour and 15 minute literacy block would be set aside for handwriting. Parents absolutely loved this idea! Each week, cursive packets would be sent home for students to practice tracing and copying down letters working on the different forms of letters in the alphabet.
I was surprised to see how excited students were to learn cursive. I was also shocked that some students at Walled Lake Elementary had never had any experience with cursive writing thus far. Only the students that were new to the school had any formal instruction from the teacher.
For the pre-assessment, students were to copy a poem written by Shel Silverstein. The poem is written in cursive already, students just have to look and copy onto handwriting paper. At the bottom of the sheet is a form that students will fill out assessing their own work. I really like this idea because for the most part students in the 4th grade are pretty honest, and will give their honest self-evaluation of their work.
Something that surprised me that I realized about certain students is how much they do not like writing, and it is not even because they are not good at it, they just try and do anything and everything to avoid sitting down and writing. I have one student that asks to use the restroom everyday during this time and I finally started saying let me see your work and realized he was not completing any work before in his writers notebook. We do not check their writing on a daily basis only when we are drafting and publishing pieces but students have the opportunity to write daily and he would barely write more than a few sentences for weeks. Now, in writer’s workshop, students have to show me their work before they use the restroom.
The lessons are so short I would probably not change any of it if I had the opportunity to teach it again. I would just give certain students more practice sheets to do at home. I would also use this really neat bumpy handwriting paper that I used for my last lesson. It looks the exact same but the students’ notice they went to far on the lines because they cross the bumps and recognize they need to end sooner.
Students that go to Mrs. Pfeffer in the resource room for Language I noticed struggled and needed additional support. Even though they are not in the room for writer’s workshop they still participated in the handwriting part. One student struggles with holding the pencil and with writing in general and needs to be given thorough instruction and protocol. For example, I walk by and whisper “Garrett, I am really looking at your spacing and writing in a straight line, reaching from the bottom line to the top line.” That pulls his attention to the activity he needs to focus on and for about 5 minutes he will concentrate on the task at hand. Without written or thorough instruction he is off task right from the beginning and will not know where to begin.