Response to WW Ch. 18 & Spelling and Other Writing "Skills"

As with every other topic in the classroom, it is important to help students see the meaning in spelling (and punctuation) in order to help them develop better grammar skills. If students see that learning to spell and punctuate their writing will help them better achieve their purposes as writers, they will develop a desire to learn to do these skills well. In order for this to work, of course, students have to understand that their writing has a purpose and they have to see that writing is an important part of their day to day life. The most interesting think about the reading on spelling instruction was that it discouraged the use of spelling tests and also discouraged teachers correcting their students' spelling in their writing. Both of these things are very common practices in schools, and I can see in my field placement that they are ineffective for the majority of students. The work that they do during centers, or "workstations," seems to be a lot more beneficial. During workstations, the students focus on word families and rhyming words as well as on letter blends and the sounds that they make. The discoveries that they make for themselves during workstations carry over in to all of their work in the classroom. They give the students in the class who are struggling with spelling the tools to invent their own spellings of unknown words. Another important activity to help students develop grammar skills is reading. Since I have begun my field placement, I have felt like the majority of the day is spent focusing on literacy (specifically, reading.) Until recently, I felt like this was a waste of time. Reading has so many purposes in the classroom other than just teaching students how to read, and this chapter definitely reinforced that fact.

Chapter 18 of The Writing Workshop focuses on worksheets. Honestly, this was a chapter that I was not expecting to see in the book. As a pre-service teacher, I have already developed the idea that worksheets are bad. I plan to use them in my future classroom as sparingly as possible, because I feel that students rarely take any meaning away from them. Because this book focuses on making sure that students see the meaning and purpose in writing, I didn't expect to encounter a whole chapter devoted to worksheets. The chapter, however, focuses on providing students with meaningful and purposeful worksheets to help them plan and organize their writing and to help them reflect on their work. The word "worksheet" has a negative connotation in the education world because worksheets are seen as busy-work. The worksheets proposed in this chapter, however, are not simply work to be completed. They are tools to help students progress in their writing. If students do not have a need for them, they do not have to use them. If students are stuck, however, the worksheets can give them the push that they need to get writing.