Brittney Duplessis - Podcast

Title: The Day Hazards Spoilt My Day.

Age: 7- 8 year olds (Grade 3)

Purpose: to sensitize students about environmental threats to the health and well-being of students, families, schools, and communities (HFLE)

Justification: Many children are unaware of the dangers surrounding them. A good way to sensitize them would be by using a Narrative piece which catches their attention. At their age their attention spans are short so using a piece that they are interested in is a good way to bring the content across. It tells a story based on a real or imagined event. A Narrative is found in all forms of human creativity and art, including speech, writing, songs, that describes a sequence of events.

Gammy Aurelise- Podcast

Audience: Grade 3 students 

The purpose of this piece is to persuade decision makers and school administration on the reasons why school break times should be longer.

 The persuasive piece can be used as a model by the teacher to illustrate to students the different aspects of a persuasive piece. It also allows the teacher to teach linking words and phrases which will help students connect ideas and add coherence to their pieces. This piece could give students an idea of how they should write to persuade their reader.

Duayne Jn Baptiste Podcast

Puss Puss Podcast

Writing Philosophy

As student teachers, it is important that we practice reflecting on our teaching practices so that when we get to the classroom it makes it much easier to evaluate our teaching styles and how we cater to our students needs. What is a teaching philosophy? It’s an explanation of your values and beliefs as they relate to teaching. Since the focus on this course is on writing, our teaching philosophy will be focused on writing. At the beginning of this course we were given the task to write a poem, song or limerick on what writing meant to us. Many of us wrote beautifully crafted pieces about writing, some persons use their piece to show how much they did not like writing. Little did we know that this piece would later be used to develop our philosophy?

With the fast approaching of teaching practice, writing this philology had us to reflect on how we perceived writing instruction. Many of us felt that administering writing instruction is such a great task with many challenges attached to it. We lack confidence when it comes to this area, simply because we believe that we are not great authors. However, during the writing of our philosophy we were given the opportunity to reflect and think of how we as teachers will facilitate the process, the role we play in the teaching-learning process and most importantly how are we going to cater to the different learning styles and abilities of our students when it comes to teaching writing. Furthermore, this philosophy gave us the opportunity to reflect on knowledge, skills and attitudes which we expect from our students as it relates to writing. This part is very important with assisting student teachers with preparing mentally, since some students tend to have a negative attitude towards writing and physically, that we will provide the necessary tools to change these attitudes and mindsets. Teachers too need additional support when it comes to writing, especially with self confidence when publishing our own pieces of writings.

Preparing a writing philosophy helps you remain focused on the goals set for your students and yourself as an educator as it relates to teaching writing. You could always go back to these goals to see if they have been achieved. The philosophy should be revisited constantly because the perception of writing will change as you become more exposed to the teaching of writing. Through professional development, new strategies and techniques may arise and so it is wise to add to the philosophy the new techniques learnt. I believe that when we get back to our classrooms we should use the teaching philosophy as a way of reflecting and planning for our student’s success. After all, if we display a negative attitude towards subjects it will definitely impact the way we deliver instruction. As we prepare for teaching practice let us keep in mind our philosophy and when we get back to the classrooms and the task of teaching writing is bestowed up on us let us revisit our philosophy and use it as a guide and motivation in teaching writing to students.

Teaching the Writing Process

I am sure most people have heard of the writing process but many people either do their writing without much premeditation or are unaware of writing processes and the benefits of these practices. This blog post will focus on the importance of the writing process and the benefits it provides to those who use it when writing a piece.

Writing is not a ubiquitous process. It doesn’t follow a certain format for everyone, but often we are taught we have a prompt or assignment and then we must complete the assignment following those guidelines. However, sometimes we struggle with certain assignments because we have no idea where to begin. The question then becomes, “how do I start this assignment and how can this process be improved upon?” The short answer is pre-writing. Pre writing is the first stage in the writing process. This stage is where you as the teacher models the writing style you want the students to follow or you simply introduce them to the genre of writing. As a writer this is where you will be brainstorming and thinking of details to add to your piece. This stage does not focus so much on grammar or punctuation, but serves as a guide to your writing. The second stage of the writing process is drafting. During this stage ideas are put  into sentences and paragraphs. Here you concentrate upon explaining and supporting your ideas fully. Here you also begin to connect your ideas. Regardless of how much thinking and planning you do, the process of putting your ideas in words changes them; often the very words you select evoke additional ideas or implications. At this stage, the focus is not placed on spelling. The draft tends to be writer-centered; it is you telling yourself what you know and think about the topic

The third stage of this writing process is revising. Revision is the key to effective pieces. Here you think more deeply about your readers’ needs and expectations. The piece becomes reader-centered. How much support will each idea need to convince your readers? Which terms should be defined for these particular readers? Is your organization effective? At this stage you also refine your prose, making each sentence as concise and accurate as possible. Make connections between ideas explicit and clear After going through the revising stage, as writer refining your piece is the most important part so it conveys the message that you planned to be conveyed, During this stage it is required that you check for such things as grammar, mechanics, and spelling. The last thing you should do before printing your document is to spell check it.

NOTE: Don’t edit your writing until the other steps in the writing process are complete.

To fully equip us, student teachers with the skills needed to teach students the proper way to utilize the writing process, our lecturer decided to have a few of our classmates play the role of students and we were paired up. We were equipped with the task of teaching introducing the different genres of writing and engaging them in the writing process. Each pair received a different stage and focus, however, for each genre the same piece had to be used. This activity definitely gave us a feel of what we will be facing for teaching practice as it relates to teaching students the different writing mechanics and genres. I am sure my pairs and I got many ideas and suggestions which will be taken advantage of during teaching practice and furthermore when we get back to the classroom. This activity was especially useful since most of us expressed at the beginning of the term one of our fears in the classroom geared towards teaching students to write different genres, and the writing process.

Expository Writing

Expository Writing

Exposition is very important in pedagogy as students are frequently exposed to this type of writing as they use their textbooks. Expository writing is used to explain, inform, illuminate or expose factual information as apposed to creative writing which is fiction. This type of writing includes essays, newspapers, magazines, instruction manuals, textbooks and encyclopedia articles. The expository essay is a tool that is often used in schools and most, if not all students will be required to write one.

Expository writing often posses a challenge to the students because they are required to organize their thoughts, follow a plan and in higher grades, conduct research to support their claims. Achieving these goals, in addition to spelling and using grammar correctly requires the students to think on multiple levels. As elementary school teachers, we can introduce the younger students to expository writing by writing journals without adding opinions. We can have the students describe different unfamiliar objects as descriptive writing is an example of expository writing. Moreover, students can compare opposites in writing, describing a sunny day to a rainy day or maybe describing a dog to a cat.

For the students in the higher grades, they can be engaged in the time-honored book report, which is a classic exercise in expository writing. Students will choose a book and craft a thesis about or a position on it. A topic sentence might identify what kind of book it is, who the audience are, and why. Subsequent sentences should back up this assertion. One good way to help older kids in their use of expository writing is to remind them to address the who, what, when, where, and why of the topic they've chosen. However, all five components may not always apply, but remembering to think about each of these aspects can help students write a compelling report.

Poetry

Poetry is an Art, where a poet is able to paint a vivid portrait of what’s on his or her mind. Using words, expressions and phrases, a poet can capture one’s imagination and arouse interest in his or her audience. Plutarch a Greek philosopher once said, “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks”. We all can be great painters as we write poems to engage our students in the learning process. Furthermore, poems can be used before, during and after instruction as it can take many forms. For example, we can use a limerick to capture students’ attention before the lesson. This limerick can be related to the topic we are about to teach, thus giving the students an idea of what they are about to learn. In addition, we can teach the students how to write poems as they can use it for their studies. Students can create poems on a specific topic to help them remember the content taught during the class. In conclusion, poems are very useful and effective in pedagogy.

Title: Puss Puss

Puss is the name of my cat

Who is always laying on my mat

Oh how she loves it so much

That she growls if you touch                               

And will  stop if  only  she is pat

Puss loves to chase this old rat

Jumping from the tree she would splat

She is bearing her teeth

And would sneak like a thief

But is too slow because she is fat

Oh how I love Puss Puss my cat !

She is lovely and so very smart

When she wants to be fed

She comes purring on my leg

I’m the reason why she is so fat!