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.