I choose Writing Circles mainly because I was attracted to the social aspect of writing within writing circles. I taught kindergarten for the last three years and one of my core beliefs as a kindergarten teacher was that literacy is a social experience as well as a personal one. When I moved to third grade this year, I still believed that my third graders literate lives needed to, in part, be social. But I struggled with fitting it in this year while also building their stamina for writing and having the students work on their individual goals.
I had my kid share their writing with each other and we even did several read arounds where the kids gave each other feedback, but I didn't feel like these were productive opportunities for the students to improve as writers as much as I would have wanted them to. And I felt that when they were writing together the talk was more about playing football on the playground or the latest outfit bought at Justice, as opposed to the writing. I also thought that they were not building their writing stamina,or their personal experience with writing because of my attempt to make writing a social experience.
So coming into the EMWP, Writing Circles was at the top of my list for a book to read. But what finally made me choose to go with Writing Circles, was the inside front cover of the book where writing circles were compared to literature circles. I used book clubs this year and loved how proactive my students were with their books clubs and how the very act of talking about their books motivated them. I realized that writing circles was a nice compliment to what I was already doing and was what I had been looking for as a way to make literacy in my room a social experience. Before even reading the book, I knew that writing circles would provide my students with choice, connections to others, opportunities to collaborate, and opportunities to grow as writers within a safe environment and within their Zone of Proximal Development. Finally, as a big believer in the 4Cs of 21st century learning - communication, collaboration, critical thinking & problem solving, and creativity - I thought that writing circles would fit well into the 21st Century Leaning model.
Sharing writing in small groups before was the same for my 9th graders as it was with your 3rd graders. I also hope that Writing Circles will be just what I need to make writing an experience that is both social and productive for my students.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that sharing what we read is social and I believe that allowing students to orally share is a great way to get the creative ideas flowing. That said, it is also important to start putting those thoughts and ideas down on paper to preserve them and to build upon these ideas. I am hoping that this book will make me an effective facilitator.
ReplyDeleteThinking back on times in class when students were supposed to talk about an academic topic, whether they did or did not stay on topic was the difference between the times that I said, "talk about..." and the times when I was more specific about how they were to talk. I think that if we want this to work in our classrooms, we are going to have to be patient in teaching the process in the beginning of the year. As students learn the process and learn how to talk to each other about their writing, the process will gradually go by the wayside as it is internalizedas the conversations will become more natural...
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