Chapter 4 Assessing Children’s Writing

Students absolutely need writing assessment in order to make better writers, so teachers regularly observe students’ writing process, and giving attention to the quality of their writing product. Davis (2010) states, “Portfolio assessment is important because it measures the progress of a student and examines the instructional process, not just the final product." Among various forms of writing assessment, the most impressive one to me is portfolio because teachers can apparently examine writing process and writing product after finishing writing. Also portfolio is more realistic than any other writing assessment form. Tompkins (2008) asserts, “It is a more authentic form of assessment because entire writing projects-rough drafts that have been revised and edited, prewriting notes and diagrams, and checklists and rubrics that have been marked-are included to document learning” (p. 91).

According to Jaeun Kim, children ought to grow the ability to assess their writing on their own. I am with her on that point. It is important to have others like teachers or classmates evaluate their writing, but assessing their writing by themselves is more important in that it can develop children’s autonomy. In addition, self-assessment can help children to grow metacognition.

References

Davis, S. (2010). Purposes of portfolio assessment. eHow, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/about_5103845_purposes-portfolio-assessment.html

Tomkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Chapter 3 Writing Strategies and Skills

Strategies are problem-solving behaviors that writers use thoughtfully and consciously, and they are generating, organizing, visualizing, monitoring, playing with language, revising, proofreading, and evaluating. Skills are information-processing techniques that writers use automatically and unconsciously. The skills are structuring skills, mechanical skills, language skills, reference skills, handwriting skills, and computer skills (Tompkins, 2008). That is, strategies come from conscious process and skills come from unconsciousness process. So they are all necessary in writing. However, in order to be capable writers, writing strategies are indispensible. Collins (2008) stated, “Successful writers use mental procedures to control the production of writing. We call these mental procedures writing strategies.” Thus, teachers have the responsibility to teach them both strategies and skills inductively and deductively. As role models, teachers should demonstrate or show how to use those strategies and skills. At time same time, teachers should give students the explicit explanations and instructions about them.

According to Minkyu Kim, children need to learn strategies and essential skills while trying to think of a composition or writing to be good writers. His opinion is so true because capable writers are those who can take advantage of both strategies and skills. Because strategies and skills are charge in different areas and their roles are quite different in writing process, students are supposed to learn both from teachers.

References

Collins, J. (2008). Writing strategies. Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo. Retrieved from http://gse.buffalo.edu/org/writingstrategies/index.htm

Tomkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Chapter 2 Writing Workshop

Writing workshop is composed of writing, sharing, minilessons, and reading aloud to children. It gives children plenty of chances to experience writing process making books and many types of writing. Brown (2010) states, “Creative writing workshops offer the writer the opportunity to share his work with other like-minded individuals, to meet and greet and receive critically constructive feedback on their work.” Especially Tomkins (2008) emphasizes the importance of writing process through this chapter. He describes, “The writing process is a tool that children can use for any project, and learning that process is the most important goal of writing workshop” (p. 50). Even though writing product is as important as writing process, teachers should keep in mind the fact that writing product is only made by though writing process.

According to Jaeun Kim, students should be able to select a topic and process writing independently. I do agree with her. In essence, writing is a lonely work done by a writer himself. So teachers need to give students some time to do work by themselves. Like Jaeun said, writing workshop can be a great opportunity for students to grow their independence in writing.

References

Brown, T. (2010). The advantages of creative writing workshops. Suite101.com. Retrieved from http://www.suite101.com/content/the-advantages-of-creative-writing-workshops-a237854

Tomkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Chapter 1 Teaching Children to Write

The most important facts that I realized through this chapter are two. The first fact is that even young children can learn writing from just experiencing writing, not from starting to learn letters, words, and sentences (Tompkins, 2008, p. 5). The second fact is that in order to improve their writing more effectively, students need teachers' many kinds of support. Through this support, students can expand their knowledge and linguistic capabilities about writing (Gibbons, 2002; cited in Tompkins, 2008, p. 21). When teaching English younger children before, I haven't even thought about teaching them writing because I just supposed that they were just too young to understand writing. In other words, I totally ignored their potential. Now that I learned younger children can be taught writing thought writing and they can be much better writers with the help of teachers, I would keep that in mind and help children to write as a facilitator. Ambro (2010) indicates, "If a teacher knows some of the characteristics of educational facilitators, she can help students own the learning process by developing a good rapport and providing a positive role model who leans toward empowering students to explore more about the subject at hand."

According to Julien Sanghyo Park, the important elements of writing instructionthat teachers should teach are decision about purpose, audience, and format,as well as the range of available options. I totally agree with her opinion. Students should know those specific components for writing before they get started. That is why prewriting stage is needed and essential and teachers should take advantage of the prewriting stage sufficiently during writing class.

References

Ambro, S. (2010). Qualities & characteristics of educational facilitators. eHow, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.ehow.com/list_6363944_qualities-characteristics-educational-facilitators.html

Tomkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Assignment # 3 Graphic Organizers

Assignment # 2 Visualizing PPT

Visualizing ppt Kyoungchun Kim EESL 545

See more presentations by KyoungchunKim | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations