Golden Lines

Here are some of my favorite lines from your reflections and other responses this Winter:

“I would want my future students to have the same opportunity to share their writing with their classmates, family and friends, and to receive encouraging, positive feedback from everyone, including the teacher, so that they will feel encouraged to keep learning and growing and taking risks as writers.” -Miranda

“Ask questions and make connections to what the child is saying as you try to help them feel the fullness of what they know about the idea.” -Madison 

“Motivate students to improve their spelling with, ‘I’m not afraid of my words!’”–Jannette

“Children tend to learn best if they are interested in the topic itself.” –Amanitveer

“My peers have also taught me new things that I did not catch and I think that is also something awesome because we each have learned so much from each other.” –Brenda

“As teachers, I think it’s so easy for us to get caught up in lesson planning and processes, so it’s important to remember that ‘management hoops’ aren’t always the best way to teach.” –Monica

“One of the things I will carry with me forever is to always let your students jump in and start writing. Do not force them to write any particular way and see what they are able to come up with.” –Kendall

“The Google+ Community made me proud because everyone made comments there that were very encouraging and helpful…when reading the comments that I received, it made me feel as if my work was appreciated and even had meaning to it as well.”–Addie

“Kids can write texts, blogs, yelp reviews, etc because it is all writing. They can move from style to style and be aware of audience just like digital writing demands.”–Michelle

“Students should be able to write about topics they have an interest in and actually want to talk about instead of boring topics that are forced upon them. So giving students the choice to pick their topics and then giving them plenty of time to think about what they want to write about their topic is a must. This way they have time to think deeply about it and not just make something up last minute.” –Andrea

“I would say the most significant part I took away from this class is not to teach the students how to write, but to teach them how to become better writers.” –Erika

“I read these children books with different eyes in this class though. I read them with writer’s eyes.  I noticed all types of writing elements that really engaged the reader. This really interested me and I saw these books in a whole new way.” –Suzanne

 “Help students become confident enough to step out of their comfort zone and write things they may never have written before.” –Lori

 “A huge factor in effective writing is challenging them and not sending them away discouraged. We do not want to tear down their work and leave them feeling hopeless. I want my students to act as writers, talk like writers, and think like writers.” –Alexis

 “It is important for children to begin to write and see examples of writers because when students begin to see a connection between their work and those of the authors, everything they see in books becomes a possibility they might use in their work, because after all, they see themselves as doing this kind of stuff too.” -Alondra

 “By having students go off and write, it gives us teachers a chance to observe and catch them in the act. We can then see if they are truly understanding everything we are showing and teaching about writing. This is a great idea that made me think about photography. I say this because my grandfather was a press photographer and he loved candid pictures. Those are the best. I think of this writing like candid writing. It might be the times we see the kid’s best ideas at work.” –Anna

“To know when to encourage students to look closer at their writing and try to recognize their mistakes is challenging because as we learned in the chapters we do not want to discourage students from writing with all the mistakes.” –Andreina

 “I think the world is a giant playground of knowledge but the tricky part is being able to recognize the possibilities and actually make it a good learning experience for kids.”-Mario