"What Has Worked"

     I just began teaching 7th grade this year, and while they are not required to write a book report every 9-weeks, I decided that I wanted that to be part of their curriculum. This helps all of the students to be encouraged to read and write. The book reports I received the first 9-weeks were terrible. It was obvious that many of the students had not learned to write an essay, or what theelements of a story were. It was also apparent that they were not editing their work at all. Once they had finished writing their first draft, they hit print, and went along their merry way. Unfortunately, this resulted in many bad grades, but it also brought about some good classes.
 
     While I was concerned with their lack of understanding on how to write within the parameters of a book report, I was more concerned about their lack of editing. For my students, one skill that has worked is peer editing. It took several classes and a week long workshop to make my students comfortable with sharing their work with each other and trusting peers who they hardly knew. I began by asking them to exchange their book reports with their elbow partner(the person sitting beside them) to see what changes they would have made had they edited their work to begin with. Many students saw how helpful it could be to have someone else read their work. The next week, we began a five-day writing workshop on personal narratives where we implemented the five-steps in the writing process. During the drafting, revising, and editing phases, I had students peer edit. We went over editing marks and also constructive criticism to guarantee that the peer editing was helpful and respectful. I have seen a marked improvement both in the students writing and editing skills and in the amount of respect they have begun to show each other. I started out trying to improve their editing skills and ended up helping curb some behavior issues that had long existed in certain classes. I learned that with patience comes great rewards in teaching writing. It is hard to not want, or sometimes to have to, teach a quick writing lesson and move on, but the results I saw by concentrating on the writing process and peer editing for two-weeks showed me that you get out just as much as you put in. I will continue to use peer editing in the future for all writing assignments, and for their next book report, I am allowing the students to bring their reports a class or two early and peer edit to prepare for the final draft.

Websites and Technology

   I don't actually integrate a great deal of technology into my writing workshops. The main tool I use on the computer is Microsoft Word. However, I do refer students to several websites in hopes of helping them improve their writing independently, or while working on pieces at home. On occasion, I will use some of these sites as examples on my projector, or challenge students to sumbit work to contests for extra credit.

1. OWL http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ : This is a great college level website that offers help in all area of writing from basic essays to research and professional writing. My students use this site more than any other.
I use it to help the students work independently. THe site offers practice too, so I've assigned homework through OWL before. I also am able to use the ESL portion for my Hispanic students.

2. http://www.enchancemywriting.com/ : This site offers a little bit of everything. Next semester I am required to teach research paper writing to my 7th graders, many of whom can hardly write a five-paragraph essay. I am going to use this site to help them look up resources and style guides.

3. Grammar Monkeys http://.blogs.kansas.com/grammar/ : I love this site for helping my students with grammar. My students are 7th graders, and so we have a lot of grammar lessons, most of which we all find rather boring and tedious. This blogger explains grammar rules in a fun and relateable way. Anytime I need to clarify I rule, I put his blog up on my projector and we look at how he has explained it. He even includes examples!

4. http://www.everywritersresource.com/ : This website is great! I often use it to keep up with what's going on in the writing community, or to find contests or literary magazines taking submissions. I like this site because it contains tons of story examples, essays, interviews, and other general discussions about writer's and writing. While it does not necessarily offer direct instruction and practice, I do think it helps my students' writing with examples and also to see what has been done, can be done, and is being done with writing by writers. The site also offers glimpses into writing as a profession or life-long pursuit.