Kerry Wright EDU7666 Journal Entries
Blog 6 Dr. Signer

Topic Heading

I was involved with a discussion initiated by a teacher on the discussion boards under the Teacher.net, chat boards (elementary education) from 12/1/08- 12/3/08. The teacher was having a difficult time getting her second grade student to organize her thoughts with writing assignments. The assignment was a paragraph for Thanksgiving. The teacher has tried the hamburger graphic organizer and had no success. The discussion centered on the use of graphic organizers. One contributor to the discussion felt that organizers are not effective for young children. However, I and the other contributors did not agree with this view. Another contributor supported organizers but felt certain organizers were better than the others. This contributor suggested using organizers that matched the writing assignment. This contributor suggested a sequence organizer for writing assignments that about personal stories.

The discussion also went beyond the use of graphic organizers. One of the contributors wrote about the importance of taking a step back to build up the student’s writing ability. The contributor had a very good plan to tack this problem. First she suggested brainstorming ideas. Ask the student questions such as who, what, how and write a list of clue words for the student. Then use a graphic organizer to put the ideas together. This contributor also wrote about the scaffolding process of teaching the topic sentence and then detail sentences.

I suggested that the student could draw pictures to trigger the words. Pictures can help to visualize the ideas and put the idea to words. I also suggested that the student read aloud the writing to see if the writing makes sense. In addition, I recommended that the teacher have the students read each others writing and make suggestions to their partner student. With partner reading the students can help each other.

Questions I posed with responses

During this discussion I had asked about what the topic was for the writing assignment. This question leads to the importance of choosing the right graphic organizer for the assignment. I realized the importance of matching the structure of an organizer to writing assignment. Therefore, I changed an organizer that I had planned to use in my class based on this discussion.

The discussion brought out the complex process of writing and the use of scaffolding. Scaffolding is a term used in many graduate classes. However, I always struggled with the meaning of scaffolding. This discussion helped me to understand the meaning of scaffolding.


Responses to other questions

Writing is difficult for young children. It is also an area I struggle with as a teacher. So when I saw this topic I immediately joined in to see how I can improve my skills. As I started writing in the discussion, I realized that I had some good ideas. This experience improved my confidence with teaching writing skills.