Narrative and Argumentative Writing
Synthesis:
McKeough- Narrative Writing
This
text goes through the basic stages that children go through when they write a
narrative. The two most important elements of narratives are character
development and “trouble”. Students whom are younger have less developed skills
in these areas than students who have been in school longer. This text pairs
writing samples with standards of CCSS. It talks in great detail about the
lesson of trickster tales and how the understanding and expectations grow as
students mature. Trickster tales require a great deal of understanding when it
comes to character development and trouble or breach. One strategy that
teachers use to teach writing is Reading with a Writer’s Eye. This involves
learning how to write using texts as a guide for effective writing. This
requires students to evaluate the text and to imitate the techniques so that
they can learn how to improve certain aspects of their writing. Narratives are
one of the primary forms of communication that children start with; they
replicate what they hear, what they imagine, and what they hear about in their
lives.
Ferretti and Lewis-Argumentative
Writing
This
text focuses on the concept of argumentative communication with a focus on
writing. Even young children can be adept at arguing. Very often, many of their
initial conversations are argumentative as they try to understand the world and
its rules. Arguments are dialogic, so students can often benefit from talking
about and debating their arguments along with writing them. This way, students
can begin to think about opposing viewpoints and how to address them. Self-regulated
strategy development is a way for teachers to help students learn how to
improve their argumentative writing. This chapter also covers other strategies
such as: TREE, STOP, and DARE. These strategies help to break down the parts of
argumentative writing and to give students something that is not intimidating
but is also functional. The chapter covers details on how to write different
types of arguments that might occur in different disciplines. Students rarely participate
in literary arguments. Students need to be taught to analyze and evaluate texts
before they can write argumentative texts about them. However, this kind of
learning gets them to the crucial points of literature, instead of questions
that are mainly directed in such a way to merely find out if they read the text
or not. Historical and community appeals also lend themselves to argumentative discussion
and writing. These issues stir both controversy and need for explanation.
Students need adequate strategies, support, and time to develop the skills that
are needed.
Response:
Text
to Self: As a secondary Language Arts teacher, these texts are very relevant to
me. Narrative and argumentative writing are important skills that students need
to master. However, they can be very difficult for students to grasp, or to
understand how to efficiently formulate them. I feel like I am not as familiar
with how to teach narrative writing, sometimes I think you can be too close to
something as a new teacher and it can be difficult to adequately teach the
topic.
Text to Text: These chapters
relate to the reading from last week because they deal with writing and the
teaching of writing. In addition, they deal with strategies which have been
discussed many times throughout this semester. Students will develop overtime when given the tools and encouragement
they need to succeed. Teachers modeling how to accomplish different steps are
very important.
Text to World: Both of these
types of writing are central to our nature. They help us to express and
understand. These ways of communication build from childhood and develop
through our lives. As the world becomes more connected through technology,
effective communication and the wider audience increases the need for effective
writing instruction.
Questions:
1.
Has
anyone taught a dialogic lesson? Or have any ideas?
2.
What
are some of your favorite things when teaching writing?
3.
Not
really a question…but would like to hear about perspective of working with
younger students as I’ve usually taught 6th and above…
1. No I haven't taught it. I loved this idea though. I think learning others views before beginning your paper would open a lot of eyes.
ReplyDelete2. I taught young children. I really enjoyed modeling. I also enjoyed dictating their ideas to paper. Their eyes would light up when they realized they wrote a story. I used daily journals. Each day was a different journal. I loved seeing them write, especially after they'd say I don't know how too. Then I'd look and it might just be a scribble, but over time you could see the progression. It was so much fun showing the parents their child's progression too. I had a chart that showed the writing progressions and It was cool to show the parents where the kids started and at the end of the year where they were now.
3. I've had a little bit of experience working with older kids. It was fun to actually tell them to write and they could at least get something down. With small children it's the little victories. A scribble that turns into a shape of a letter, that turns into an actual letter, that turns into phonetic spelling, that eventually turns into a small sentence. It's a slow but rewarding process. As the teacher, there is a lot of coaching and encouraging going on. Most kids will say, "I have nothing to say." Then you have those that cry because their writing is, "ugly." I would use that opportunity to tell them we are all learning and you got to keep trying. Teaching young children writing is kind of like a snail, it's slow and at times you don't see where it's going, but at the end of the year you look back and realize you've made so much progress!