Dear Dr. Jones: A student's reflection

Dear Dr. Jones,

Now that we are nearly at the midpoint of the semester, you have asked us to reflect on LTED 618: Reading Improvement through Written Expression. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect in this class. When I saw we would be reading Hicks' Crafting Digital Writing, I was excited because as a professional communicator, I am accustomed to writing copy for digital means (web copy, blog copy, and social media copy). When I saw we would also read Tompkins’ Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product, I started to infer that this class would be about teaching writing. What I didn’t expect is that we would learn through writing. In my third blog entry for this course, I elaborated on “writing as a medium to think,” and I have been surprised at how quickly my knowledge on teaching writing and the elements of good writing have expanded thanks to these weekly blog assignments.

My writer's notebook from 8th grade

In Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing developed by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, the authors say that students need to develop certain habits of mind (ways of approaching learning) in order to succeed in college and beyond. While I talked about metacognition and persistence as key habits for me in this course in blog 3, I recently had a breakthrough in the creativity realm. After several weeks of struggling to make connections from the weekly readings to my past life as a student, I decided to look through old writing assignments from my childhood. I located a writer's notebook from eighth grade that my English teacher assigned as part of a weekly writer’s workshop. I read through a year’s worth of journal entries ranging from personal experiences and creative works of fiction to my analysis of current events (this was the 1998-1999 school year and you can see my 8^th-grader reactions to President Clinton’s impeachment and the shooting at Columbine High School). Reading this notebook was eye-opening. Even though I consider myself a writer, I often struggle to get a draft down quickly because I don’t allow myself to freewrite. However, my 13-year old mind wasn’t afraid to just write without stopping. Sometimes there were mistakes, but I was amazed at the variety of stories that I wrote that year during those writing workshops. I’ve recommitted myself to freewriting for this assignment, which requires both creativity and persistence. Following the freewrite, I go back and revise/edit as needed, but I’m no longer writing sentences and deleting them to start again. I believe this breakthrough has given me back a lost “mojo” when it comes to creative thinking and critical analysis, and I hope that carries through to composing in multiple environments.

As a potential future library media specialist, I’ve really enjoyed Tompkins’ frequent lists of mentor texts to aid in the process of teaching writing and understanding the genres. I like that Tompkins’ lists aren’t just geared towards elementary learners and I want to stock my library with some of these texts to use in book talks or for teachers to use in their genre lessons.

Since I know a good library media specialist should excel in teaching digital literacy, I have really enjoyed Hicks' book. In this week’s readings, Hicks talks about how to write/analyze quality social media content and how to create standout presentations. If I was in a middle school or high school library, I would love to create lessons plans for both of these topics and offer them to teachers. These are both important topics for digital writers, but not something most teachers would have the time to teach. I would love to work with students on these important topics that would also help develop their rhetorical knowledge!

While I was initially struggling with this particular assignment, I feel like between the weekly readings/class discussions and finding examples from my own writing past has made the assignment easier. I'm looking forward to the genre expert presentations to enhance my learning of the genres. I'm still feeling a little unclear on other two major assignments for this course, but expect the details to become more clear as we progress through the semester and meet with our writer's groups.

Sources outside class texts

Council of Writing Program Administrators, National Council of Teachers of English, & National Writing Project. (2011). Framework for success in postsecondary writing. Retrieved from  http://wpacouncil.org/framework/