Effective Note-Taking skills & Writing Centers:

Effective Note-taking skills play a vital role in a student’s academic life by keeping them on task during class. It also functions as a revision for future references. Often students face difficulties in how much information they have to record for future references. Some students like to note down everything because they don’t want to miss any information, while others don’t write anything because they don’t want any gaps in their understanding during the lecture. They want to pay full attention to their teachers. However both situations lead to problematic consequences. Understanding and recording a lecture are equally essential for future reference and preparation for the tests.

I had also faced troubles while taking notes; I used to write each and everything in my notebooks. Sometimes, unable to maintain the pace and speed of the lecture, I used to write so dirty that later, I cannot even read my own handwriting. Moreover, during tests, first I had to sort out the important and nonessential information; which used to be a hassle for me. Later I learned the skill of paperwork management.

I really like the concept how Benjamin provides the idea of organization with Big T. For young students, it would be easier to sort out the data, based on the given information which they can review later. Students can make bullet points to record information instead of writing the whole sentences.  

Polygon with three sides	Not a polygon with three sides
Triangles	Circle, Rectangle Square.

 

Polygon with four sides	Not a polygon with four sides
Rectangle Square Parallelogram	Circle Triangle Pentagon Hexagon

 I also liked the idea of taking marginal notes as Benjamin explains in ‘taking notes from reading section’ which is well demonstrated by Elisia during the strategy workshop. When I was observing the fifth graders in their social studies class, I saw some students were having hard time in answering the questions on ‘Westward Expansion’ topic due to the lengthy reading. I think this is a best strategy to take notes from reading. In future, I see myself implementing this strategy in my class. Using the index cards is also a great tool to take notes for research.

Writing centers also play key role in advancement of students’ writing skills. Paraprofessionals and assistant teachers for instance; ELL teachers perform an important function to improve students’ writing development.

Notebooks and Journals:

Keeping journals is a productive mean to enhance the creativity and critical thinking among students. Journal writing helps the students to improve their comprehension, writing and learning. In this chapter, Benjamin introduces the idea of Interdisciplinary language Journals. In this kind of journal, learner connects one class to another by using the terminology of one subject to another. I believe this is a high level thinking process. Making the relations between different content areas using terminologies is a difficult task for the learners.

I personally like the idea of writing journals prompts. It allows to express personal thoughts. However, the idea of interdisciplinary language journal is new to me. I had never used it before in my academic period.  I thought I should give it a try. So I tried to make a connection between different classes which I am currently taking . I found it very challenging to use one subject 's terminology for the other, as it is hard to do English in Mathematics or vice versa. I think with a little practice, it becomes easier in the future to make the links.

Although for first and second grade students, it is hard to implement this type of writing due to limited vocabulary. However, I can visualize the 4^th and 5^th graders making the connection between different subject areas. I believe keeping a separate note book to record interdisciplinary journal prompts helps the students to tie the threads from different classes. It helps to develop critical thinking.

Hopefully, I will use the idea of across-the-board journal in my future classroom. I am planning for my students to have a seperate notebook to keep the interdisciplinary language journals. In this journal prompt , they will share their thoughts about different topics which they learned in other subjects and try to make a link between them.

Research papers and WebQuest

In chapter seven, Amy Benjamin provides the effective techniques and strategies to deal with a formal academic genre, the research papers. Definitely students need clear expectations and instructions to handle this task. I like the way Benjamin differentiates the researches in different content areas by elaborating on science vs. humanities research.  In order to muddle through the task, students should be provided with unambiguous guidelines and models as different department need different outcomes. Samples and templates always help the students to follow certain format.

 In the classrooms, whether it is elementary level or college level, setting clear expectations with samples always help students to produce better and expected results. Well defined queries lead to accurate responses. I have often seen frustration among students when they are not provided with enough formats and models to deal with the task. In one of my class at Brooklyn College, We had to do a research paper. I know the anxiety and frustration we been through because there wasn’t enough information available regarding the task. Every time, there were line of students waiting for the professor in his office. I learnt a lot from that. In future, I will make sure that I provide enough samples and models for my students to complete a certain task.

 As I have mentioned earlier, since we are dealing with 21^st century students, technology plays a vital role in their learning process . In this chapter, I really like the idea of using WebQuest in the classroom. I think, it enhances the students’ motivation because they use real and timely resources as compared to old text books. It not only prepares them to extract the specific information but also empowers them to equip with technology.

Moreover, in the WebQuest the teacher has links to the specific resources; therefore it allows the teachers to control the students' research and directs them to achieve a particular writing task. Some people argue that technology can be a hurdle in students’ learning due to their illiteracy in this field; but I think this is the best time to introduce technology among them. Although it is a difficult task, not only for students but also for the teachers, but lots of practice enables them to achieve their ultimate goals. Research papers have always a frightening and overwhelming concept among students; but to introduce it in an entertaining way will help them grasp the concept quickly and efficiently.

Organization: Frames, Clusters, and Stems

Organization process is an important aspect for achievement of all the efforts for attaining goals. The systematic organize structure is a key to success in any aspect of life. In “Organizers: frames, clusters and Stems, ” Benjamin presents organizational patterns and clusters to categorize information which develop organized writing.  She provides patterns for classification, comparisons, characteristics, chronology, claims and cases, causes, consequences, conditions and criticisms. I find the examples of  all the C-patterns to be very fascinating. I thought that all of the model words provided in each section should be made accessible to students by putting them on a classroom's wall; as greater interaction with these models will help them to use it in their writing more often.


However, I felt that some of the techniques are more suitable for the older grades students. Young learners grasp knowledge mostly through visual assistances. Graphic organizers are a great device to assist students in becoming more structured and organized in writing. For instance, in the comparison patterns, I thought that charts, tables and Venn-diagrams, as Mariel demonstrated in her strategy workshop, would be more beneficial. Similarly for Classification, Spider map and Cerebral charts exhibited by Vanessa are great models to teach the young students.

 

Central to learning a subject is learning its terminology.

Developing vocabulary among students is not only an essential component in their learning process but also a challenging task for the teachers. According to Amy Benjamin, in order for the students to know a word, they need to understand that how it is used in its context, its tone, its nuances and its flexibility. Benjamin skillfully presented the teaching model for writing definition using left brain (methodical) and right brain (metaphorical) thinking. With the aim to describe the left brain (Methodical) thinking, she indicated 6 clear steps to extract clear definitions.

1.      Noun

2.      Verb

3.      Realm

4.      In/Of

5.      Which

6.      Action statements

I find it quite useful to teach students as it is very systematic and organized and provide with a layout for the students. It provides effective and comprehensive steps towards structuring clear definitions.

The right brain thinking is metaphorical and creative. It allows the learner to visualize it and thus helps to remember it. Both thinking together establish real and lasting learning that outcomes from a whole brain thinking.

The most challenging task for the students is to use the new words in the sentences that enable to meet certain criteria. Often student find it difficult to visualize the word into its practical usage. I even observe in the classroom that some students know the spelling and definition of the words but when they are told to use it in sentences, they cannot think of its application. Definitely they need more understanding of the words.

      I admire the list of verbs Benjamin provided in all content areas. It is really helpful while teaching the students to write definition and explain terminologies in the content area. I thought selecting two-hat words will be a fun activity for the students as it provides the opportunity to consider the words using in its context as a technical term as well as in ordinary speech.This book indeed is a very good source for providing the samples for content area writing.

 

Writing short statements:

 

In “Short statements in fifty words or less, ” Amy Benjamin presents models for writing statements with high information density. This chapter provides details for how to make writer efficient, concise and direct. Benjamin beautifully focuses on the elements to extract profound and concise brief identification and the contrast statements. Providing the students with a list of key action words and connectors not only helps them to establish the basics but also frees them to discuss the issue on a more elevated level. Short statements are very challenging for the students. Often it is very difficult for the writers to identify the unnecessary words that can be removed. Encouraging the students to summarize and write short statements leads to precision and conciseness in future writing as well as it develops their focus on succinct writing.

Teaching the students with examples is really a good start. In our daily lives, if we are not given the format and key words, we come up with lot of unnecessary information.  Short statements are a way to condense information to provide deeper and richer knowledge.

This chapter provides lot of information that can be implemented in the classroom. This chapter not only provides the key action words but also provides the words that are not suitable for writing. I find it really interesting. Since in a real time classroom environment, we deal with students' different learning styles and abilities and for some students it is easier to write when there is a list that shouldn't be used in their writing.

 

Strategies and Models to facilitate structured writing:

In chapter three of Writing in the content areas, Amy Benjamin offers various representations, proposals and forms to help the students to be specific and provide details. Often in the papers, students produce unsupported generalities. Benjamin beautifully focuses on the root cause and lists the generality words that can be replaced into specific components to produce writing that is rich in details. I really like the idea of listing the general words, as sometimes in our own paper, we feel that we don’t have anything to talk about. By showing the relationship between generalities and specifics, it helps the student to build a range from specifics to general and vice versa.

Listing prepositional phrases in the classroom is a wonderful approach. It facilitates the students to support and provide details in their writing. By Making a connection with the time and place help the students to make an airtight writing piece. Facts and figures also refine the writing piece not only economically but demographically.

This chapter definitely is information packed in terms of extracting the most out of the students in their writing assignments. Providing them with exact words not only helps them to filter the unnecessary components in their writing, but also improve it by replacing them with specific details. I adore the idea of spelling list as well. It is true that some of the technical terms are not common in daily life conversations. To have them on the board help the student to memorize the spelling and once they get used to of it, it can be replaced with the new words .

This technique is also useful in lower grades. As in the first and second grade class, I love the idea of word wall in the classroom. It assists to not only introduce the student with new words but also helps them to get familiarize with it while doing their writing workshops. Every week the students get tested on these spelling words. It constructs the vocabulary as well as their practice in the writing.

Well-defined queries leads to accurate responses :

In chapter two of “Writing in the content area”, Amy Benjamin provides the guiding principles for framing and evaluating the writing task. This chapter beautifully emphasize on all the elements of achieving a clear and meaningful task. It is often very difficult for the students to write an assignment according to the expectations of the teachers when there is very less information given.  It is very important for the teachers to clearly and precisely provide the details and requirements of the writing task. Sometimes the teachers are vague and not specific, which leads to the room of errors from the student side. Focusing on the key question words helps the students to improve in their writing responses. Bloom’s Taxonomy is one of the best models that provide the hierarchy of thinking levels.

When the students are inquired to write a certain amount of words, they use repetition and empty words to fulfill the requirement of the length of the paper. Definitely, Quality of the paper is more important than its quantity. I really like the idea of asking detailed question within an assignment to keep the focus of the students in one direction. It helps the students to avoid unnecessary words and elevate thinking in their writing tasks. In a well-constructed writing task, it should suggest the number of well-developed paragraphs instead of exact amount of words or pages. When the teachers are well-defined in their queries, students are precise and accurate in their responses. The sample writing tasks in the chapter provides a vivid picture of leaky versus airtight writing task. It also specifies examples for how to incorporate the writing in other content areas.

Framing the writing task is not problematic only but evaluating a writing task is very challenging too. Grading a writing task and assignment is not an easy job for the teachers as well. However, the concept of rubric makes it easier to grade because it is simply a checklist of the things what students are going to be graded on. Rubrics not only help the teachers to grade the task, but also help students to understand the teacher’s expectations and standards. Absence of the rubric leads to imprecise and ambiguous writing tasks.

This chapter provides a great amount of information that can be incorporated in the class room to enhance the writing abilities of the students. Prescriptive evaluation and self-reflective Assessments also improve student’s work. I learned a lot from it and hoping to apply it in the future.

Importance of Error Correction in Teaching Language :

In the article “Errors: Windows  into the Mind”, Ann Raimes beautifully explains that writing is the ideal situation to learn the errors and get it right, as it provides an opportunity to monitor, reflect and make changes. Teacher’s response on a student’s paper is potentially an influential text in writing class.  Teachers’ feedbacks play a vital role in building the students learning process.  I don’t agree with the research of Cohen and Cavalcanti which describes that students report only “making a mental note” .They glance briefly at the paper which a teacher spent half an hour marking and then they put it away. It’s not always the case with every student. Some students really look for feedback on their papers from their professors.

I was a little surprised while doing observations in the first and second grade classrooms. I checked students’ writing notebooks and saw some students with same spelling mistakes over and over. There is a lot of controversy on how the teacher should respond to these errors. But I believe that pointing out students’ mistakes and commenting on their work at this level not only help them to learn the correct sentence structure, but also prepare them to enhance their writing abilities for college level. As many errors are due to the fact that the learner uses structures from his native language.

I agree with the fact that teacher should not only point out the mistakes but should also encourage the use of correct grammar and spelling in their work. This helps the students to gain confidence in their work and satisfies their feelings of achievement. If a student’s work is encouraged and appreciated, He puts more effort and time in his work. Repetitive corrections are likely to decrease motivation; it is reasonable to accept that students who lack self-confidence will be "stigmatized" to a greater degree than confident students. Personally I have seen the impact of these teacher’s appreciative responses on students’ work.

 As an immigrant, English is not my native language. Being an undergraduate in Computer information Science, I was always reluctant in writing and literacy. At the first day of this class, I was so nervous .When we started talking about “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children” by Adirenne Rich, I saw how the professor was appreciating and encouraging the students to pick up an excerpt that speaks to them. Every student was allowed to give his feedback to the reading. Different students picked up different sentences that speak to them. The way professor made every student feel that reading the same topic can generate different point of views among readers. And there is no criterion for right and wrong. It gave me a sense of relief and releases the burden off my shoulder. It lifted a confidence level in me and showed me a way to treat my students in future.

Moreover, I agree with the fact that Students should be advised to submit the draft first and then assigned them to re-write their papers with all the corrections. This helps the students guide to the proper direction of English Language and Literary writing. Sometimes Proofreading and checking the work carefully by the students enables the students to point out the unconscious mistakes and errors by themselves. Ann Raimes focuses on some techniques and strategies that help the students make correction in their papers, For instance reading aloud to others and some other student read aloud the paper will help to revise their paper with critical eye.

Another important criterion that must be considered by the teacher is individual students' needs. Each student is different and thus may react differently to error correction. Making an error is not mistake but not learning from the mistakes is an error.

 

 

Battle between Reading and Writing.

What comes first: Reading or writing?

 In the article “Write First: Putting writing before reading is an effective approach to teaching and learning”, Peter Elbow describes the connection between writing and reading. Actually it is a very difficult task to choose that whether reading is the foundation of writing or writing is of reading? I think reading and writing both goes hand in hand. They both work simultaneously to enhance the learning capabilities of a student.

As Elbow explains in case of first graders, that how they write stories about the pictures they draw, regardless of their weak positioned for reading. They can write all the words they can say. Writing allows them to understand the written language and control letters provides an understanding that they need for reading. Writing before reading gives them the sense of creativity, their own thinking and ideas. It gives them the control and ownership of the topic. In order to provoke their inner ideas and ability of creativity, writing assignments and workshops should be promoted.

However on the other hand, reading plays a vital role in flawless creative writing. If someone does not know how to read, how can he be able to use the words effectively in his writing? In order to achieve flawless writing, one has to read others’ work to see how they have written their master pieces, free of syntax and semantics error.

 It is not necessary that reading puts other people ideas in your mind and changes your point of view. But I think sometimes it gives you more understanding towards your point of view. It broadens your vision and exploration of your understanding towards a certain topic. For instance, if someone likes fiction books and wrote about the characteristics of fiction books. By reading his point of view doesn’t mean that it will change your passion about nonfiction books. But sometimes it gives you a new aspect to see why you choose that particular type? I believe it gives you deep understanding towards your point of view.

Peter Elbow doesn’t agree on this aspect either that writing should come first or reading? As he explains in the article,” I’m not arguing that reading is less important than writing.” I agree with him as well. In some cases students should be asked to write about the topic and their thoughts first before they read it while in some cases, they should read the article first and write their response about it. It helps to promote their ability to counter argue as well.

 

 

English: A Language Or a barrier

In “Social Linguistics and Literacies: Ideologies in discourses”, J.P.Gee beautifully focus on the relationship of the words with their meanings. He gave the example of coffee, bachelor and work to show that words don’t have fixed meanings. According to him,” Meaning is something we negotiate and contest over socially……, two people don’t need to share a culture to communicate” (Gee, p13). I agree to him to an extent, but I believe sometimes it becomes obligatory to know the other person’s culture in order to comprehend some conversations. For instance, some words might have different meaning in one’s culture than the others. So in order to communicate, both speakers should agree on the same meanings associated to one word. Here, as we see nowadays, ‘Bad’ don’t have negative meaning associated to it as back in the days. People don’t mind to be called ‘Bad’ among friends. But for some culture, it can be an endpoint for a friendship among friends.

“Languages are always deteriorating over time because uneducated and other deliberating social forces change them. (Gee, pg. 17) “I agree with him. Language is kept on changing, but not only uneducated but some educated people are involved in this change as well. Nowadays we all observe it in all social networking sites like twitter, Facebook and instant messaging; children use codes and abbreviations instead of using the correct language. They believe that Language is just a source of communication among people, if another person can understand what these codes mean and convey our message, we don’t need to write the whole thing. But if we observe this evolution of English language on a big scenario, it becomes very difficult for the non-native speakers to speak and understand the language as the guidelines for the correct language is vanishing somewhere. English is a language that has a specific writing form. If is not followed, it will become obsolete. For the new learners that could be a challenging task.

 As in the article” From outsider to insider: studying academic Discourse communities across the curriculum”, Eleanor Kurtz uncovers,” it is not uncommon for ESOL students to attribute difficulties with academic courses- both current problem and those they anticipate having – to their level of mastery of English (Kurtz, p77). I believe teachers have a big responsibility to make the student feel an insider of academic discourse community by allowing him to share the difficult words and concepts with each other. Sharing not only helps the student to increase the understanding towards a concept but it also bridges the gap between them. Social interaction is very imperative in the development of language skills. This week, I started my field work in a public school where I came along with different ethnicities and languages spoken. I saw the ELL students struggling in conveying their thoughts to their teacher. It was very frustrating for them. But at one point, when teacher told them to share their favorite part over the summer vacation, they used their cultural words to explain the events; they used art to depict their culture. They felt the complete ownership of the topic. Their work was completely different from the work where language was a barrier and hurdle for them. It was pleasant to know new cultural words for the teacher as well. I believe that English should be used as a source of communication but other native languages should also be encouraged among students so they don’t forget their native language which helps them to make a bond and stick to their cultural roots.

Welcome to Iram's Blog

Hello everyone, welcome to my blog. My name is Iram Ali. This is my first semester in the graduate program. I am pursuing my Master’s degree in Childhood Education Mathematics.  I have completed my undergraduate degree in computer sciences. The journey from digits and computations to the world of words is a bit challenging for me but I am optimistic.

I am willing to teach all grades but I would love to teach the younger grades like 1st and 2nd grade as I wish to make a difference in their lives by being a part of their learning experiences. My dream is to make mathematics as their favorite subject. Hopefully I‘ll accomplish it someday.

          Being an educator, it is our responsibility to fulfill the learning requirements and educational needs each student has. From this class, I am hoping to learn various writing strategies that focus on learning styles especially linguistic and the techniques to incorporate writing in Mathematics to make it easier for the students to understand. I am looking forward for a wonderful semester ahead.