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.