In EDU387, Literacy Methods: K-8 Teaching Writing the goal of this course is to provide the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required to be a successful teacher of writing at the elementary level. This course was designed using the International Reading Associations (IRA) Standards for Reading Professionals as well as based in scientifically supported writing instruction and the increased demands of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). An integral part of this course is a targeted field study component. By combining coursework with classroom observations, students will obtain practical applications that will deepen their knowledge of writing pedagogy for this age level.
Writing Mentor Project
Throughout a whole month of this course, we spent around 2 hours each week as a writing tutor to a 4th-grade class. Every person in the class was assigned a student and throughout the month we planned lessons and did conferences with them to help them with their “small moment story”. The two artifacts of my work I wanted to showcase were my “What I learned paper” and my “Student instructional report” paper. I chose this to represent teaching standard number #9: Reflection and continuous growth because these papers showcase me reflecting upon this experience and discussing how this helped me in the future. I think this is a great way to showcase my growth and reflection skills.
This project helped me grow as a teacher because I want to make sure that I am constantly finding ways to grow my skills and reflecting on how I can do better but also what I did well. Often I think it is easy to get caught up in just making it through the day that reflection can get lost at the bottom of the to-do list but it’s so important. We ask our students to reflect and teach them about how it is such an important skill so we should also reflect. In this project, I was able to think back about my time tutoring and think about the highlights, lowlights, and what I can take away from it.
