Article and Peer Response

The two people that I chose to learn more about were Nicki Ross and Laura Welter. Although we have been in the same block with each other for the past couple of semesters, it is sad to say that I have not reached out of my personal circle of friends in order to make new friends during this time. When reading their blogs I noticed that like myself, Laura has also been raised around a family of teachers and that is what pursued her into the career path she has chosen now. Nicki and I share the same interests in Elementary Education in the fact that we love children as well as that we both want to see a change in the children's lives and be able to lead them down that correct path.

In the article that was assigned for us to read, it discusses and tells about the many ways of writing to learn. Whether that be the many different strategies/ ways used in teaching or activities to help the student understand content better while increasing academically with writing (and reading). There are many points and keys in this article that are important because it will help me as a future teacher to know how to bring writing into the learning process in other academic areas instead of just Language Arts. I think the most important part of the article is where it breaks down and talks about incorporating writing to learn in instructional time. When teachers (including myself) see the many ways and activities we can use to pull in our students with reading and writing in other subject areas it will help not only teachers with knowing how to help students with literacy but make it easier for students as well. Some of the activities that students can do to help with learning doesn't seem like "writing" at times, but it is and it will help students develop in that subject or area. What stood out the most to me were the many ways to incorporate writing. I did not know that when you are doing other subject areas, such as social studies and science, that you could use writing to not only help your students learn but also to help improve writing skills and literacy with the students. I also loved doing the biopoems that we did in class today because it shows how we can incorporate social studies into an English lesson. I loved the interaction between the students as well because it will help the students with being able to come up or answer and understand the content. I only have a 3 questions. 1) Can you use math with this writing to learn? I know that math deals with mainly problems and equations but I was wondering if it was different or anyone possible it was used in mathematics. 2) Do teachers have to make different writing assignments for different learners? 3) With the framed paragraphs, I was confused by that, I did not quite understand what that was saying. The only problems that I would think of encountering would be the different types of learners with writing, which strategy would be most effective when using with certain subject areas, and how to use certain strategies with certain literacy problems.