Assignment #7:Grade Level Writing Portfolio

Here is the link to my group assignment #7 Grade Level Writing Portfolio.
(Achimisul Park, Ja Eun Kim, Ju Hyun Lee, Soo Hyun Kim)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/16461733/545%20Grade%20Level%20Writing%20Portfolio_Achimisul%20Park,%20Ja%20Eun%20Kim,%20Ju%20Hyun%20Lee,%20Soo%20Hyun%20Kim.doc

Tompkins Ch.1 Teaching Children to Write

The process approach to writing instruction is based on how real writer write. The five stages of the writing process are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Teachers support and scaffold children as they learn to write, gradually giving them more and more responsibility. "The five levels of support are modeled writing, shared writing, interactive writing, guided writing, and independent writing". (Tompkins, 2008, p.2) As a supporter, teachers do many things like writing along with children, and guiding children to develop ideas for their writing, record ideas on paper, and proofread to correct errors. However, Sheena (2007) said "As a class teacher, she has come to see that if children are to develop as successful learners, children should be asked to write on topics that matter to them: writing contexts must be meaningful, taking children’s experiences and interests into account".

According to Ja Eun Kim, the role of the teachers in this teaching process is very important. I totally agree with her that the role of a writing teacher is a facilitator. There are many things for a writing facilitator to do such as revising, fiving feedback, and so on. Writing teachers can make children see their development and have an interest and excitement in writing.

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Sheena, M. (2007). Interactive whiteboards and talking books: a new approach to teaching children to write?. Literacy, 41, 26-34.

Tompkins Ch.5 Journal Writing

According to Tompkins (2008, p.98), "The purpose of journal writing is that children use journals to record personal experiences, explore reactions and interpretations to books they read and videos they view, and record and analyze information about literature, writing, and social studies and science topics". Journal forms include personal journals, dialogue journals, reading logs, learning logs, double-entry journals, and simulated journals. This type of writing is so private that the readers is usually the writer himself or herself or typically well-known and trusted. Meanwhile, Dannelle (2010) discovered that "Reflective journal writing and mentoring help foreign graduate students de-stress, learn the tacit knowledge of the academy and participate in scholarly activities like conference presentations and publishing".

Soo Hyun Kim says that dialogue journals is the good way to get to know children better by having a dialogue or conversation in dialogue journal. It affects not only relationship between teacher and children but also children’s writing in response to teachers’ requests. I totally agree with her. It's because journal writing is so private and if a teacher is the one that children can share their writing with, it means that close relationship is constructed between a teacher and a child.

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Dannelle, S. (2010). Mentoring through reflective journal writing: A qualitative study by a mentor/professor and two international graduate students. Reflective practice, 11, 347-367.

Tompkins Ch.11 Poetry Writing

Poetry writing is good for children to create image, explore feelings and entertain. Tompkins (2008, p.240) states that "Forms include formula poems, free-form poems, syllable- and word-count poems, rhymes verse forms, and poems modeled on other poems". When they experiment with poetic forms and devices, children are able to write interesting poems. By the way, according to Atsushi (2008), "Japanese poetry, haiku, has been widely accepted in western countries. Lots of studies have reported on the applicability of haiku poetry to teaching practices in a variety of contexts".

Achimisul Park says in this chapter the fact that children are instinctively in favor of poem because of its rhythm is absolutely true from the way that children love chant songs. Yet, in Korea, the poem is thought of not as exciting or interesting form, but just short literature form. For some part, I agree with her. However, I‘d like to add that most Korean students are afraid of writing poems since they regard poem as a difficult literature. I think developing poetry writing's lesson plans for Korean students is urgent.

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Atsushi, I. (2008). Poetry writing as expressive pedagogy in an EFL context: Identifying possible assessment tools for haiku poetry in EFL freshman college writing. Assessing Writing, 13, 171-179.

Tompkins Ch.10 Descriptive Writing

According to Tompkins (2008, p.218), "Descriptive writing techniques are used to paint word pictures and to make their writing more concrete and vivid by noting specific information, choosing words carefully, creating sensory images, crafting comparisons, and adding dialogue". Descriptive writing techniques can be used in all genres, especially poetry and stories.  Anne and Bob (2004) suggests "The six-stage process strategy focuses on effective sentence writing traits while integrating an awareness of morphology and syntax during sentence development". The stepwise structure helps the students learn to task analyze sentence writing, thus making it easier to form sentences.

Kyoungchun Kim says if he uses one of five useful techniques when teaching writing, he’d like to choose comparisons. It’s because metaphors and similes look like poems that children can read with ease. In addition, they can stimulate children’s imagination and understanding to develop. I thinks his idea is reasonable, and in my case, sensory images would more effective since my students are more likely to be interested in visual aids.

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Anne, D., & Bob, A. (2004). Improving Descriptive Sentence Writing in Elementary Students. Preventing School Failure, 48, 34-36.

Tompkins Ch.9 Narrative Writing

"Children use narrative writing to create both fictitious and true stories that entertain readers. A fully developed story involves a problem, which is introduced in the beginning, becomes more complicated in the middle, and is resolved at the end" (Tompkins, 2008, p.194). In narrative writing, children use various methods such as retelling familiar stories, writing sequels and new episodes for favorite characters, and composing original stories. According to Sharon (2010), "Greater narrative structure was associated with mental health gains, and self-rated emotionality of the essays was associated with lesser perceived stress in her study".

Min Gyu Kim states that this narrative writing would be the type of writing that children at a young age would be very into. In their young age, they would really enjoy being read a story, especially before they sleep. While reading his idea, I clapped my hands with a full agreement. I was one of those young children who liked to not only listen to a story but also tell a story. I think that if it is modified a little for adults, it could appeal them very much, too.  

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Sharon, D. (2010). Does narrative writing instruction enhance the benefits of expressive writing?. Anxiety, Stress & Coping, 23, 341-352.

Tompkins Ch.8 Expository Writing

Expository writing is used for learning and sharing information. In expository writing, there are "All About..." books, ABC books, riddles, posters, diagrams, charts, and multigenre projects. According to Tomkins (2008, p.173), "Contrary to the popular assumption that young children's first writing is narrative, researchers have found that kindergartners and first graders write many nonnarrative compositions in which they provide information about familiar topics". According to Piccolo (1987), "There are different types of expository structures. These structures include descriptive, comparison and contrast, sequence, and cause and effect". These structures may be useful to enhance children's expository writing skills.

According to Woo Je Joe, writers build up strong organization to make readers understand easily. If they use graphic organizers, it will help readers grasp the contents well. I've experienced to make graphic organizers before writing essay. From my experience, graphic organizers must be so useful to writers to organize the contents as well as to readers to understand the contents.

Tompkins, G. E. (2008). Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Piccolo, A. (1987). Expository text structure: Teaching and learning strategies. The Reading Teacher, 40, 838–.847.