Attending a school with very little to no diversity, I do not feel as though I had a sociocultural experience. I do not remember doing much writing besides spelling, grammar and preparing for the ISAT. We learned how to write the 5 paragraph paper, but not much more. I never remember being shown a mentor text or making the connection of being a reader and a writer and how I could incorporate things I saw in books in my writing. I wish that my teachers would have given us the chance to be creative and been flexible in their requirements instead of teaching writing only the month before state testing to ensure that we knew how to answer the essay portion of the test. Having the chance to be creative and have choice in writing topics is something I would have enjoyed during elementary school.

In my own classroom, I would use these ideas to help foster a sociocultural experience:

• Utilizing a variety of mentor texts to show students different perspectives and examples from cultures different than our own. This might also include studying books that utilize different dialects and talking about that. (We have the Fountas and Pinnell Classroom materials for reading and the provided texts are very diverse and do a great job of incorporating other cultures and dialects. Now that I have had experience with these materials I would like to dig deeper with some of these great mentor texts and read alouds)
• Utilize more partner work during writing time. Share time and peer editing is something that I often cut when I “don’t have time.” Make this a priority and complete this part of the writing workshop/writing process regularly.
• Modify a writing project to include technology
• Hold writing celebrations and celebrate student’s work in the classroom
• Incorporate more poetry