Sociocultural Theory Response

As a student, I remember being a very open writer. I enjoyed when I could write without a topic and be creative with my story. We were taught spelling, grammar, phonics, and reading all as separate grades. We were all supposed to fit into the same reading and writing mold. Red ink was the grading tool of choice and it was used lavishly. I didn’t mind that as a student because I wanted to learn the ‘right’ way to do things. Grammar was always my downfall and an area I still feel less confident in than I do other areas of writing. As a peer, I remember the red ink really bothering some of my friends. Shoulders would slump as they saw the marks on the page. As a teacher, I vowed not to use red ink-ever! Using purple, teal, green...I don’t know that it makes the corrections any less disheartening to receive as a student. I wonder if we will soon have a generation of students that talk about the teachers' flair pen marks instead of a certain color.

One thing I do remember about all the corrections on the page as a child was that we rarely had an opportunity for revision. It wasn’t really part of the writing process. Neither was teacher/student conferencing. These additions to teaching writing have allowed for a more individual writing plan to be developed and improved upon for each student.

Things I’d like to implement in my classroom

In my history classroom, I haven’t found the time to develop a time for teacher conferences when working on writing-at least not in a structured way. I’d like to be more intentional about that this upcoming year.

I’d like to work on developing good peer review skills in the classroom because I’ve already found so much encouragement and many areas of improvement from my own reviews in this class. Helping them to follow the ‘praise, question, wonder’ format to make them better editors and in turn better writers.

I’d also like to do a better job of perspective when we talk about history. When I’ve been able to bring in how a time period impacted multiple people (women, children, rich men, poor men, etc) the students really enjoy that and seem more engaged. Finding those resources is not always easy, but my goal is to work to provide more of these perspectives throughout our lessons.