However, after learning more about teaching writing and journal writing, I may want to change my morning procedure. In my current writing program, the students are required to write on a specific topic or in a specific way each week. When I give the students a required sentence starter during journal writing, I am not allowing creative writing that many of my students would probably prefer. With that being said, I am not sure what I should do for my morning procedure. Would students get bored of having a "free write" prompt to begin each day? We are not allowed to run Writers' Workshop as it is intended during our writing time in my district, so maybe some of my students would excel in free writing during this time.
The beginning of the day can be a vital time in how the day will go, so how do you start your day? Do you believe students should journal write in the morning? As always, I love to learn about writing and teaching writing, so I cannot wait to hear your ideas.
I give my students times to write throughout the day. I teach 6th grade and a lot of what my students would choose to write about were things that happened during the day. When I had them write in the morning most of them wrote about the night before and didn't really use the journaling time wisely. I let them free write in their journals most the time and the students have started to use it to get out feelings or vent.
ReplyDeleteMy middle school students are required to write in a reading journal every week to turn into the English teacher. Our middle school has adopted a reading program based on The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. They are required to read 40 books throughout the year and each week they journal about what they are reading, a character that stands out, their opinions of a book, etc. It is a program that has increased excitement for reading amongst our students. My students have fallen in love with reading so much that I have a book drop box in my classroom because students would read all through class and never do math. It is a wonderful problem to have!
ReplyDelete