Entry Five: My current feelings and standings on the class

Overall the class is going well. Usually by class on Wednesdays I am exhausted from teaching during the day and from the previous days. Although I am only part time, I plan for 3 different grades, teach four classes, and each class tires me more after the last. The classes are interesting and I try my best to always being engaged in what is going on in the class. But there are sometimes when I am overwhelmed from work and my mind begins to wander to what I am going to do about a certain situation at school. Or sometimes an event or comment in class inspires me to do something similar or related at work, and my mind begins to wander then. What has helped me though is taking some time off from my other part time job. This allowed me to focus more time on grad classes and teaching. I felt so defeated after class one night because I forgot to do an activity with one of the readings, due to the fact I was so overwhelmed and stressed from working, planning and my other class. This led me to taking time off from work until I was able to get a better grasp on planning and classes. Now I have more time to dedicate myself to grad work.

From this class alone, my understandings of the connections between reading and writing have developed a great deal. An example of this would be my last blog entry where I reflected on my misconceptions of the revising and editing process. These are not a connection between reading and writing, but they are an important part of the writing process. I believe that the more students read and transact with the written text, the better writers they become. Students who like a certain writer’s style of writing may develop the same style themselves.

Currently I engage in the writing process frequently, between this class and my other class. This class as of now requires more writing due to the weekly blog entries. My other class with Dr. Hopkins requires week entries as well, but hers are more concise and are on vocabulary. So between these two different blog entries, I often question, reconsider, imagine, discover, as well as clarify, refine, and synthesize. During my blog entry for week four, I completed all of those aspects of transacting. I started off with no real direction besides the topic I chose. Once I started on this topic, I began to question my own conceptions of revising and editing. While this idea came from Dr. Jones’ comment on how they are separate stages, I did not even question it until I began writing my blog entry. After questioning it, I decided it was time to clarify, refine, and synthesize my misconceptions through discovering what the difference was. Sometimes I do not always do this, especially with shorter writing assignments. If I am writing for a purpose, I often reconsider what I am writing and question my own thoughts. This is sometimes what gets us going on a topic. If I had questioned my own misconceptions, I never would have completed all the aspects of transacting.

Generally I think all the time when I am writing. Sometimes if I know what I am going to say my mind drifts to something unrelated and my focus shifts. Then I have to stop and refocus my writing thoughts. But when I am writing I always think. Typically I simply think “what am I going to think next?” As I begin to go farther into the graduate program and this class, my thinking has shifted more towards reevaluating and questioning my thoughts before I even really had time to type them out. The habit I would like to change is how I think during writing. I would like to spend more time transacting when I am writing instead of simply reflecting on my idea and thinking what I will write next.

Through this class I have learned many different learning activities or instructional strategies to use as a (literacy) teacher. One strategy I already used was the “If I Ruled the World” poem. This was far more successful in our night class. One strategy I look forward to using is how I teach the writing process. While I have learned the basics, I know I still need more work on this. This will come from each class session where I learn more about the writing process and ways to have students practice the process. In order to improve my learning, I need to keep attending class (not that it has being an issue) and keep participating in all the class discussions, activities, and readings. If what I want to learn is not addressed in class, I need to take the initiative to ask Dr. Jones outside of class as well as look up the answer myself.