Entry 1

   Writing is an integral part of my teaching cirriculum.  One obvious reason is that my content area is English and I am charged with teaching students how to write for multiple purposes; however, my passion for writing and the writing process is deeper than simply teaching students how to write for descrete purposes.  I see writing as play with language. It's a chance for someone to actually manipulate language and decide what works or does not. Writing is an imperative part of reading. Understanding how an entire writing piece is composed will only aid students in their understanding of reading.
    Unfortunately, writing as actual writers do is simplified to a specific, almost mathmatical, equation in classrooms today.  My classroom community would early on understand why writing is so important to practice and the freedom writing offers, personally and otherwise. Although the writing process itself is clearly defined by many scholars and teachers, enacting each step to its fullest extent is not so prevalent in classrooms. 
   Our readings for tonight's class really sparked my own thoughts about what I believe about teaching writing. Tompkins quoted several authors, as stated in our class discussion Sommers reminds teachers that "writing [is] a revision procession in which writers develop their ideas, not polish their writing" (p.7). This quote resonated with me because students today, and myself as a struggling writer, fully believe the purpose of revision is to "correct" our poor langauge use. In my class, I would try to combat this particular assumption with appropriate modeling of revision versus editing, and focus students' attention on their ideas and organization before miniscule spelling errors. I hope my students would realize that writing is important because it helps one understand how language works. The last thing I would hope to find in my classroom is a student so paralized to write due to fear of writing incorrectly. There is no way to improve if there is nothing to improve upon.
   A planned trajectory for the schoolyear would include major writing assignments, for personal expression and more formal academic writings throughout all units. A reading unit should always include writing activities and assignments for assessment. I plan on students writing in personal teacher-student journals at least once a week to informally connect with students and model writing. In addition, my understandings of writing to learn activities would be used throughout lessons to generate student thinking in different ways other than simply discussing a topic with a nieghbor. I believe the inner dialogue between the self and the writer that is the self is a unique conversation a student can have.
   One way to connect students with each other and myself would be to have a class blog. Now that I am more comfortable with blogging in general, I feel I could direct my students to do the same.  Blogging can be a great tool for connecting peers and extending student thinking about texts, topics, and discussions.  I would hope that my students would have access to a computer to partake in such an activity, but I realize that is not always possible.  Instead, I may still incorporate blogging into a class experience and possibley complete a shared writing piece (Tompkins, Ch.1). I still am not completely familiar with all the technology available on the internet that can extend student writing activities.