So far

I can't believe it is already coming on to week 4 of the semester, time flies when you're having fun right? This semester has been extremely busy for me; my husband had to get more medications and to do that we had to travel to the Tri-Cities about ten million times. Hopefully we can finally settle down in Pullman.

So far in the semester I have learned quite a bit about how to teacher grammar when I become a teacher, and also a bit on how to improve my writing. I never knew how I would teach grammar, never really came to mind, I guess it still seems too (Is this correct? Never really understood when to place a ‘to’ or a ‘too’) farfetched that I will be a full blown teacher in two-three years (Can I use a dash like that?). After reading the story about Dora I had a better sense of what I would be doing when it came to teaching; like I said, I never really had an idea but THEIRS seem really promising. The gist of the method was to make sure to encourage the writer to continue writing, don’t bog them down with what was wrong, and tell them the good stuff. It’s weird how this idea has really changed. WHEN I WAS A STUDENT, I HAD TO PEER REVIEW KIDS AND MAKE SURE THEY KNEW EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID WRONG; WHEN I’M A TEACHER, I WILL NEED TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO BE CONFIDENT WITH THEIR WRITING AND MAKE THEM FIGURE OUT WHAT THEY DID WRONG ON THEIR OWN, AND SIMPLY GIVE THEM TOOLS TO USE TO UNDERSTAND THEIR OWN WRITING. It’s interesting how most teachers continue to just point out what is wrong and discourage children to want to write when there has been studies showing that the methods they are using are not as great as these ones.

I’ve also incorporated the previous pattern of the week into my latest essay in my other class. I never really thought of making a list seem endless, and I would never have dreamed of dropping the word “and” (is it correct to have the quotations around a specific word like this?) from a list; that idea has been beaten into me by all my previous teachers.

Until next time,

Rebecca