Chapters 7, 8, and 9

When I was reading through chapter 7 a few different things stuck out to me. First, I think live writing is a great mini lesson and can be very beneficial to the students. This is because when a teacher makes public the thought process behind writing it demonstrates to the students how they can go about their individual writing skills. Second, I really liked all the different types of Try-Its. I think its great to get students involved with each other throughout the lessons along with different types of writing Try-Its. Again, the more practice and examples the students can experience the better they will get.

Chapter 8 explained how to have a conference with students in order to find their strengths and weaknesses with reading and writing. I feel as though its very important, as a teacher, to research their students to become more aware of their needs and characteristics. Being able to find a students strengths is a huge part of their growing process because then you can find what they need to work on as well. Building conversation and observing your students are also important because it helps the relationship between student and teacher. In a sense your getting two things done at once!

Chapter 9 discusses more researching skills and techniques in order to make the process even more beneficial. As a teacher, throughout your conference you should be able to find related topics or craft skills that would help the students understanding. Observing is also a huge part of the conference and should help the teacher find things like absence of punctuation, a need for general writing strategies, absence of a specific craft, and so on. These are important qualities to find in a student because without them they will struggle more with their writing. The more a teacher can find out about a student the more he/she can help them develop a better schema with reading or writing.