LA Instruction

I know I am not that old, but the high paced life I experience in College has a way of making me forget what I had for dinner last night, so with that said I will pick at my brain the best I can and give you the best examples from my experiences that I can remember.
WRITING WORKSHOPS:
I have a vague memory that took place in my eighth grade Language Arts class that may have been participation in a writing workshop. I remember sitting out in the hall way with a peer as we swapped papers to read each other’s drafts. The teacher walked around to each pair providing more feedback. She would remind us of things to look for, ask us about our partner writing, and prompt us with questions that would provide more useful feedback for our peers. The reason I remember this moment so well was because I had the tendency to use thesaurus too much in middle school. I am pretty sure that my papers made little to no sense because for every other word I used the thesaurus. My peers, however, ranted and raved about my “big words.” They thought it was cool. In some ways I think that writing workshops are wonderful. They force students to participate in each step of the writing process; they allow students to receive more feedback than what the teacher can provide. A student can have three different peers read his/her paper and receive three different set of comments in the time it takes the teacher to give feedback once to three different students. I like how writing workshops allow students to work with peers. I am firm believer that the educational journey should be joined. We learn best from others, and little to no interaction with others can hinder learning more than it can help. For these reasons I like the writing workshop. Writing workshops can present problems though. Undeveloped or poorly planned writing workshops could be disastrous. I can easily see too much time being spent in a writing workshop. I also feel that sometimes peer feedback is not always the best. As was in my case, my peers never told me my papers didn’t make sense. They thought I was smart because I used “big words,” so rarely did I receive useful feedback from peers on content.
READERS WORKSHOP:
I personally cannot recall a time in which I participated in a Readers workshop. I assume that I did, but I simply cannot remember. Some of the concerns that I had with the Writing workshop still exist for Readers workshop, poor planning. Poorly planned workshops reflect on the teacher, and could cost valuable instructional time in class. However, I think that a Readers workshop allows students to get more attention from the teacher during conference time. I think the time spent in conferencing and also in peer conferencing for the Writing workshop are wonderful tools for development. I also like that assessment is done through different techniques outside the box of testing. Testing so often stresses young students and they do not perform to the amount of knowledge they have gained.
THEMATIC UNITS:
I love Thematic Units! Let me repeat that: I love Thematic Units! I think that they are an awesome tool for connecting material across subjects. I think they keep students interested more than your typical lesson will. I sadly do not remember participating in school in a thematic unit. I have been exposed to them through working on a unit in one of my education classes. The team that I observe recently did a unit around WWII. Language arts, social studies, and mathematics were pulled in. I was not there the day the actual unit was presented but I had the opportunity to see the ground work. I was able to see some of the reading and work students were doing about WWII before the actual unit. Kids were excited about the learning, and the only thing that I can see as a negative about thematic units is poor planning. Poor planning results in a lot of “fluff” and “fluff” does not lead to significance educational experiences.
LITERATURE CIRCLES:
The only time that I have participated in literature circles was in my Children’s Literature class which wasn’t until College. Maybe I participated in a literature circle in Elementary School? I do not remember. My experience in college though was a wonderful one. I had the chance to read Ella Enchanted, fabulous book. I think Literature Circles are wonderful. They again support the interaction among peers, but they also require students to do a little work on their own. The roles that students have to participate in hold them accountable for doing their work. The only possible negatives that I see with Literature Circles are the chance of putting all the wrong kids together. Some students just cannot get along; putting them in a Literature Circle together may disrupt the experience for the rest of the students, or students would have a hard time staying on task. Also since Literature Circles are much more student controlled, students may find it difficult to be responsible for their learning if they are not interested in the text.