Gerri Davis

Paper #4

7/16/01

Reflections

Last summer, I attended the Southeast Alaska Literacy Institute. It was there that I was introduced to the idea of a "comprehensive literacy program." A comprehensive literacy program is a whole-language approach to developing reading, writing, thinking, and speaking skills. I was excited about this new information, and a little embarrassed because it made me realize how I had failed my eighth-graders that first year of teaching. I had gone into teaching middle school wanting to go with a Nancy Atwell approach to teaching reading and writing; what resulted was a free-wheeling woo-woo kind of English class that neither I nor my students got a lot out of. So at the same time that I was kicking myself as this new information found its way to me, I was also eager to try and figure out how I could improve my teaching by utilizing the comprehensive literacy framework.

A comprehensive literacy program is comprised of ten components:

1. Reading Aloud?the act of being read to by a competent reader

2. Shared Reading?when an expert reads a text with fluency and students are invited

to read along

3. Guided Reading?the teacher supporting students' reading by structuring pre-,

post, and during reading comprehension activities

4. Literature Circle/Conversation Groups?groups of students who are all reading

the same text and helping each other to better understand what they are reading

5. Independent Reading?students self-select books and are in charge of their own

reading

6. Writing Aloud/Modeled Writing?the teacher shares his/her thinking as he/she

composes in front of the students

7. Word Study?teaching students processes and strategies for understanding the

words they read and write

8. Shared Writing?teacher and students compose collaboratively with the teacher

acting as scribe

9. Guided Writing?students write while the teacher guides, responds, and extends

the students' ideas and skills

10. Independent Writing?Students select topics and are in charge of their own

writing (Southeast Alaska Literacy Institute, Summer 2000)

The Oregon Writing Project has been a huge help in giving me strategies for addressing the writing portions of the comprehensive literacy program. For the Writing Aloud/Modeled Writing component (as well as for teaching grammar), for instance, I plan to use Bill Strong's sentence combining exercises. I'm still exploring possibilities for teaching Word Study (though I'm leaning towards studying Greek and Latin prefixes of words that are embedded in the literature selection we are reading at the time), but Bill Strong and Ingrid Wendt both gave numerous ways in which I want to do Shared Writing. PowerPoint, Inspiration, and building webpages are all really great ways to bring technology into the Guided Writing process, and our response groups are another good example of Guided Writing. I think I would also want to incorporate conferences into the Guided Writing structure, though. And finally, the Independent Writing is a place where I want to give students the opportunity to put together portfolios where a certain number of their writing pieces are completely self-selected, and others are specific classroom assignments.

Attending the Oregon Writing Project has been one of the highlights of my teacher training; it has helped me to fill in some serious blanks that I knew I had to deal with, but didn't know how to. The practical, informative, and helpful lessons the other teachers have brought in and shared have been particularly worthwhile. I plan to use almost every lesson that the teachers here have presented. Thanks for the wonderful experience.