The Writing Monkey

Project Rant

writingmonkey — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 02:41:00 +0000

I am going to try to journal my way into making my project make sense. I am trying to think of the best way to go about presenting my project. My project is to create my ideal classroom that is writing-centered. So far I have done a lot of brainstorming. After turning in my progress report last week, and getting feedback from Dr. S I feel I may be going in the right direction. I need to scale down what I am trying to do and just focus on the writing aspect of a classroom and not going crazy with my idea. The next thing I need to do is figure out how to present and what my first steps toward presentation should be. I will come up with a schedule and see where that leads me.

Authentic Assessment

writingmonkey — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 18:08:32 +0000

Now I am leaning heavily on authentic assessment. I want to look at what research says on authentic assessment and actually apply that to plans for a fictitious 4th grade classroom. I am also looking at the many number of standards that are required by the state and city and how that will play into this classroom. So basically I want to come up with a mock classroom and see what it would theoretically look like. We shall see!!

Project, Project!!

writingmonkey — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 01:42:52 +0000

Well, I think I am up to 5 possible topics for this research project. I started off thinking I would do something with Digital Storytelling, but with the type of project I would want to do I just don’t have the time. So I have to find something that is more research and less field orientated right now. My next thought was doing something on Authentic Assessment. I want my own classroom again someday and I definately want it to be a writing classroom. So I am interested in how other people in writing classrooms assess their students. My third thought came to me as I was reading Because Writing Matters. As I was reading about the connection between reading and writing in early literacy I thought about maybe looking into that some more since I would have my own little test subject at home. Claire is almost six and is learning to read and write in Kindergarten right now. I thought that I could look through her old papers and see what progress she has made since she first took pen, or pencil, or most likely crayon to paper (because you know I have saved almost every scrap of that paper.) Okay, so that’s only three topics, but I think I can come up with something from this. Any thoughts?

Thoughts on Miller

writingmonkey — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 20:28:53 +0000

My kids will say that it is not nice to hate, but I hate this book. The first chapter just seemed to go in five million different directions. Of course that could have just been my brain’s interpretation since it travels in that many directions on it’s own. But what’s funny is that I am compelled to see what comes next. I am interested to see what he has to say next. We shall next see week!!!

Sincerely,

The Writing Monkey

Hello world!

writingmonkey — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 00:53:52 +0000

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