Writing Essentials part 2

Routman's chapter four, "Raise Your Expectations" was and enjoyable read. It made me think and rethink about how I work in the classroom with students. On page 56, Routman writes, "I never give up on a child; it is never okay for a student not to write or not participate- no matter what the child's background. It is also not okay to rely on scripted, one-size-fits-all programs in our poorest schools while more affluent ones can choose the best materials and strategies to teach their students." In my dyad I observed my master teacher working with an uncooperative student. The assignment was to write about their ideal monster, but since the teacher knows his students pretty well he knew that the real problem was that she hated to write. She refused to write and sat down in the corner. My master teacher went over there after he let her calm down and asked what the problem was. He listened and advised her write about something else such as what she was going to be for Halloween or her favorite hero and she liked that idea better. He did not want her to give up on working on an assignment therefore picked a different topic for her to write about. I asked him why he let her do that and not just let her give in. He informed me that if he gave in and let her slide than he would have felt that he had given up on her. "I just wanted her to write, even if it was not about the same topic that everyone else was working on." I did also like to discuss about the optimal learning model however I did have a hard time understanding what it was therefore I waited to write this portion of my blog after class. From what I got from group discussion was that it was similar to direct instruction, where the teacher talks about the lesson, teacher demonstrates, has students work with the teacher, than the teacher lets them work independently. For example learning to write numbers. The teacher tells the students that they will learn writing numbers, teacher demonstrates how to write the number "1" on the board, students copy, then the students work independently on the writing the next with the numbers. I hope I understood that right.