Practical Purpose for This Blog

Truth be told, the main impetus for creating this blog is to fulfill requirements for a graduate course, which focuses on teaching writing, at Wright State University. The course applies toward a K-12 reading endorsement.

My assignment is to create a blog that shows how teachers can use published texts as resources to help students develop their own writing skills. The video below gives a good overview of the “author as mentor” concept. The related videos provide additional resources.

I hope to become a Title I teacher for the 2010-2011 school year. As I create this blog, I will keep an eye toward texts and mini-lessons that might prove useful, should I land such a job. This project will provide an opportunity for me to familiarize myself with elementary and middle school literature – it has been awhile since I have read literature for this age level.

I will start by exploring literature toward the middle school range of that spectrum, as I already have a license to teach English and language arts in secondary grades. I may also dip into early elementary literature, because schools sometimes (and appropriately) funnel Title I funds toward helping readers get caught up before they fall way behind.

Part of this journey will travel through 6+1 Trait® Writing resources. A good primer on this approach can be found here. Mini-lessons incorporating this approach can be found here. You can perform a search for 6+1 Trait® Writing here.

I will connect my mini-lessons to Ohio English Language Arts Content Standards, which can be found here.

Thanks for reading. Welcome to the journey!