Literacy Journal Response

Writing Essentials Chapter 2:
All students, especially those who begin school with limited literacy skills, need to think of themselves as readers and writers, see the processes as meaningful, and have positive attitudes about literacy before they can successfully engage in literacy practices? (p. 34). How do you respond to this quote? What connections can you make between this quote, your field placement, and/or your own experiences?

As, Regie Routman stated in Writing Essentials, “the celebration of children’s writing needs to move right up front to become a major teaching goal. Too many of our students find writing painful, and much of that pain comes from too much concern with correctness at the expense of enjoyment” (Routman, p.18).

This quote is powerful to children’s learning and belief in writing. Students must first see themselves actively involved in the writing process as a writer in order to become motivated to write. So often, students are disengaged from the writing process at the very beginning because they do not feel they are good enough writers, don’t have good ideas or anything to write about. Therefore, the students have no motivation to write because there is no value or connection to writing for them.

Aside from the belief in writing, the focus on correcting the students work over teaching the student to write for enjoyment is another point of concern effecting motivation. When the focus of the student’s work is on writing a good beginning or having good content instead of grammatical errors in drafting a story, the students will enjoy writing more.

I imagine that positive reinforcement would lead to motivation in writing for all students. I enjoyed reading Routman’s chapter 2 about teaching students to write by “starting with celebration” and also believe this is true for students in the writing process. In addition, Routman’s method of teaching writing is quite cognizant of students’ learning and behavior as she also talks about “(changing) the status of kids in the classroom” (Routman, p.19).

In my teaching experience, I have seen how the quality of students’ work can improve beyond their expected level based on Routman’s concepts mentioned thus far. I especially, have seen, what Routman writes as “writing success has the power to transform kids, literally. They see themselves differently and more confidently, and their peers see them that way, too” (Routman, p. 19). One of the most important things regarding this idea that I have learned in teaching and observing students write is that the confidence students gain in writing also carries with them in other subjects as well. I believe this is part of the risk taking idea that Routman encourages teachers to celebrate with students in their writing. Overall, I found this chapter to be very interesting and positive in helping students to learn and enjoy writing.



Please bring Lamott to class ready to discuss one or two powerful quotes from the text.