Alaina Storck Dr.

Lipsyc ENG 305 13 December 2010 Writing Teaching Philosophy of Education Statement After spending the last fifteen weeks exploring numerous theories of teaching writing, I have begun to form an image of myself as a writing teacher. As a student of education, and a prospective teacher of language arts, I have three objectives for my future as a writing teacher. The first is to instill in students the recursive nature of writing, in order to strengthen their writing skills. The second is to engage students in the act of writing, and the third is to foster creativity in and out of the classroom. To accomplish these objectives I plan to incorporate a variety of methods into my curriculum. My first objective as a teacher of writing is to introduce my students to writing as a recursive process. In order to do so, I must stress all parts of the writing process, from prewriting to revising. I feel that this is important to do, because often students do not understand all the stages of writing, and teachers do not take the time to teach them, leaving students trying to write perfect papers in just one draft. Donald Murray stresses the importance of prewriting in the writing classroom, and that writing teachers should give careful attention to what happens between the moment the writer receives an idea or an assignment, and the moment the first completed draft is begun (37). Therefore, incorporating time for prewriting in my classroom, and including examples of prewriting activities will encourage my students to regularly practice this process. In addition, having a portfolio assignment at the end of the year that will display all the stages of the writing processprewriting, outlining, drafting, revisionswill insure students

actually participate in every step of the process. In their article on the portfolio, Miholic and Moss declare portfolios are effective tools for teaching writing and promoting revision They invite increased individualized, process oriented instruction (Miholic and Moss). Integrating prewriting activities in my classroom and maintaining a portfolio to track the stages of the writing process will help me instill in my students the importance of viewing writing as a recursive process, ultimately strengthening their composition skills. In addition to stressing the importance of the writing process, I also want to engage my students in the act of writing, because writing is often unpopular with young adolescents. In order to do this, I believe incorporating collaborative learning in the writing classroom is essential. Adolescents are driven by social interaction, and therefore collaborative activities motivate them and stimulate their interest. Allowing students to interact socially in the classroom means they will be more engaged in learning. Bruffee explains the evidence provided by collaborative activity in the society at large suggests that people can gain both awareness and supportin small groups of their peers (640). Therefore, I strongly believe in including social learning and collaboration in my future classroom. My final objective as a future writing teacher is to foster creativity in the classroom. I will do this by incorporating media into my classroom, so as to speak in the students language. Including video clips or music lyrics can instantly catch the interest of a disengaged class. Once the students are engaged and invested in the lesson, their creative juices will begin to flow. I feel encouraging students to think creatively will both make learning more fun for the students and help them cultivate creative thinking skills which will help them in life, whatever they choose to do. An example of incorporating media in the classroom and fostering creativity is the blog assignment we researched in November. The teacher used a blog format for students to upload

their writing assignments. Because the students use technology in their everyday life, they are comfortable with the format, and because the blog allows the students to include a variety of media aspects (video, pictures, colored text, etc.) the assignments have more room for creativity than a traditional paper assignment. Therefore I would definitely include at least some adaptation of the blog assignment in my classroom, to give students freedom to explore their creativity. I would also foster creativity with poetry and creative writing assignments, as well as alternative assignments, such as the visual/verbal essay from our packet. I believe that the ELA classroom is a great place to allow students to explore their creative side, which is such an important skill to develop. As a writing teacher I want to motive my students to enjoy writing by allowing them room for creativity and adding collaborative activities to engage them in social learning. I also want to insure they develop strong writing skills and critical thinking skills by introducing all stages of the recursive writing process into the classroom. Fundamentally, I want to teach writing to my students because it is a skill that will help them in their future, whatever that future will be. Strong composition skills will give my students a better chance of getting into college, if that is the path they choose, or make them invaluable to their boss in their chosen career, as writing promotes critical thinking skills, which are essential in problem solving across disciplines. By teaching my students to write well, and to love to write, I hope to prepare them to succeed in all aspects of their life, as strong writing is one of the most marketable skills in this modern, global world.