C4T #1 Summary

The blog I was assigned is called Two Writing Teachers. It is actually run by six different women whose titles range from early childhood educators to literacy specialists. The topics of their blogposts are centered around writing in the elementary school classrooms.

The first post I commented on discussed using "text features" to help students with their expository writing. Text features are a way to organize words and ideas to draw attention to certain details or add to your story. I've attached an image from the blog as a reference. Anyway, whenever I commented I told the author, Anna, that I was still a student and had never heard of a text feature before; therefore, her post was extra informative for me. I really like the idea because it gives students a visual of what their topic is, and it makes it easier to integrate different subjects into writing like in the example.

The second post was really cool for me because as soon as I clicked on it, I saw a really familiar image. The author, Stacey, was writing about something she had seen in Dr. Paige Vitulli's tweets from my class! Stacey borrowed Dr. Vitulli's idea to write post-it notes about art, and used it to write ideas about writing instead. In her post, she also shared five more ideas to help students see themselves as writers including addressing them as writers instead of students. In my comment, I told her that I really liked that idea. Telling students they're writers lets them know that you believe in them, and I would assume would put them in a good mood and mindset to begin writing.