The greatest part about being a teacher is not summers off. It’s not the huge salary and the short hours. It’s the moments when children amaze us. I am amazed at the creativity of children. From my seventeen month old who has begun stacking things and putting duplos together to my three and half your old who says the most hilarious things. From the first graders in my dyad who are learning how to write words to the fifth graders in my main student teaching placement who can write whole stories. I absolutely love chocolate so I was struck by this poem from Regie Routman’s book. It expresses my feelings exactly:
Eating Chocolate is a glory!
When I see chocolate it makes my mouth water like a water foset. When I eat it my heart melts away. “Can I have some more?” Lahana Grade 4 from Routman, p. 339.
Children are born with great creativity. The acquisition of language, reading, and writing requires creativity. Just consider what babies have to do in order to being talking. They start by just trying out syllables and eventually start making their own sentences to communicate. As Routman points out, our biggest task as educators is to make sure children do not lose their desire to be creative. The advice she gives constantly can be summarized like this: Abstract and disconnected writing assignments drain the life out of writers. Children who spend their time filling in worksheets or writing start to hate writing. We need to have students work on meaningful pieces of work. From those works flow the lessons on grammar and spelling as they learn the revision and publishing process. Students need assignments which peak their interest.
My question, especially when considering the “12 Writing Essentials for All Grade Levels (p. 13),” is how to incorporate them into the lower grades? In the first grade class I’m observing just getting students to write is a challenge.
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