Entry #12-Reflecting About the "Blogging" Experience

Now is the time for me to sit here and think, reflect, and truly dig deep into what I have learned this semester not only about the content, but with my own experiences with blogging for the first time. I had always seen a friend or two of mine have blogs, but I never had an interest to have one of my own. I felt that the information would seem to personal to just go an release all over the internet. But to each his own as they say- because it is really up to the writer to decide how much information you want to reveal to your internet audience. What I would have never expected was the fact that I could use a blog for educational purposes- for myself or for my students! The class discussions we have held about online writing experiences, the class textbooks (Hicks and Tompkins), and by giving a genre presentation, I was able to gain a much broader experience with digital writing, teaching tools, and genre features. 

I really enjoyed being able to see how others' were learning in the class. It was nice to not feel alone on some of my opinions about writing, and it was nice having the chance to free-write. I was able to reflect about my teaching experiences or even my own experiences in writing from my past. I think I initially struggled to connect with some of the readings, but once I read other posts and was challenged by Dr. Jones, I began to unravel my thoughts a little more and dig deeper. I had to question my thinking, think about what I would do in certain situations if I had my own classroom, and I had to connect with the readings all at the same time. I think I became a stronger "blog" writer a few blogs into this assignment. 

I have taken the time to read over the student learning outcomes. I feel that I was able to meet outcome #1 because I was able to explore a variety of genres, experiment with them through my blog posts and genre pieces project, and I was able to read about them in the Tompkins book. The Tompkins text was a vital piece in helping me to learn about a variety of genres that readers and writers use to communicate. It had excellent examples from real classrooms, and it offered research about each genre.

I was able to understand better about the role of purpose and audience in writing because of the genre pieces project. I am still learning about audience through this class and my literacy clinic class (LTED 685), but I understand the connection between having an audience and how that can alter an entire writing piece. Each piece in my genre project has an audience that would best fit the piece I chose to write. 

I was able to meet outcome #3 because we were able to explore newer forms of writing through the Hicks text. I have increased my knowledge about podcasts, blogs, subscribing to webpages, and so on, but I need to actually sign up or mosey on through these sites to actually understand how to follow through with some of these new digital literacy resources- naturally. 

I remember reading about the relationship between reading and writing. I know it is a transactional process, and it takes many stages for a writer to complete. Dr. Jones helped me realize that writing can always be edited and there does not necessarily have to be a finished,"permanent", writing piece. I was able to think metacognitively and reflect about my experiences using this blog and how it can help me in the future. Of course I was able to increase my reading comprehension through the online reading assignments, class reading opportunities amongst peers' posts, and with text chapters.

The Hicks reading helped me to understand the types of reading and writing assignments that are appropriate for learners. There were have to be many modifications for online resources in the younger grades, but teachers would have to familiarize themselves with the writing too first, then read it to the kids. 

It helps having a rubric made available to us to understand the purposes of the assignment, how we are getting graded, and what I can do to try to earn the most points when I demonstrate my full potential toward a writing task.
 I was able to somewhat gain a better idea of writing assessment by seeing the rubric available for each of our assignments in this course, but I need to further develop my knowledge on writing assessment or evaluation for my students. I need to learn to set high expectations, but not get too "nit picky". I need to understand that each individual's writing will be different amongst once classroom, and sometimes I just need to look past the writing to see the message behind someone's writing piece. 

This has been an interesting experience. I hope to use blogs in the future with my classroom to help students connect, build community, and learn about themselves as writers. 

Entry #11- Developing My Understanding of Genre Features

I feel as though I have gained multiple perspectives on the variety of genres we learned about this semester. It's interesting to actually think the semester is coming towards a closing, and everyone has participated in presenting their genre. At first, I was very confused with how we were supposed to go about our presentations, but it definitely helped that Dr. Jones started off with her examples with the journal writing genre. I found it very interesting to learn about the different types of journals teachers can use in their classrooms with their students. Not only can students have the opportunity to reflect and become self-regulators of their own reading and writing, but students often have opportunities to write about specific topics or free-write topics to develop their sense of audience and general writing skills.

 Tompkins states (2012), "As they write, students shape their thinking and personalize their learning. Because writing is such a powerful tool for thinking and learning, teachers incorporate journals into their instructional programs to nurture students' writing fluency and facilitate their learning in language arts and across the curriculum" (p.108). This is my favorite part about writing- it can be incorporated across the curriculum. ELA and science can be intertwined to help students gain meaningful experiences learning to read and write about things such as the life cycle, or teachers can have students use a journal such as double-entry journals to write information about one of the presidents and their personal responses about that for social studies. 
I know that I am definitely going to use journals in my classroom across a wide range of topics in the curriculum.

I also enjoyed learning about the biographical genre and the descriptive genre. All groups presented very well for each week there were presentations, but I felt the people who led the descriptive genre really set the tone with the type of presentation we needed to give in order for the class to be engaged and fully understand how the genre could be utilized in the classroom, along with other ideas and books for us to use in the specific genre presented. The descriptive genre is a genre I learned much more about and would continue to read about in order to utilize different ideas for writing pieces in my classroom. It is important that writers use multisensory word pictures, vivid, yet powerful words to make their writing more descriptive. Dialogue, word choice, creative sensory images, and having careful selections of words allows writers to help their writing pieces come alive (Tompkins, 2012). I would definitely use the "Guess the flavor" activity that this presentation group (Alyse and Nicole) used in order to activate our senses and enhance our understanding of this genre. 

I was also able to understand the biographical genre a little better in the sense that I do not have much experience with autobiographies- so it was nice to see some teaching tools I could use in my classroom for this genre, such as the "life box" that Kristen brought in the class. I am excited to build my experiences working with these genres with students in my classroom/future classroom. 

When I was assigned the persuasive genre, I was a little nervous at first. After I read more about it in the chapter and had strong support and communication with my group members, I was able to see this genre wasn't so "scary" after all! It was just a matter of not having any experience working in this genre. I learned much more about this genre than anticipated-mainly because my presentation sort of forced me into delving deeper on the topic. Argument is naturally within us! Especially in younger children who can be very egotistic- so it is important as teachers for us to help students understand how to organize their persuasive thoughts into writing (Tompkins, 2012). I learned that children need to understand when they write persuasively, they need to develop a stronger sense position and follow through with reasoning behind their position(s). My presentation group and Tompkins' book helped me to understand more about propaganda and the different forms of persuasion-ethos, logos, and pathos. 

I may not have had the greatest or most broad experiences with poetry in my past, but I certainly look forward to enhancing my experience with this genre as well. I am disappointed I had to miss the presentation on poetry and the expository genre, but I would definitely say I have the most experience working with kids in the expository genre-fortunately. I could see myself incorporating both in my classroom, whether it is through morning daily routines, or through book reports about different animals in the rainforest! I think I have a broader and more open-minded opinion about poetry now that I am aware of the different forms of it (free verse, rhymed verse, formula, haiku, and acrostic poems)

My understanding for each genre has increased quite a bit- especially with the genre I presented in persuasive writing. This was a great experience, and I am glad I have handouts and resources available for each genre for me to use in the future. 

Entry #10- Bless, Press, or Address

Between reading Jaci and Alyse's blog entries, and perhaps a few others from this class, it seems as though many people had a negative feeling about poetry in their younger years as well as before they read more deeply about it this semester. Unfortunately I had to miss a class last week. Therefore, I had to miss a couple of presentations on two genres that would have been very interesting to listen to!

By reading other people's blogs, it seems the common theme for this entry is to bless Alyse's blog! I think it is very intriguing that she was able to capture quite a few people's attention on her blog- so good for her and I would like to take a moment to bless some things from her blog while I'm at it! Why not, right?!

Alyse took the time to discuss the structure of poems and how they can be free-verse or structured. Writing like this forces the author to consider an idea, topic or feeling more deeply and/or from a different point of view; it requires higher-order thinking and can be a difficult but rewarding task. I think it is important that Alyse took the moment to take a step back and analyze the thinking process of the writer and reader during poetic reading/writing. I think that is what makes poems so interesting- they come in a variety of forms, they can be imaginary, creative, truthful, expressive, from the heart, and very deep. There isn't a specific "rule" for writing poetry, but it has to capture the reader's eye and have meaning for the reader to be highly engaged. 

When I hear the word "poetry", I think back to any experiences I had with it throughout elementary school. I can remember immediately loving the Real Mother Goose nursery rhymes. I was so young when my mom or grandparents read these rhymes to me, but they flowed and sounded so nice. I cannot think of a different word to use besides nice- I was a child, so I used my imagination, interpreted the rhymes the best I could for my age, and used the pictures to create meaning and spark my imagination about what was read to me. 

I would also like to bless how Alyse took the time to actually create her own "I used to be...Now I am" poem. She was creative in her thinking process here, and she was able to use her own experiences to discuss her thoughts and feelings about poetry in nothing more fitting than a poem itself! This makes me think back to the Tompkins reading regarding poetry. Many forms of poetry are displayed in this chapter to help readers see the variation teachers can utilize when teaching this genre in their classrooms. I could see myself using free verse poems with kids during free writing time, or examples of other poems leading with, "I Wish" or "If I Were" during a poetry unit (Tompkins, 2012). I would want students to understand that writing poetry does not have to be frustrating because it offers many different outlets to portray a message to an audience. 

I would also like to bless Jaci's #9 blog for a moment because she not only posted some images to relate to her feelings on the Biographical genre, but she posed many important questions to stimulate her thinking and the readers' of the blog entry. She reflects on her thinking process when it came to the assignment of creating a timeline of her life. I also struggled to think of many important, impacting events of my life that pertained to the development of my literacy skills and experiences. We had to think about what we would feel comfortable sharing with other peers' and our professor, and we had to think about who made the most impact on helping us to "become literate". 

I enjoy reading other people's blogs and learning about their experiences with the assignments in this class, their experiences in their classrooms/with students, and their experiences while approaching the readings on the variety of genres we have read about in the Tompkins book. 

Entry #9- Exploring Persuasive Writing Genre

The past couple weeks have been a very interesting "journey" if you will. I have been exploring the persuasive genre with my group for my "Teaching the Genre" Expert Group Presentation. I have found myself very interested and engaged in this process because I was able to explore this "mystery" genre that I did not know much about prior to my research and presentation. 

One of the things I found most interesting about this project was the peer-reviewed article I found on persuasive writing. The article was called, Already Experts: Showing Students How much They Know about Writing and Reading Arguments by Angela Petit and Edna Soto (2002). This article was interesting to me because the authors utilized an argument workshop to help their students inductively understand the concept that arguing and persuasion are innate. These authors' perceptions of classroom textbooks were that they did not help convey the concept of argument and persuasion sufficiently for their students' understanding, specifically when students were learning how to write in the persuasive genre. Therefore, the teachers in this class felt their students would be able to understand the persuasive genre by linking arguments to readings on current, controversial topics the students would have experience with inside and outside of their school environments (Petit & Soto, 2002).

The teachers decided to have the class divide into groups, or teams, to come up with an argument as to why they would earn the prize of a box of cookies. The students were expected to come up with a good argument with valid reasons as to why the teachers should reward them with the cookies. The students were encouraged to come up with creative, serious or playful, real or invented arguments as to why they deserved the box of cookies. This class in particular came up with such a variety of responses that truly helped the students dig deeper into understanding the element of persuasion through a class "game", yet it was not until after that the students were able to discover that they were able to draw from a repertoire of persuasive strategies that would help them convey an argument using pathos, ethos, or logos strategies (Petit & Soto, 2002).

I found this article helpful because it was interesting to see how these teachers used an actual classroom activity to help their students understand how they can argue "naturally", and later convey this into an organized writing. I learned that students often struggle to write persuasively, so it is important that teachers support their students through leveled scaffolding techniques to help their students learn how to organize their persuasive writing pieces with valid positions, reasons, and conclusions (Tompkins, 2012).  Tompkins (2012) found that younger children have difficulties writing persuasively because they tend to be very egocentric. Therefore,  this results in them failing to look outside of the box to consider others' viewpoints on certain issues or topics. 

Learning about the persuasive genre has helped me to understand the difficulties students may come across when learning about this genre. It has also opened a window into helping me understand what types of activities I could use in my classroom to help students develop persuasive writing skills. Organization is clearly important when teaching students to write persuasively. 

I was proud of my Expert Group presentation because I felt we revealed a wide range of information to the class about persuasion and the various forms of propaganda, such as bandwagon or glittering generalities. I was happy to apply something I learned from one of the peer-reviewed readings and utilize it in a classroom to see how it could be helpful and engaging with students in a classroom, whether they are younger or college-aged students. 

I could see myself using persuasive writing with my students across various content areas, such as history. If I was encouraging my students to create a new rule for the classroom, or write a letter to the principal about an issue of concern in the school, they would enhance their writing skills on writing persuasively, to influence someone else about their rights, opinions, or argument for or against issues. 

I also enjoyed  getting to explore other texts to put myself in the role of a younger student who would need to discover the persuasive issue in a persuasive genre-text. When I read Chris Van Allsburg's The Wretched Stone, I was not able to easily identify how this book was part of the persuasive genre as suggested by Tompkins. However, I read it over again and realized what the mystical part of the text was, and it would be up to the reader to validate whether the "mysterious stone" that was picked up by one of the crew members had to do with the wild behaviors amongst the crew of the ship. The thought process was put into the reader's mind to decide and argue for or against the topic of this text. I have enjoyed other peers' presentations on the different genres presented in class so far- descriptive and biographical. It is very interesting to see how some of the ideas from our texts can get implemented in a classroom such as ours. 

I hope to continue to learn more about the other genres in this book (Tompkins) and how we can implement different teaching techniques and strategies amongst our students from a variety of ages.

Entry #8: Bless, Address, or Press: My Expanded Thoughts on Other Peers' Responses

There are a lot of people from this class that have contributed many invigorating, thoughtful, highly engaging thoughts in their writing blogs. First, I would like to take a moment to bless Krista's blog, particularly entry #7. Krista mentions the importance of bringing informational text in the classroom and how teacher really should emphasize and incorporate more of these types of texts in their classrooms. I would agree with the importance of this because not only can students build their vocabulary pertaining to a specific subject matter, but they increase their knowledge range among a variety of topics.

Krista also mentions about an article she read on the importance of teachers teaching effective comprehension strategies to students (Dymock, 2005). For instance, students need to understand the different text structures features in expository text. This makes me think about the other day when I was working with my third grade student in the literacy clinic. We are learning about Komodo dragons, and we have different expository texts from the library to help research and gather the information for our project at the end of the semester. This was one of the first times I had read an expository to my student this semester, so I wanted to make sure he understood the purpose of the table of contents, the index, and the captions featured on certain pages highlighting specific information about the subject. Although my student was familiar with this book, I was surprised to find he did not understand the purpose of the index. It was a positive moment to learn I had taught him something new about the specific words within the index and that the numbers presented would represent the page the student could find key words or specific subject matter. 

I also wanted to take a moment to bless Kristine C's comments in her March 5th entry. She really opened up about a frustrating experience with a professor in her undergraduate program explaining her experiences with a professor who frequently provided negative feedback that seemed very discouraging for most assignments she had due. She mentioned that any thoughts or ideas she had were "challenged" and "never seemed to be what the professor was looking for". In many ways I can completely agree with this, but I also would like to press for a moment to think about the purpose behind her professor challenging her thoughts. I think I have a stronger understanding for professors challenging my work now, but I can completely empathize with her in more ways than one. 

In my undergraduate programs, I would say I did not reach out to my professors as much as I should have when I struggled to understand certain concepts or lessons. I wish I would have met up with them more, but there is one professor in particular I remember being quite beneficial towards my lack of understanding with the course content. One of my science classes that combined chemistry and physics in one semester was quite challenging. I did horrible on my first exam and perhaps did not study as much as I should have. By the second exam, I did a little better, but still was not understanding the concepts as much as I should have. I met with my professor more than once after these frustrations, and she helped me drastically. But most importantly, what helped me fully understand the concepts to my best potential was my professor's patience with me and teaching techniques that made me feel comfortable coming to her for help. Therefore, this makes me wonder if Kristine held back on asking the questions she really needed to ask? It makes me wonder how the professor acted towards her to make her feel comfortable or uncomfortable to coming to her for help? And it makes me wonder how much of the feedback Kristine took constructively to make her work meet the teacher's standards. 

It can definitely be one of the most frustrating moments ever when you try your hardest to complete an assignment and think you are following the guidelines as the professor asked- then you turn around to have negative feedback written all over your assignment that was turned in. This in turn makes me agree completely to BLESS the fact that Kristine said teachers should "justify every negative comment with at least TWO positive comments". This is so very important because it encourages students to take risks while gaining feedback. As a teacher, I want my students to have positive learning experiences in my classroom by taking risks with their writing, but becoming more positive, organized, creative writers. From substituting, I have realized how frequent it is that students have poor attitudes towards writing. Why is this happening? What can teachers do to stretch their students thinking while keep them highly engaged in their writing experiences? 

Entry #7- My Experiences with Descriptive Writing

Reading about descriptive writing makes me think back to the "writing workshops" I had growing up in elementary school, or any other pieces I can remember writing about during my childhood years. Teachers were always encouraging students to write complete sentences, and we had to describe as much as possible when writing stories. Sometimes, we were given a specific topic to "free write" about. One topic I can remember writing about had to pertain to a "junk drawer" that we had in our house. I think the reason this was so memorable to me was because I earned a good grade on this writing, and I was also able to relate and tell the story to my best ability based on my experience having a "junk drawer" in my house.

Living with a step-brother (at the time) and having a mini-farm, there were definitely plenty of junk drawers in the house I was living in! I had to not only think about the items that were in the drawer, but if I wanted or had the time (based on when the assignment was due) I would be able to visualize and go back to those drawers to think about how I could elaborate, or write as descriptively as possible about the junk drawers in my house. There were many stories that I am sure I had to write about amongst a variety of topics, but this story stood out to me because I was encouraged to use as much detail as possible.

Although I was able to write descriptively about this junk drawer topic, I can't help but wonder what other types of stories or genres I may have struggled to write descriptively about. For instance, according to Tompkins (2012), "Poetry...depends on writers' ability to use language descriptively" (p.136). I wonder how well I was able to paint an image and use my senses to capture the minds of the readers of my stories. The reading for this week highlights the importance of helping students understand the importance of choosing specific nouns, vivid verbs, colorful modifiers, and sensory images to describe experiences and ideas effectively when communicating through writing (Tompkins, 2012). I really enjoyed reading certain selections of this chapter because I think this offers teachers great perspectives, information, and insight as to what they should be doing when teaching this genre in writing, as well as it gives helpful resources.

I could see myself teaching a descriptive lesson about a topic and using one of the examples from Mrs. Ochs's sixth grade class to make a chart using the "five-senses" to get children to evoke mood and focus about a topic-which in this case was ancient Egypt (Tompkins, 2012). The descriptive genre and reading some other peers' blogs from this class makes me also think about the writing experiences I have seen implemented in the classroom. In a second grade, integrated classroom from which I substitute, the two teachers I sub on and off for tend to use a model where there is a black and white picture, followed by blank lines. The class as a whole group talks about different objects in the picture, and the teachers or I will label the image with some of the words from the class has said from our discussion. Usually the picture is some sort of funny/silly image the kids have to write creatively about using their own thoughts and stories, such as a boat on a body of water with a sea monster coming out of the water nearby.

When I walk around the kids while they work independently on this type of writing piece, I have noticed the different scenarios they create and descriptive words they choose to put in their writing. Some students seem to really struggle with coming up with their own creative writing pieces, but I will notice some seem to manage to write fragmented sentences with some word choices that describe what is going on in the picture, such as "monster's feet were tickled" (this was not a student's exact words, but I remember working with a student who was vague but knew what message he was trying to convey about the image on the paper).

I consider myself a pretty descriptive writer and talker, especially when I am describing situations I have been in, or through phone-text conversations with my friends. But this reading has helped me to realize the different features of descriptive writing as well, such as dialogue, figurative language, and using specific information for utilization in the classroom. I could see how I would encourage my students to use certain language and writing features to truly emphasize and make the most of their writing, stories, pieces, etc. I think when I am forced to write under pressure or about something I am unable to relate to, I find more difficulty describing and elaborating about it. I am sure many students can relate to this. 

In the literacy clinic I tutor in for another class, there is a student with whom I work with that I am trying to constantly encourage to write more descriptively. This has been a learning process for me because I have to reach my student's level to scaffold his learning and understanding process, but I have to continue to create positive, challenging techniques in my instruction to meet his needs to become a more proficient writer. I could definitely see myself using ideas from this chapter with my student to help myself become a better teacher and to encourage the expansion of my student's choices of words when he/she writes.

Entry #6- Don't Dismiss the Purpose of Their Writing- Seek the Message!

Sommers article (1982) makes many interesting points that spark up a lot of thoughts. I have read some of my other peers' blogs about this article, and I seem to share many thoughts with them about the comments teachers leave for their students and the types of comments we have received from previous teachers in elementary or high school. I really enjoyed this reading because I was able to relate to it, and I feel that reading about teacher's feedback and comments is not something I have had much experience doing just yet in this program at Nazareth or during my undergraduate teaching certification program.

I think the reason I found this article to be so interesting is because it sort of hits home. It makes me think about the type of feedback I have received from teachers in elementary school, high school, and more recently-college. One of my creating writing journals from third grade had circles around misspelled words (from what I remember), and I don't recall much about the other feedback I had in elementary school. It does make me wonder what common errors I had in my writing, and it makes me wonder how teachers' feedback might be much different than the type of feedback we're educated to give to students now.

Sommers' article helped me to realize that teachers do not need to solely focus or stress on the mechanical and grammatical errors of student work, but we need to focus on the meaning behind their writing and the message the student was trying to convey as we read their work back. The research conducted in Sommers' article helped me to sort of wake up and realize that teachers often concern themselves with the "accidents of discourse" before we attend to the meaning of the text of our students.

This article makes me think of the times I have worked with young students, substitute teaching or at the daycare working with pre-school aged children. I will sometimes be asked to correct students' work, or I will help them with the lessons the teacher has left for me and find myself wanting to correct any little error a child makes! This could pertain to backwards letters, punctuation, fragmented sentences, and most of all-spelling errors. I find it so difficult at times for me to hold back on telling a student how to spell something! I'll realize the importance of the student using his or her phonemic awareness to record the sounds they hear and pay attention to spelling patterns he or she has been taught. I have just come to realize that teachers care more about students trying to record the sounds and that spelling does not have to be perfect (mainly for primary ages). I had to take a step back a few times to realize the student's purpose of the assignment. I had to realize the meaning behind what the student was writing, and if it made sense if he/she read it back to him or herself. The important message for me here and with any student I work with is to not completely skip over writing or misspelling errors, but I need to make sure I am aware of the purpose for my written comments or oral feedback to my students.

I found this statement in Sommers' article and I realized how much I zeroed in on this and read it more than once: "....teachers' comments can take students' attention away from their own purposes in writing a particular text and focus that attention on the teachers' purpose in commenting" (Sommers, 1982, p.149). This statement means a lot to me because when I read students' work, I will need to focus on the message that my students are trying to convey. I cannot simply chop up their work with every error I see or what I was expecting to hear if I was the one writing it. It does make me wonder how I will find that balance between too much feedback, or too much of how I would have written the piece/text myself. Moreover, I think it will be extremely important to really listen to my students. I will need to explore their thoughts and really hear their questions and comments about the message they convey through their writing.

Even as a writer myself and the experiences I have had in college, I know that I do not only want to hear all about every error I made in the text I wrote. I want to hear the positive things about my writing as well so I can continue to do those things and further develop in those areas. I want to hear about the errors I make, but in a constructive manner so I am not hesitant to write again for that particular audience, whether it is a teacher, peers, or other professionals in education.

This article made many interesting points about the negative habits teachers make when commenting on students' writing. One of the comments Sommers' makes really meant a lot to me in the small suggestive feedback section. She stresses that "...written comments should be an extension of the teachers' voice-an extension of the teacher as a reader" (Sommers, p.155, 1982).  When I am providing my students with feedback on their work, I want them to understand fully I am there to help them, and I will do my best to help them convey their message or understand what message it is they want to convey to their audience. I don't want my students to feel discouraged by me, and I want to learn what it takes to help my students become confident writers and readers (and questioners) of their own work. I think it will be important to have conferences with my students as frequently as I can about their writing pieces. It is imperative in the pre-writing processes of their work so they can learn what it is they need to develop or rework. I have learned that a written piece doesn't really have to be "completed". You can always add on it to develop it into a well established-piece of work!

By reading Tompkins other peers' blogs within my 618 class, I took a deeper understanding about the importance of using rubrics and the benefits of utilizing them for student work. Not only can students self-assess their own work, but teachers are able to have a more reliable and consistent evaluation process (Tompkins, 2012). Alexis made an excellent point that teachers can teach children and address them about how to use feedback as a tool for improvement in their writing. Perhaps students can use better judgment of their writing without becoming too frustrated with feedback when teachers better prepare them after writing their initial pieces.