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.