Coby's Reflection to Graves Chapter 4 and 5

In the fourth and fifth chapters of his book, Writing: Teachers and Children At Work, Donald Graves talks about organizing one’s classroom and writing with one’s students. Graves recalls the story of a new teacher named Mr. Bangs who restructured his classroom from one that depended on him for everything to one that was almost independent of him. This allowed Mr. Bangs time to give private or small group conferences to his students. Mr. Bangs stressed independence and responsibility in this system; however, it is mentioned that for one to make this system work he or she will have to apply it in every subject matter and not just writing. Graves also brings up the fact that most adults have seldom seen people write, which means that most children probably have never seen someone write. By writing in class with the children on normal sized paper, a giant piece of paper, or an overhead projector a teacher can show his or her children an example of how to write. Furthermore they can go over all of the steps of a writing workshop in this way.

I really enjoyed the ideas that Graves shared in these two chapters. I like the idea of an independent classroom that does not rely on a teacher to play referee but instead gives the teacher the freedom to teach in small groups. I will have to commit Graves and Bang’s strategies to memory so that I may use them in the future. When Graves said that adults have not seen many people write and children have seen next to no one I realized that it is not fair to ask children to do something that they have never seen done before. That’s almost like giving them clay, showing them a sculpture, and telling them to recreate it. This could be a reason why I was so lost in grade school language arts and why I started to dislike it so much. I will keep in mind that whenever I do a lesson on writing I must also show the children an example of a person going through the writing process while thinking out loud. These ideas and revelations are wonderful and I hope that I will be able to put them to good use in the future.