Reflection # 5

 

            Like a renowned pianist playing Moonlight Sonata, I bowed my head while slowly lifting my hands to gently and meticulously transition my fingers from one key to the next to play a slow crawling classic into my word processing machine.  I moved in this manner to curate with diligence a rememberable tranquil classical script that should unravel valuable tangled vines of reflections that rapidly grew from a two-fold rich fertilizer composed of word choice and descriptive writing.  As swift as this nourishment was shared an instant growth of knowledge, relations and goals travelled through the roots and veins of my vines making me grow longer, stronger and wiser.  I could not help but wonder at the tip of each young shoot a few questions.  These questions surrounded how I could share this organic matter of word choice and descriptive writing to nurture carefully the fertile brains of my students’ colourful everblooming gardens.  I wondered: ‘Am I taking too much information? Could I implement it all?  Will it be too much? How and when can I incorporate the writing mini lessons? Is this wishful thinking that I can teach this? How could I strategically deliver and receive results from this rich fertilizer without strangling, overdosing and causing the flowers in the garden of the students’ mind to wilt?’  In fact, after going through the rich elements of the fertilized trait of word choice, hence, now knowing what I could expose the students to, I felt like I had covered the elements of descriptive writing.  As such, I had to feed my vines with purified water to keep them upright to receive another strong dose of fertilized information on descriptive writing.  Now with enriched notes on word choice and descriptive writing what follows are selective and arranged verses of notes of my classical piece.

In this first verse, it plays melodies of knowledge devised from the trait of word choice that was later aligned with the genre of descriptive writing.  As a former student, in my high school years, I’ve
had my instructors write, “wc” in a red circle next to words in my composition.  I thought that it simply meant that my words did not fit the context.  However, today I better understand it to be more than that.  I now know that my choice of words should purposefully and thoughtfully be effective words and phrases to convey the right meaning, consider my audience, dress to suit the occasion and feature sensory language.  As this verse continued, I remember I should include a clear synopsis from the V.I.P. C.O.W.S. on word choice. It harmonises a variety of tenors singing: use the right words in writing to create a vivid, colourful and clear communication of what should be relayed; captivate the reader from the beginning to the end, show action, describe, go beyond my spelling ability and appeal to my readers’ senses.  Therefore, I also had to include in this stanza the key strategies to do all this which involve replacing weak, dull and limited words with stronger words and being specific and precise with choice of words.  With this new knowledge, I intend to make a meaningful difference in any descriptive writing I am tasked to do. 

In the voice of a proud coloratura soprano the classic continues with impressing relations connecting with the current instructions in my classroom.  The fact that I am encouraging my students to use the dictionary and read the newspaper, I was happy to receive knowledge on “environment print.”  That was a new phrase to me.  Nonetheless, the school where I teach recently set up a small library that has an area for local news.  As such, I thought, why not have my students practice extracting unknown words from the newspapers to look-up and practice using them correctly in sentences.  Simultaneously, they will learn about what is happening in their nation.  On a different yet steady pitch, I am also recording how thrilled I felt to see some of the graphic organisers that I use like the sensory chart shown as figure 1 below. They were encouraged to be used as a tool to organise descriptive writing.

Figure 1: Sensory Chart

Moreover, when mention was made of using a describing wheel graphic organiser similar to the sample in figure 2, I premeditated that my students can use same with my adverb wheels.   

Figure 2. Describing Wheel

The idea of using both wheels should really put a spin on their writing, especially those who struggle with loss of words or poor vocabulary.  Another satisfactory relation was the popcorn graphic organiser.  The fact that I had my students once choose to eat and write about a snack I also thought, why not provide students with a snack and design a graphic organiser that is similar, that is, having the shape of a snack they will use or later eat.  Hence, incorporating and using as a guide the popcorn graphic organiser shown figure 3.  

Figure 3. Popcorn Graphic Organiser

With quick short high-pitched notes, I record some tuneful goals to achieve in the potential and fertile gardens of my students’ brain.  I learned of a word wall constructed on the different writing genres and loved the idea.  This would be very resourceful for my students.  For example, when I am teaching descriptive, I could include adjectives, adverbs, sensory words and so much more on the wall. I thought that these could be words they would share along with words from me.   Likewise, when teaching narrative, I could include terms related to character traits and feelings, etcetera. This will definitely be a crafty mode to construct a strong vocabulary wall for my students’ vocabulary garden. Lastly, with descriptive writing, I want to hone the skill of students being able to paint words in their readers’ mind in an effort to engage their readers and leave a lasting impression in their mind.  Although, these goals are high-pitched, I am confident they are not too high to reach and achieve.   

Following the interlude and making my way to the final verse of my classic, I advise myself regarding what would be the whole point of this training or transfer of information if it is impossible to implement it.  I should not chop down the fervent vines that are growing and bury the faith and trust I had when I started.  Instead, I have to keep working on polishing my skills as teacher and from the advice of my instructor - take the exposure to strategies of writing and the modules of information to become a better teacher of writing.  This way my students will continue to bloom in every season. Furthermore, having learned about the term ‘metacognitive,’ I now hope that I can develop my students as much as possible with as many metacognitive strategies of word choice and descriptive writing as I have learned in this lesson.  At the same time, I will do so in accordance with the words of Albert Einstein, “when you teach me, teach me one thing at a time.” In a c-minor finished cadence, I conclude.