Entry 7: The Letter Writing Genre

 
I found a great mentor text "Dear Peter Rabbit" during the letter genre presentation. Every letter within the book represents a different point of view of 2 upcoming events between characters of popular fairytales (Goldilock's Birthday party & Housewarming Parties for the 3 little pigs). Each letter was written in a friendly letter format. I loved this mentor text because it made connections with popular characters from fairy tales in a new way. I could picture and hear each character as I read their letters and as the plot developed. The letter genre presentation, exploration of mentor texts and the personal writing chapter in Tompkins (2012) helped me understand the genre and think about what I would do with my future students. 

I currently work with special education students in a 6:1:1 setting. The digital letter generator resource is definitely something I plan to use in my own classroom. As the letter group highlighted, technology (specifically email) makes it seem that writing a traditional letter will become obsolete. This letter generator proves that technology can be used to help students to learn how to format and write a traditional letter. Students have to select what kind of letter they would like to generate (business or friendly) then the generator walks them through the steps of the letter writing process. Formatting letters is often the hardest thing for students to learn and even more difficult when it comes to word processing their work. Sometimes the formatting process can be a nightmare! Giving students a tool that helps them with formatting and forces them to include all the necessary parts of a letter is incredibly helpful for struggling learners!

I have used the letter genre in my teaching before many moons ago during my student teaching. I started my student teaching journey right here in Rochester at the Victor Primary School. My second placement was in Kumasi, Ghana. I wanted to create a connection between both of my experiences and both sets of students. I had my 3rd grade students write pen pal letters to the Ghanaian students I hadn't met yet. My 3rd graders introduced themselves, wrote about their lives and even included pictures of themselves doing the things they loved. I made dozens of copies of each letter before I left for Ghana just in case I had more than 20 Ghanaian kiddos in my class. I am so glad I did! I had a total of 240 second grade students when I taught at KNUST Basic School in Kumasi. My Ghanaian students each wrote a letter back to my students at Victor Primary. I brought back tons of letters back to Victor for my first kiddos to enjoy! Here's a photo of my kiddos in Ghana writing their responses to their pen pals right here at home! 

Entry 6: Dear Dr. Jones

 Dear Dr. Jones,

I am really enjoying this class so far! I taught ELA during my first few years of teaching and boy do I wish I had this class before I did (this year I am teaching Social Studies and Science due to low numbers of 6th graders in our program). I have enjoyed reading Tompkins (2012). I think it's an easy text to engage with and find myself relating my own experiences as a K-12 learner to the material. I find myself relating to the text in my years in the teacher role as well. I took a Writer's Workshop PD through BOCES quite a few years ago and I didn't realize how much I learned! Tompkins (2012) supports a lot of what I already know about writing but has provided me with a solid framework to reflect upon. I have really liked the genre expert projects so far. I think having student led presentations is a powerful method that encourages learning. We are all teachers and it plays to our strengths. It's been nice having a writing group as well. We have been meeting before class weekly and that has really helped ease my anxiety. 

This school year has been a tough one. I was injured by a student back in October and was out of school for close to a month with a knee injury. I have also been down staff since my classroom para walked out in September. I teach at the Bird/Morgan school where we support students with intense behavioral/emotional disabilities. The amount of violence this year has been absolutely earth shattering for me as a teacher. I am struggling to get through a lesson without calling our support team to help break up physical fights. I have known that I needed to find a different teaching position for quite some time. When I started brainstorming/drafting for my genre pieces project, I really realized that its my time to go. Teacher burnout is real in special education but the amount that I'm feeling is not healthy for me or the students in my class. Exploring my feelings through the writing process helped me realize that. Although it's not a primary learning objective for this class, this class has taught me to choose me and to choose joy. After my realization last week, I have applied to 3 different teaching positions and I have connected with all 3 districts. My first screening interview is actually today after school. Restarting my genre pieces project and focusing on something that makes me happy has made a big difference. I'm excited to see how it develops as I move through the writing process. Thank you so much for encouraging me to change my topic to teaching in Ghana.

This class is not what I expected in terms of how it is set up. I have struggled greatly with the flexibility and independence. This semester I have learned that the amount of structure I need increases especially when I am struggling. At the point in the class, I just need to create structure for myself so I can catch up. I think my own personal struggles as a teacher got in the way of my own organization and my own happiness as I started my journey here at Naz. 

I'm looking forward to turning it around in the next few weeks and showing you who I really am! Thank you for everything you've done for me thus far. Working through the prewriting/drafting phase for my first go at the genre pieces project (teacher burnout) changed my life. It made me realize how much I was struggling in my current teaching role. I'm on the road of change and I have a bounce in my step for the first time in years.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! 

Best,

Ashley Olin