On September 25th lecture five commenced under
the topic "Teaching the genres- descriptive writing". The focus of
the lesson was descriptive writing and its implications for both student
teachers and students alike. The lecture began with the lecturer reading
two different pieces of descriptive writing. This set the tone of the lecture,
as it provided a clear example of what the required elements are of a
descriptive piece. To further reiterate the elements, a list of sensory
descriptive words was presented. Miss. Butler, our lecturer, further
highlighted that within descriptive writing , adverbs are also incorporated to
enhance the description of your writing.
Therefore, to ensure that we understood the contrast between adverbs and
adjectives, two sentences were written on the board of which we were instructed
to point out the adjectives and adverbs. Thus, the opportunity arose to
clarify misconceptions on the aforementioned.
During the lecture few students spoke about
their experiences with children and their inability to transfer their thoughts
and ideas onto paper. Thus, we concluded that a graphic organizer can be used
to help students organize their thoughts on a specific topic. The six traits of
writing stood out to us the most as they reminded us of the steps of the
writing process. The traits gave us a stern reminder that it is important to teach
writing to students. It also further emphasized that writing is indeed a
process and must be taught continuously with guidance and modelling. Therefore,
it is important that we as trainee teachers make the effort to learn the six
traits of writing. In the lesson we were also exposed to a spelling strategy
which was taught through the use of modelling. We found the strategy to be very
effective as it promotes the memorization of unfamiliar words. Therefore,
spelling should be taught instead of students independently learning the words
on their own. With regards to descriptive writing, we were provided with various
techniques which will act as a stimulus to assist in the creation of ideas. For
instance, students can be taken outside the classroom to make observations, and
from those observations create a descriptive piece.
To
conclude, the lecture provided us with a clear understanding of what is
required when writing a descriptive piece. We enjoyed the fruitful discussion
and the lecturer’s patience in answering all of our questions. The modelling of
various aspects of the lesson was also commendable and reminded us to always
model when teaching students. Our only
suggestion to improve the delivery of the lecture would be to provide samples
of descriptive writing, which students can use to identify the writing traits,
format and word choice.
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