Overall.

Overall, the Teaching Language and Composition course went pretty well. I think we read some great books, my favorite being Harry Noden's "Image Grammar" and Stephen Koch's "Writer's Workshop," and learned some worthwhile things about teaching writing to our future students. Lucky for me, I actually got to teach my two week unit on writing personal narratives and have gotten a lot of ideas for future lessons like that.

I think everyone brought a lot to the table as far as group activities are concerned. There were some creative ideas and I plan on incorporating some of them eventually!

The big writing piece project we had for the class was tough for me due to time limitations and such, but I think it is a valuable project to get us thinking about the writing process, creativity, structure, and the whole nine yards of writing. I find that our course has a been a great example of how writing workshop works and worthwhile to students. However, I'd like to find a couple of different ways for students to read each story. Some students do not own a computer or will not take the reading seriously, so maybe something like every Friday after the writing pieces are complete, they have to do a reading rotation around the room and read silently as well as answer questions on a worksheet. I'd really have to plan it out to make it work though! I just don't find activities such as a student reading their story to the class aloud is effective.

The only book I didn't enjoy very much was our "Making Comics" book. Personally, I hate comics and graphic novels and I am not an artist, but the author, Scott McCloud gives a great 411 about making comics to his readers. I think it would be valuable to give students an opportunity to use graphic novels and comics in the classroom due to the fact that some readers struggle to create an image in their head...

McCloud describes things clearly in an entertaining way, but I just struggle to enjoy reading this type of formatted book.

Below is a short video clip of how to create a novel that "sells!" created by novelist Andrea Rains Waggener. It is simple and Waggener uses her novel as an example to explain the steps of writing. It's pretty creative and well thought out.