Bad behavior today! and guess what we were doing? Writing, of course. The bad behavior comes out when they are given an "opportunity" to write something more than a couple of lines. So interesting. They were asked to write about a vacation. Well, low-income students are likely to not have experienced a vacation. Several wrote about a class trip or a trip to the closest amusement park. Even that is something. Perhaps not the best topic. The students' writing ability is very diverse. Some can write but not spell; some can spell but not write. Some will sit down and write something and you know they can speak better than that; well, they can all speak better than they write, but it's interesting that some don't write in complete sentences. The grammar is supposed to address that, of course, but the tie-in is most difficult.
We need to address behavior better. We'll see if the two detentions given out today do something for the class. Not sure about that. I suggested spreading them out more. Even with all the assistance they have, all the adults in the room, some of them just plain couldn't get started with their writing. Most of them will do it if you sit down with them on-on-one. I'm starting to really see the incredible value of writing, but it's quite tough to teach, even if spelling isn't an issue.
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