Alyssa Dekany

PDG Reflection Paper

4/7/11

“Talking, Drawing, Writing: Lessons for Our Youngest Writers”

“Talking, Drawing, Writing” is a book written by two teachers who give the

reader advice on how to teach lessons. Each chapter in the text also gives the reader

many completed lessons, including dialogue for the lesson, which I found to be very

helpful. I learned many new things in this textbook, and I also read about many

different things that we have discussed in class.

This text explains that it’s important for children to tell their stories. And, for

young children, telling stories comes in the form of drawing. Drawing pictures is the

first step on a child’s way to writing. When drawing a story, the students think

about what they want the story to be about, and then portray their story on the

paper through their drawings. The author states that her goal is “to help children

see how to go from the picture in their mind to the picture on the paper. [She] also

wants them to see that it is important to represent the story on paper as it is in their

memory” (31).

I learned in this book that young children, such as kindergarteners should be

given a Drawing and Writing Book, which is a book where the students can write

their own stories and draw their own pictures. The book and the materials the

children use to write in the book should be high quality. The children are just

learning to write, and by using nice tools, they are more excited to do the task.

One lesson in the book that I enjoyed was the lesson on how to draw

people. As a soon to be teacher, I would not say that I have the best drawing skills
and it would be difficult for me to teach someone how to draw. But, there are

numerous lessons in this text the teach how to teach drawing. There is a lesson on

bodies, faces, clothing, etc. Because of these lessons, I feel as though I can

adequately teach how to draw people now.

Later in the text, there is a transition from drawing to writing words. By

having words on posters and on the walls of the classroom, students are familiar

with letters. Teachers “may write text and/or label a mural in the classroom, title a

bulletin board, write letters or thanks-you notes or list guidelines about how they

will work in the classroom. Through this direct instruction, and by participating in

the act of writing according to the convention of the language, children become

more and more familiar with how letters and sounds work” (97). This shows that

posters have more importance than just decoration. By hanging meaningful items

around the classroom, teachers are helping students learn, and it’s gives them a

reference to look at while they do their own writing.

Like we discussed in class, the book lists different types of assessment

to use to help keep track of student’s writing ability. There are numerous examples

of Running Records and Small Group Writing Records. It is important that teachers

know how to use these different assessment tools. Using these tools help the

teacher distinguish between the more advanced and the less advanced writing in

the class. Keeping these records helps the teacher know which students need help

and in what areas the help is needed. By having it written down, it is easy to refer to

and makes the process and teaching how to write much easier.
 Chapter 7 includes a lesson plan on Writing Folders. Writing Folders

are used by my cooperative teacher in the same ways that they are discussed in the

book, and I found that interesting. Because there are different things in this book

that I have seen being taught, it shows me that teachers have used the different

ideas in these types of books and they actually are successful teaching strategies.

The textbook has pictures of actual worksheet that teachers can give students to

write on. These different activities in the book have given me many ideas of

different things that I could do in the classroom one day as well.

The text concludes with many different lessons on different aspects of

writing stories, such as how to include quotes, how to end stories, etc. There are

probably ten lessons in chapter 8 alone. “It is not our intention to provide teachers

with all the possible mini-lessons we can think of, but rather to offer a look at why

and how we addressed certain topics with the children we were working with at a

particular point” (176). The texts also states that by giving numerous examples in

lessons and revisiting the same topics numerous days in a row, students get a firm

grasp on the lesson being taught, and this helps them to be better writers.

I picked to read this textbook because I want to teach young children.

Reading and writing are some of the most important things that children are ever

taught, and I want to make sure that I do the best possible job at teaching this to

them as possible. “Talking, Drawing, and Writing” as showed me how to teach

drawing and writing in the best and more successful ways. Because of all of the

lesson plans and examples given in this book, I now feel comfortable teaching these
different elements. I would recommend this book to every single member of our

class and also to anyone who would like to be teacher one day.