Reaching Your Target Audience

As all of us in the class have started to write our lesson plans I think it's important to remember who are target audience is. So to help all of you I have decided to share my tips on how to reach your target audience. The following are tips I have thought of when writing my lesson plan.
1. Make sure what you're showing the students helps solve a problem- don't teach them what they already know, find a subject that isn't too easy nor too hard so they can learn how to apply the lesson themselves to their own writing.
2. Keep it interesting- DO NOT babble on and on about one grammatical mark! Keep the lesson moving at a good pace and keep it fun!
3. Make sure the content is useful for their grade level- let's be honest if you're teaching them something very advanced chances are they won't need it, content should be appropriate for their skill and age level.
4. Be prepared- if you base your lesson plan around the idea that students don't know how to use quotation marks and they all seem to have a pretty good grasp on them have extra material to teach!
5. Use your resources!-we're setup into pairs, utilize this when setting up your lesson plan partners lessons should go together and create a larger picture.
Hopefully this advice helps you create or edit your lesson plan! I thought this would be helpful because I personally haven't spent much time in the classroom and because we learn so many concepts sometimes simply writing out what you're doing can help put things into perspective. I hope this list helps!  

Blog Post #4

Context, Context, Context…..

            After reading “Breakfast, Bumper Stickers and Beyond” I think the biggest theme is context. Who are you writing for? The article mentioned over and over the different audiences associated with different cereal brands and how those businesses use different language to appeal to those audiences. You may be saying “Yea I get it children cereal appeals to children….what else?” but there is so much more that can be learned here!

Understanding the basic idea that companies appeal to different audiences using different language leads to a whole new understanding of writing. Students in class should do exercises that cater to very specific audiences because it makes the writers more cognizant of who they’re writing to for “regular” school papers. I don’t know about you, but when I was in high school everything we wrote was very formal and we knew the audience was the teacher. This was no fun! Writing should be treated as an active dialogue between the writer and audience. Obviously when someone reads something they aren’t speaking to the writer directly but it’s the writers job to speak directly to the reader! This means that if the writer knows the audience well enough they’re writing will come off as more connected and capture the reader. Going back to how companies ingeniously use language to capture the audience can be directly used on students at young grade levels. Teaching students how to find a voice that will speak directly to the target audience will help their writing in dividends. So remember, context is very important for young writers to find their “voice” and I think every teacher should incorporate short writing exercises that cater to specific audiences to work on these skills.

Red Pencil Blues :(

Blog Post #3

In this blog post I would like to discuss the Red Pencil Blues by Tchudi, mainly because this is something I can relate to very much from my time in secondary school. The gist of the article for me was to try and breakout from the typical writing process in school. This usually consists of the teacher assigning a paper with a due date, students turning the paper in, and finally receiving a grade. This was basically my experience through almost all of high school, which made me take great solace in reading this section of Tchudi. Learning all the alternatives that make the writing process not only better but also more efficient was very informative. One of the handbooks guidelines to teach the writing process as a process in meaning rather than an exercise in learning to write made a lot of sense to me. I took this as trying to make the paper convey a message successfully is most important aspect of the writing. Instead of just judging a paper immediately on form and flow, rather look to see if the paper fulfills its purpose. The handbook also talked about teacher exhaustion towards assigning a lot of writing assignments from the shear fact of the time it takes to grade them. Instead the writing process should be interactive amongst peers and teachers, rather than the conventional method I pointed out above. Peer editing, displaying anonymously student papers on the board, as well as conferences during class are all ways I learned to remedy long hours grading that is probably ineffective anyway. I also enjoyed the standard put on the students who start by saying “this paper didn’t really come out the way I planned” and outlawing this. Nobody should ever start anything in the classroom with a self-defeatist attitude; it’s a learning environment. Tchudi also brought up how the peer groups benefit students learning English as a second language. These groups are a good exercise because they’ll be immersed in the language and with encouragement hopefully improve their writing. Finally, I liked the last section about grading. Students should know how to score and impress the reader, how can you appease the audience if you don’t know what they’re looking for? This is has been an issue in many of my classes in high school and the story in the beginning is all too familiar. When a student doesn’t know how to do well in a class you rob them of their motivation to improve and this to me is one of the worst realities of many teachers I have come across. So in closing, I ask the question has anyone else had my experience in high school with vague grading requirements? Comment below!  

I am a big fan of The Gladiator, and the message speaks to the student who doesn't know how to do well on papers from vague grading requirements. Tyranny pure tyranny haha.

Blog Post #2

            For this post I would like to spark a discussion on the writing process. This topic coincided with the Romano reading as well as the article from Tchudi and Tchudi. I think that as an aspiring English teacher studying the writing process is very important. Thinking about how others write papers and what makes us write the way we do are both things I have pondered. As mentioned in the Romano posting, all writers are different and he compares this difference to chefs cooking. The different styles, ingredients and cooking methods all have an effect on the final product, which can be directly related back to writing processes. The idea I focused on most was of how and why I write the way I do, which the answer I have devised is not as clear-cut as I had hoped. I think writing embodies every aspect of our lives when we our developing our skills. I mention developing skills because it’s my belief, from my own experience, that once we find our own way to write we don’t deviate very much from that path. Of course someone can change their ways at any time but for one its not likely, and two they’re probably only minor changes. These are only my observations however so I ask anyone reading this to give me your opinions in the comments section below. So I believe our writing skill embodies every aspect of our lives because so many factors play into ones writing. How was the information or assignment presented to the students, where did the student write the assignment, did the students receive any other installments to the project (outlines, rough drafts etc.), which are all factors to take into account when thinking about the writing process. I think that you could list contributing factors to the way someone writes for days, but what’s really important is the final result and as teachers making sure every student has resources available to be successful. In closing I think that the writing process doesn’t matter as long as good work is consistent and strong. When I’m in doubt I always try and remember that there is no “one” perfect way because if there were, everyone would do it that way. So follow what works for you and run with it.-Joe Vitello

Blog Post #1

Joe Vitello

Blog Post 1

I am writing this blog post in relation to the reading on “Real World Writing” by Wiggins, and give a personal background of myself. The article from Grant Wiggins was full of useful information about writing and more importantly how to invoke great writing from students. I found that learning how to conjure up great writing from students takes more than just general instructions. To help our students become great writers we must take an approach that I would never have imagined; a backwards approach. The main purpose to this idea is to make students realize whom they’re writing for and try to impact the target audience. He gives an example of one class he observed where the teacher assigned presentations and gave two grades either an “A” or an “F”, in which he saw some of the best work he’s seen at any grade level. As educators we must look to inspire our students beyond the impetus of a good grade, although sometimes that route is most effective, we must be the innovators to spark great work. Wiggins also says that under the current system most rubrics at the high school level are very “safe,” meaning that they aim for work that is compliant and mostly falls in line with the teacher’s rubric. Wiggins discourages this because it leads mostly to perfunctory work where the only goal is to satisfy the guidelines. This sacrifices any creativity and is very boring. I can agree with this scenario because not too long ago when I was in high school I was expected to write the same way. I loved this article because it takes away the mathematical; boring approach mostly associated with writing papers and gives a fresh look on how to inspire students. After reading this article I decided to look up material similar to it and I chose to share a few quotes with you. I like quotes because generally they are concise but require deep thought to fully understand and apply, so I hope you take a peek and enjoy! (http://www.writersdigest.com/writing-quotes)Now I would like to give a more detailed background on myself so everyone can get to know me a little better. My name is Joe Vitello I have lived in southeast Michigan my entire life and I am 100% Italian (no I wasn’t born it Italy I get that a lot). I made my decision to become a teacher in high school. You might ask why I chose to become a teacher and take this journey? I chose to become a teacher after my school’s English class went to inner city Detroit to help a young group of children with their English assignment. It was in a ran-down Detroit middle school that I made my decision; I wanted to become a teacher. It was very rewarding to see the positive effect I could have on the students there and needless to say the idea was born that took me here to WMU’s ED program. Thank you and I hope you enjoyed my first post!-Joe Vitello