Looking back on the different classrooms that I have been in, I would have to say that there really hasn't been a whole lot of writing. Yes, writing was present in the classrooms, but not as much as I remember doing when I was in school. Being only a substitute teacher and a student teacher, I wasn't able to change the way the teacher ran her lessons when it came to writing. However, the little bit of writing that I was able to do with the children was successful, in my opinion.
In one of my student teaching placements, I had the opportunity to work in the reading room with a small group of children who were struggling with their reading and writing. There were four adults in the room so we were all able to take a group of kids and work more closely with them. Before breaking into groups, the whole group was given a general topic and from there they were able to choose what they wanted to write about. The class then broke into their groups with their assigned teachers and started writing independently. Within my group I would go around and see how each child was doing and helped them with ideas or word choice. I feel that working in the small groups with the teachers right there to help you with whatever questions you may have was very helpful for those students and really helped them feel more comfortable when it came to writing. When they were finished composing their piece, they were able to share it with the rest of their peers by sitting in the authors chair that we had for them at the front of the room. For some pieces, we would have the students type them up on the computer so that they would then be able to see their work printed on paper. We Dodoma's do this with every paper because it was very time consuming with the group of kids that we had.
When I get my own classroom someday I know that I am most likely not going to have as many people as I had in that classroom working with me, but I plan on using the small group method for writing. I feel like it is not only useful for the child with helping them feel more comfortable with writing, but it also allows the teacher to push them in the right direction if they see that they are spinning off track.
