Okay ladies, the time has come to reflect. We as a class are finished with our book discussion for now, feel free to read through past chapter 10 on your own time. I hope that you will pick this book up again, I know it has been helpful to me in my teaching of writing.
Please browse through what we have read, and list at least 5 valuable things you have learned, can apply or will apply to your classroom, or an ah-ha moment. 
The 5 valuable things that I have learned from this book are:
1. The effective use of the word “and
2. How to listen like a writer
3. How to identify different types of text
4. Texts that show students writing potentials
5. The best way to conduct a “ways-with-words” conferences. (These are the conferences that teach students how to match the meanings inside thier text with specific crafting techniques that will bring their writing to life.)
I think this book is a great writing resource for all age groups, and I’m sure I’ll continue to use it in the future. That being said, here are the five most important things I learned while reading:
1) Continuously build your library and share it with your students. It will become a valuable resource that you will use year after year.
2) Model your love of writing for students-more than likely this will inspire them to love it as well.
3) Explore different texts and various authors and writing styles. This will help you to “think” like a writer.
4) Writing is a distinct craft. It is a skill that should be continually developed, explored, and appreciated.
5) Never underestimate the effect of strong word usage in a piece of writing. It can be the defining factor of what makes the piece memorable.
1.Contiune to build your library
2.Listening and reading like a writer
3.Model good writing skills, your feelings about writing.
4.It is never too early to encourage children to write and to love to write even if you have to do the writing for them in the beginning
5.Have several differenet models of writings for children to look at.
5 Valuable Things I Have Learned:
1. Writing is individual and not unique. This realization was my favorite because it was like a weight lifted from my shoulders letting me know that I can write too. Hopefully I can pass it on to my students.
2. We can learn to write from other writers by studying their craft. This was valuable because I no longer feel like I am copying. Instead I am learning.
3. Experienced writers develop their writing project before it is drafted. Currently this is most valuable to me as I am developing a writing project of my own. This experience should help me when I am guiding my own students with their projects.
4. I need to build my library so that my students will be exposed to many different types of writing, word use and structure. All too often students know only one way to structure their writing.
5. Experienced writers have good reasons to write. They have passion or intrigue for a topic, they have an audience or an occasion, they have a purpose to fulfill, or they have an intention to write in a certain genre.
Five Things I’ve learned include:
1. Allow published authors to help you teach your students how to write. Whew, that takes a load off my back and the responsibility I feel for trying to “cover it all”.
2. Writing is individual, not unique. This helps me feel more comfortable when a student’s work looks a lot like the example they just saw. I still wonder if it’s due to laziness that they don’t explore other options for their own work.
3. Actually teaching students to see the craft in a text. I see these things, but I suppose it never occured to me to try to teach others how to do that too. It’s like letting them in on a secret that opens a whole world of communication to them.
4. “Envisioning” is an essential step in the writing process. I don’t know how many times I’ve had students dead end with their work because they have no vision of what to do with it – what potential it has to become something bigger.
5. Honor the sound, as well as the absence of sound, in what you read. Again, I know this and I model it in my read alouds, but sometimes you just have to make a student stop and reread something in such a way that they honor the sound and silence that the author meant to be there.
I agreed with most of what everyone else posted already. I tried to come up with a few different ones too. There were certainly more things that I learned and enjoyed from Katie Wood Ray’s Wondrous Words. I will certainly keep it as a resource, especially as I seek to transform my English class into some semblance of a writing workshop for next year.
Thank you to all who have posted so far, I learn so much from you. I like what Candice said about transforming her class into some semblance of a writing workshop NEXT year. I know I must keep this as a reminder that I can’t apply all that I learn right away, baby steps! Does anyone else feel like they have to do everything at once in order to be successful?
1. I think the most important thing I have learned is to READ like a WRITER!! I have found some interesting things by doing this. *My students have as well*
2. Use books to being a writing piece and look for “ways with words.”
3. Differentiating between writing as unique and writing as individual.
4. Teaching my students how to implement “writer’s craft” in their works.
5. Keep building my library and literature collection!
1. A writer’s craft. You should seperate what it is about from how it is written. Your writing is your own- unlike any other.
2. A teacher should model good writing and show the correct steps in writing.
3. A library should be filled with different types of writings and always updated.
4. Read and think like a writer.
5. Allowing others into your classroom to help your students become better writers. Allowing your students to view multiple ways of achieveing writing.
I liked this book, it had a lot of great useful ideas.
The top 5 things that i learned that I can use in my classroom are:
1. Continue to build my classroom library.
2. Use books as examples of good writing and use htem as a guide for future writings. Use the author’s style to make your own writing.
3. Read and think like a writer.
4. Model, model, model!
5. Teaching kids not to be afraid of writing, that it is a craft and they need to learn to love to write!