Courtney Wenstrom

ELD 307: PDG Reflection

Dr. McKool
April 6, 2011

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

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

the authors give a lot of insight about things that students going into the teaching

profession would not think of. I know myself that I do not think of drawing as

expression before words, or storytelling to be a way to show the teacher what a

child has comprehended through day-to-day events in their lives. It allows the

reader to see each aspect of a child’s life, and how it accompanies the career of

teaching in multiple ways.

One thing that stuck out to me what the chapter on storytelling, which

happens to be the very first chapter. It goes through how storytelling is not only a

very important thing for the children to do, because it serves as the basis of the pre-

reading and writing years, but it also is very important for the teacher to tell stories

to their students. It allows the students and teachers to connect on a different level,

and the kids are able to relate to their teacher a little bit easier. For example, a

teacher named Marina tells a story to her students about playing in the rain when

she was a kid. With this story being told, she not only gained understanding from

her students, but it created a great enthusiasm in the room. They all began to tell

stories of things they know that happened in the past, or stories of how things

happen. This is where the connection is made in the classroom, and where

storytelling becomes very important.

 Another aspect of the book that stuck out to me was how the authors used

interesting lesson plans that I would have never thought of to teach their students

things they would need for life. In one part of the book, during the chapter about the

“Craft of Drawing,” the teacher was able to connect a story that they were reading in

class to the art of drawing people. Because children tend to draw people in stick

form, the teacher’s main goal was to implement the oval and circle shapes for the

different parts of the body. By using a story they know, and showing them how the

illustrator was able to capture an accurate image of a human, they are able to almost

copy it and learn a lesson that they can use for life. It is very interesting to see how

such a simple task of drawing humans can turn into such an extensive lesson, and a

very important one at that.

Lastly, I learned from this book that analyzing a child’s writing is a critical

aspect of teaching. In earlier days, teachers primarily did not take writing samples

from their students, so they were not able to have a basis to go off of, when it came

to eventually teaching the kids any writing skills. By following the ideas of the book,

you should collectively through the year use students’ writing for many reasons: as

a guide for teaching, to look deeper into the thinking of each child, and we will then

be able to see what different elements of vocabulary mean to children of that

specific age. It was really intriguing to actually see how much writing means to a

teacher, and how many different ways it affects the classroom as a whole.

Overall, the book I chose to read was a good choice. It did a great job in

bringing about new ideas that I would not even think of, and it gave great lessons in

helping to do so. It shows the reader the in-depth ideas and reasons for bigger
topics, and shows future teachers how every aspect of learning matters in the long

run. Between writing, storytelling, or drawing, every little bit matters in the minds

of children.