REFLECTING ON THE MEMORANDUM

Although the memorandum assignment took a lot of time, i feel it was very valuable to learn about what a memorandum is and how to write one. Learning how to write a memorandum can be very helpful in my future profession as a teacher. The topic of literacy and standardized scores was very believable and could definitely be a real situation i may come across in my future. All the readings for the memorandum were very helpful for research in how i may want to teach writing to my future classes. The readings gave me many ideas and ways to help me be a better teacher in the area of writing and reading. I tried to show through my memorandum what i found to be important to teaching through the readings. I feel that the 5 recommendations i stated in my memo were the main points that kept being reiterated through the readings. The hardest part of the memorandum for me were the introduction and the closing. These were the most difficult because i had to explain the fake problem to my fake principal i tried to be as precise, formal and creative as i could be. The closing was tough because i found it hard to restate what i said throughout the whole memorandum without saying it the same way. The most simple part of the memorandum was the body, or the recommendations. This was the easiest for me because of all the research i read made it possible for me to choose the recommendations and back them up with evidence from the readings. Overall, i feel this assignment was very useful to me and i am glad i learned how to write a memorandum.

The Importance of Correctness

The importance of correctness allows readers to focus on what the writer has written and not be distracted by other things. Perfect grammar and spelling are not the main concern in writing,but they are very important to making it easier for the audience to read the written piece of work. There are many common mistakes that writers make that seem to almost be universal. The way to correct these mistakes and move past them in your writing is to learn more about them and practice the use of them more. There are tons of words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings that get mixed up in many peoples written works. An example of these are some that i have problems with like affect and effect as well as conscience and conscious. The way to get past these errors are to understand the different meanings of the two words and then remember how they are spelled differently. The more you practice your mistakes the better you will be a correcting them. The importance to learn how to correct your mistakes is so that when people read your work they are more focused on the content and not the distractions.

My Thoughts on Teaching of Writing

Throughout the articles that i have been reading for Wiki about the teaching of writing, many thoughts about teaching have been generating in my head. One of my main concerns that i have been thinking about is how am i gong to stand out as a good teacher and make my students interested in writing and learning? Through the articles i have learned that there are many concepts to make me a better teacher in this area, and that much of the stress i feel is necessary. In one of the articles i read it says that it doesn't matter what methods you are using, it all relies on the teacher to push the students to be the best they can be. Ways to push them are to make it interesting to them. Allow them to choose topics to write about and give them inventive ways to express themselves that follow the times so the themes are parallel and realtive to the students lives. Allowing them to use knowledge that they had previous to my class from the outside world (ie the media), is key to getting their interest and making them feel comfortable to extend their boundaries of writing. I have to choose my criticism wisely so it does not make them lose their ability to take risks in writing, but still give them good feedback so they learn how to correct themselves. I have realized through these articles that having an audience is key, and letting the students know who that audience is so they can write accordingly. There ae many things i have to consider in teaching writing and i hope i exceed my own standards.