Formal and Creative Writing

Formal writing can be in the form of an essay, summary, KWL writing, a book review, a professional correspondence, or a resume. A summary can be broken down into the GRASP procedure. G stands for guiding, R is for reading, A is for and, S is for summarizing, and P is for procedure. Summarizing is broken into four parts. The first is preparing to read. The second is reading to remember. The third is grouping to remember information and the fourth step is to write the summary. KWL+ stands for what does the reader know, what does the reader want to learn, what did they learn, making a map, and summarizing their findings. A variation of this is 5W+H, which is who, what, when, where, why, and personal value. Inquiry charts allow students to engage in forming questions about a topic, organize what you know, and allow the student to develop new questions. Students then have to write a summary for each question and then put it all together into a paper.

Creative writing can be in the form of poetry. The acronym RAFT is helpful in creative writing. R is role, A is audience, F is format, and T is topic. It is often beneficial to start with the topic and work backwards. Cinquains and Diamantes are forms of poetry. Cinquains and Diamantes use nouns, adjectives, gerunds,and phrases. Cinquains end with synonyms and Diamantes end with an antonym. A Cinquain has five lines and a Diamante has seven lines. Sense poems are another type of poem under creative writing. Sense poems require the student to think of their favorite place and write a description using their senses. Students use a sense at the beginning of the line and end the line with how they feel.

I think that as a PE teacher I favor creative writing more than formal. I do not think I have the time in my classroom to teach fitness and help students write a formal paper. I will encourage students to write about topics such as nutrition, fitness, health, and physical activity in other classes if they have the opportunity. I really like sense poems. I think it is a great way to figure out what to teach as a teacher. My sense poem was about being outside. If a student gave me that kind-of poem, then I may plan more activities outside for those students who enjoy being outside. A lot of people in class wrote about certain sports, so as a PE teacher I can develop activities that I know my students will enjoy.

After Reading Activities

After reading activities should integrate students, elaborate on the text, and students should be able to apply what they have read. Integration requires talking and writing about the information and elaboration requires the student to dig deeper and expand upon the text. Writing  is the act of constructing meaning while transacting with text, this is the same as reading. Students should write to make sense of what they are reading. Writing stimulates deep processing and organizes thoughts. It can also prompt insight and develop concepts. Students should grow in their writing proficiency through during reading exercises. Model how you want your students to write. To help students, use a process approach such as pre-writing, drafting, and revising. There are three types of writing. The first is informal. These are quick writes and easy to administer. Some examples are learning logs, admission or exit slips, one-minute quiz, and reflective writing. The second is creative writing. Creating writing allows students to use their imagination. Some examples are sense poems, biopoems, and cinquains. The third type of writing is formal writing. Some examples are KWL and an I-chart. I will probably use all three types of writing in my PE class. I favor informal writing because they are easy to administer and a gym is not a typical classroom setting. Exit slips are great in PE and can easily be implemented at the end of every lesson. Technology is easy to use in all three writing techniques. Online learning logs would be very cool for an upper level PE class. Formal writing can be done on fitness profiles or data based on fitness or nutrition. Creative writing can be used to create poems about a student's favorite sport or one on a famous athlete. I understand the importance of reading and writing in the classroom and will do my best to make that apparent in my PE class.

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are a good during reading activity to help organize the students' thoughts, develop their schema, connect related topics, and help them comprehend information. They allow students to make connections between material, arrange related topics, and create a visual representation. Graphic organizers act as a guide to how information is organized. Some examples may include the title, subtitle, glossary, index, table of contents, graphics, summaries, and side notes. Graphic organizers used for internal text structure are included in four patterns. The first is description or classification. It's great for giving definitions, characteristics, or examples. The second is compare and contracting the description. T charts and Vin diagrams are useful examples. The third is sequence or steps in a process. Examples are a list, timeline, or cycle. The fourth is cause and effect and the problem from the effect. Graphic organizers can be used in PE to help describe different kinds-of sports, body parts, or nutritional information. Time lines of great athletes could be placed on the walls around the gym with pictures attached to them. I can easily create a cycle of what it takes to be a successful athlete. I think graphic organizers are a great interactive tool to use with the class and to get them to create something. I also love the idea of displaying them on the gym walls to make the gym look more bright and fun.