Blog 7

Sydney Bushnell

English 326

“Dora” Blog 1

“Dora Learns to Write and in the Process Encounters Punctuation” Article

            Like any normal first grader, Dora just wants to be able to write to impress her teacher to show her how well she has done. Also, like most first graders, whose teacher helps them with their different problem areas, she seems to be struggling with how to write proper sentences. With the help of discussion amongst her fellow first graders, multiple exercises, and guidance from her teacher, she progressively begins to form her sentences.

Dora’s teacher does a number of things to help her in succeeding in her writing. As Dora progresses, her teacher tends to strategize on how to help Dora best proceed with her writing. From the very beginning, Dora’s teacher always has Dora read aloud what she has written because Dora can both hear and see what she is doing correctly and what mistakes she is making when she does this.(Using because at the end of a clause) Also, after Dora has written something, the teacher asks her to compare her own writing to that in a storybook to see how her writing differs. This gives Dora examples of how to alter her writing to make it more correct in terms of how it might look.

            Dora’s teacher uses questions and discussions of why she places periods where she does as a strategy to help Dora find incorrect placements. She has Dora read her work as it is written so that Dora can hear the choppy sound it makes when she puts periods at the end of phrases. By reading aloud, Dora can realize when she wasn’t correctly placing periods and it also gives her and idea where to correctly place them by how she wanted her sentences to sound. Dora became increasingly better with her writing and when she did something well, the teacher complimented her on it versus questioning why she did it that way. Compliments gave Dora the confidence in her writing rather than confusing her more.

            Things that I noticed the teacher didn’t do to help Dora in her writing was to give Dora the opportunity to ask the teacher questions about why or where she is supposed to be putting her periods. Nor did she seem to offer the opportunity for the class to ask her questions. (Begin a sentence with NOR) For example, Dora had been writing and putting periods at the end of each line and though the teacher did not say anything to Dora about it, she continued to do these things not know if she was correctly placing them (using though in a sentence to interrupt) but she became more focused on the topic of her stories rather than where the periods should go. The class listens to the teacher explain how to place periods and she wants theirs to reflect hers in that she doesn’t just place periods after each word. Because the teacher points out where they are being placed incorrectly only some of the time, (beginning sentence with Because followed by a clause) this might be confusing Dora as to where they actually should be placed by saying something like “Yours show improvement but if you look at this example you can see the difference in them.”

            Using a medium such as a writing booklet might lead Dora to believe that she should end her writing at the end of the page and causing her to take a longer to grasp the idea of sentence end-making. Speaking aloud also causes confusion for students because we cannot always hear pauses, spaces or periods where they should be placed and this makes it difficult for whoever is writing, like Dora, to transfer speaking to writing. As Dora continues in her writing process, she will begin to develop senses for simple and complex sentences and learn little by little how to punctuate these sentences.  After being taught helpful strategies from her teacher, Dora now writes, punctuates, and discusses her writing with her classmates; and she does it well. (Compound sentence with long clause separated by a semi colon and then a short clause)