Co-Authoring Classroom Texts

            Larson introduces this article by comparing teaching writing to students and learning how to play a sport with no coach or actual play time.  In other words you can teach a child the fundamentals of writing but you can’t teach them how to be an author, just like learning how to play a sport, you can know the process of how to do something but until you actually go out and practice, you’re never going to master the sport.  This article is about authorship; instead of just teaching students how to read and write, students should interact with their classmates, teachers, and literature in order to grasp the true meaning of literacy.  Maier’s classroom is a perfect example of hand-on learning.  She has over 6000 books in her classroom as a resource for her students.  When I become a teacher I hope my collection exceeds hers.  Her students begin reading three to five books a night and at the end of the year they are reading ten to twelve books.  This surprised me because ten to twelve books seems like a hefty amount of reading for first graders.  However, some students read less depending on the difficulty of the book.  Despite the other subjects such as math or science, Maier has put a great influence on literacy.  She devotes 90 minutes of her class time on reading and writing every day.  90 minutes is a lengthy amount of time compared to the time spent on other subjects throughout the day.  The thing that surprised me the most was how Maier created a sense of community in her classrooms.  The article states that her and her students had lunch together every day, she knew their pets, their parents’ names, and they knew as much about her as she did about them.  Maier would even use her own personal stories to write narratives with the class.  As a future teacher, I hope I have a strong connection with my students.  The time and devotion Maier has for her students is incredible; she arrives an hour earlier than all her students and does not leave until four or five in the evening.  I plan on devoting all of my time as a teacher in order to benefit the students.