Week Six: (Our Final Class) by Tazurie Blanchette Alexander

The last week of class an article was posted for us to read about creating a climate for writing. My take from the article was the climate for writing should be comfortable, secured, and exciting for all student authors. It should be well suited for students' needs when writing, the materials and resources must be provided, within the physical and psychological environment. The environment is also important for students, it should motivate the writer and encourage them to write. One ways to create a motivational climate; as mentioned by the article is, self-efficacy, and this should be instilled. Self-efficacy is all about individuals' beliefs to produce specific performance attainments. It impacts the individuals' decision about the activities they choose. Writing all depends on the writer's beliefs. Along with self-efficacy, comes self-regulated students, which monitor and controls their thought processes in order to learn. Self-regulated learners control their own learning environment and regulate their own actions toward their learning goals. 

Hence, developing internal motivation, involves bring intrinsically motivated which is a great way to get students to accomplish tasks. Intrinsic motivation includes, self-determination, curiosity, challenge, and effort. By creating  a safe and positive writing atmosphere. The environment should be relaxed and mistake friendly it should be free for students to take risks, and improve without feeling threatened. Students should receive the time to make corrections and improvements and share their accomplishments. They should l also be able to express themselves. The article talked about the four B's for writing which I never knew about, they are (Be there. Be brief. Be clear. Be positive).

In addition, when creating an exciting environment. Teachers should provide the ideas, materials, tools, experiences, and topics to build students' interest in creating writing. The article gave mention to some tools the teacher can use to bring fun to students writing, some include pens with gel, colored pens, pencils (skinny, colored, fat), chalk, clay, crayons, sand, string, ink, brushes and markers. Some materials can be construction paper,sticky notes, cards, cardboard, fabric, wallpaper, and chalkboard.

Moreover, establish author ownership by being aware of students' feelings and emotions are crucial, if students do not feel the need to write it will disrupt their performance. Students must feel confident when writing. Students should be given opportunities to make decisions. Assess the writing climate. I learned about assessing the climate for writing. A list of strengths and weaknesses was made for the teacher to provide that feedback on students writing. This motivates students to do better, by them seeing the areas that need improving in their writing.