Morning Reflection of Summer Institute Experience

During my experience with the Upstate Writing Project’s Summer Institute I have grown both as a teacher of writing and as a writer myself. Through support of my mentor and classmates I developed a research based teaching demonstration on using onomatopoeia to add descriptive details to writing. I successfully completed my first professional presentation with this teaching demonstration. I then converted this demonstration into a lesson plan to publish on the Upstate Writing Project’s website. After more revision I plan to publish this lesson plan on readwritethink.org as well.

I have also grown in my technological abilities during the Summer Institute as well. I have used Photo Story, a program I had previously been exposed to, in a more enhanced manner. I plan to use Photo Story in my classroom as a publishing tool. I will probably begin with me demonstrating how to use the program and eventually progress towards my students creating their own. I have learned how to podcast my voice, and I can’t wait to use it as a publishing tool for my classroom as well. I have perfected the use of hyper linking, and I have had some exposure with Movie Maker.

As a writer, I have regained the passion for writing that dwindled years ago. I have gained more confidence in my writing by sharing with my writing group, my classmates, and nationally on the National Writing Project’s E-Anthology. I know this passion for writing will transfer into my teaching and into my students writing. I plan to write on a regular basis in order to maintain this passion.