- Mrs. Gillmore's Comparison to "The Story of the Ugly Duckling."
- Drafted below is Mrs. Gillmore's very rough paper comparing her writing process to the creation of a curriculum unit or lesson plans.
Introduction (minimum of three sentences)
As a teacher of English and as a teacher in a 1:1 classroom, fortunately, for me, two tasks that I truly enjoy are writing and creating lesson plans. As I pondered on this, I realized that each mimics the other in the multiple steps that I must climb in order to create the final products. A nerd I may be, but, also fortunately for me, being a nerd remains quite the cool status!
Body
Paragraph 1 - Prewriting
When I initially begin planning a unit for my English 11 classes, I attempt to begin with what we call "the end in mind." This means that I plan backwards, laying out the big picture of what I hope to cover in a nine-week's time span. Using sticky notes, charts, boxes, pens, pencils, sketches, the ideas begin to develop. In much the same, I plan all papers that I am asked to write, whether for a college class, for my personal blog, or for my model papers for English 11.
Paragraph 2 - Drafting
Once I determine the "big picture" for my curriculum units or for a paper that I need to write, I sit down with my mini laptop and begin to tap-tap-tap out the creation. I take brief mental pauses to gather my thoughts, then back to typing I go. Here, I misspell many words, leave out parts and segments in my race see the words in black and white.
Paragraph 3 - Editing/Revising
When I have created the curriculum unit or completed the assigned essay, I let it rest. I leave it alone. I walk away and allow it go to cold. For after working with the creations this intensely, I find that I have become blind to my own mistakes. I no long see the misspelled or omitted words. While my gut instinct may be to place the seal of approval on the paper, I know this is not wise, for I do know that I am not perfect...at least not yet. Not until, I have proofed several more times and made those necessary additions and corrections. For example, in my curriculum units, I may add a song, create another logo, find a video on YouTube, finding and including, what I hope, will be the "hooks" that make these curriculum units interesting for my students.
Paragraph 4 - Publishing
Finally, when I have proofed...and then proofed one more time, I publish my new curriculum unit for all to see on my our class wiki, or I hit the submit button and post my latest thoughts on my blog. Then I wait anxiously for the comments to follow on the creations I have posted.
Conclusion
As one may now realize, the process of creating a curriculum unit and the writing process are very similar. The most important lesson here? Do NOT skip the editing and revising steps, for during these steps, steps where my brain must often streeeettccchhh itself, here I find that some of my best creativity comes into play.
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