Reflection on WTL Demo

Post Demo Reflection

The write to learn demonstration was a very good experience for me. I chose biopoems because I liked how you could be as creative as you wanted to, but it could be very analytical and used in many different content areas. When preparing for the demo I wanted to focus on the technique, not on what we were reading. I decided to use the Harry Potter example because I thought it would be a universal topic that most of us could identify with and require little background knowledge. I chose the first chapter of The House on Mango Street because it is part of a novel, but it is almost like a short story where it can stand alone. This made it easy to get a lot out of it without having to talk about it first. I thought my examples worked well, but it would have been better to demo it with more time. If I had more time I would have had the students pair up and write a biopoem about a character they both knew about, like a character in the last novel or short story we read. After I would have had everyone share their biopoem with the class. It would be interesting to see the different biopoems about the same character. Next, I would have the students read the first chapter of The House on Mango Street and then the students would write a biopoem. I think it would be good to have them do it in pairs again. Once they feel comfortable with using biopoems I think it would be a great tool to use in preparing to write any kind of paper and to help them with any kind of character analysis. I think it would also be a good starter for an entry in a writing journal or a prompt to use in the beginning of class. Using it as a reading break without making in to a poem would help assess comprehension also. I think my classmates took away that it is something they can use in any content area and it can be tweaked to use for their content area. It is flexible and gives the student control over how creative they want to be, but still comprehend the information needed.