To effectively guage where the students are in writing to better prepare for Term 2, my mentor created a writing assessment to see what standards they currently meet on Week 13. We spent the first two days exploring the different powerful vocabulary to associate with the image projected and the students drew a story map to better visualise the flow of what kind of story they would like to create based on the image presented. On Wednesday, it was time to have the kids begin to write down their story, based on the story map they drew. As a teacher's assistant, I went around the classroom to monitor the students work to see if they were on task and able to accomplish the task. With the exception of an English Language Learners (ELL) group, I was able to to take a look at everyone's writing. The lesson objective for that lesson was:

LO: I am able to write a draft

and to facillitate this writing my mentor had informed me that depending on the number of boxes the students drew on their story map, that is the minimum amount of sentences that the students should have. So, I went around and pointed out to the students that each box should have a sentence. When I noticed that a student was struggling to think of what they should include in the sentence, I quickly informed them that they can take a look at the plan they created on Monday to help them write. Since, this was supposed to be the students writing, my mentor also instructed me that we shouldn't help them as much because that way this would be a more accurate way of assessing their writing skills. At the end of the lesson, the students were able to finish a draft of their writing and I was able to collect everyone's notebook, so my mentor and I can take a look at it before they move on to their next task, which was to edit their draft.

During the experience, I felt a little bit anxious. It was hard to find that line that allowed the students to produce their own work and to have me to hep them. I realized that some students were really lacking in their writing, and I felt very concerned with them, because some of the weren't were they should have been. I also felt a little bit unconfident, because as I was doing my practicum, I realize that how I approach my students with their writing is different than how my teacher approaches it. So, it was difficult to balance between my mentor's expectation and what I wanted to do. I also worried that the students would be confused because that there would be dissonance based on my feedback and my mentor's feedback. I understood my mentor's point of view. We should not interfere in the students' writing, so we can better assess them, but sometimes the students do have the potential to produce such exceptional writing. It's just that at times, they do need a certain push in the right direction because they genuinely did not not it was applicable in that situation. Looking back, I do realize that I should not be concerned with their writing at that stage of the planning. It was only the first draft, hence the writing would not really be that great as they still need to polish it off before writing their final draft. I realized that I was too concerned at such an early stage, and it was unecessary of me to be so.

What was good about this situation was that it pointed out some of my flaws in my teaching practice. It seemed like I was too concerned about wanting the students to be perfect. It's a good wish to have, but I realized that at this point, because of online learning, they may be lacking in certain writing skills. At the same time, it also enabled me to see how to best a students writing. I've never thought about it before, because I don't think I grew up doing this, but having the students draw out what they would like to write was brilliant. It allowed the students to have a sense of what they would like to write, and it threw away the burden of coming up with an idea on the spot. In previous schools, to plan a writing, the students would usually create a diagram. The students write out what the plot is, who the characters are, what the setting is, etc. It does provide a students a way to organize their writing, but I found out that story maps are much more efficient. Not only does it help students to identify the different elements in their story, it improves their comprehension as well as organize their ideas (Armbruster, 2001). Additionally, it provides even more vivid details for the students to produce more writing. It's like what the saying says, a picture is worth a thousand words. It also provides students a different manner of learning because according to Lam, there are seven types of learners: auditory, visual, verbal, logical, physical, social and interpersonal (2017). By letting the kids to draw out their story, it is more inclusive of the different learners in the classroom, than just writing out a diagram. What was bad about the experience is that my mentor and I had contrasting opinions on how to help the students write a draft. There is no one way of teaching. Everybody has a different pedagogy they adopt in the classroom, but for the purpose of this experience it definitely made it tricky for me to help the students because I didn't want to give them a too different opinion because my mentor is also going around the classroom checking on the students work. I think what went well in this lesson is that my mentor build prior knowledge on how to plan a writing, by adding in support during the planning stages of the writing. We did a similar activity previously online, so students knew what they needed to include. What was different this time is that my mentor was able to effectively model how to extract information from an image and put it into writing. She asked the students what sort of items they saw in the image, and asked them use their senses to think about what kind of words they use use to describe their image. Therefore, the students were able to see what the expectations are, as well as what a successful work looks like. It also helps to streamline the students' work, so there would not be such a contrast in everybody's work (Riches, 2019). This time around, the students were also able to get immediate feedback from their writing. As my mentor and I walked around, we were able to quickly rectify any misunderstanding the students had regarding how to write their story, which definitely helped to provide information to produce a high level of work. I remember going around and there were many instances in which I had to remind the students to use the past tense, since this is one of the criterions my mentor would use to assess their writing. What didn't go well was that some studens were unable to finish their story maps in the previous lesson, so when it came to writing a draft for their writing, I could tell that they were struggling to figure out what to write next. Therefore, although the students were able to finish their writing, I could tell that their story sort of festered. Their beginnings were great, but their endings or lack of ending made the story subpar. This made me realize how important it is for students to finish their work before they move on to the next lesson.

From this situation, I learned how important planning is when it comes to writing. Although I believe students are capable of producing work right on the spot, due to how imaginative they are, it always helps to have them plan what to write before. This can eliminate some distress they have regarding their writing and is much more effective in producing writing for the students. I also learned that in innate part of me is obssessed with perfection, but that when it comes to teaching it is hard to achieve perfection in one day. Therefore, I should be wary in trying to make the students perfect because everyone works in different ways.