Misunderstood Minds

             For the past two weeks Barb has shown us clips from the PBS series "All Kinds of Minds".   These can be found at Barb's blog:   http://misunderstoodmindsld.blogspot.com/?v=0.  Each of the eleven videos told the tale of a different student and their struggles and experiences with writing and reading.  Through watching these videos, a couple of things became apparent to me- one, all students are so unique and the they once again highlighted how difficult daily tasks can be for some individuals.  Barb had us try writing with our non-dominant hands to experience how difficult it can be for an individual with grip or output problems.  This was very difficult, messy, and required far more thought than writing with my dominant hand.  It really allowed me to gain a  better sense of how difficult the writing task can be for many of my students.  As I completed this task, I thought about specific students who I have watched write before and I was better able to understand their frustration and exhaustion in completing this task.  The videos about Nathan and Lauren again reaffirmed how exhausting written tasks can be for individuals with a Learning Disability.  Lauren's story really showed how parents struggle with a child's diagnosis and the question of whether or not to medicate.  We also stopped and took a close look at the writing process by actually brainstorming the many steps involved in this procedure.  Barb also showed us Co-Writer and how it works and how to create topic dictionaries which can be very useful for many students.