However, this assignment tugged on my heart in a different way. When I shared my excitement with Mikel’s reading specialist about our writing session, she shared the countless blank pages in his journal, explaining that Mikel struggles to write. A …show more content…
The natural response is to ease whatever discomfort the child is feeling. That’s how I describe Mikel’s experience with his writing assessment, and how I felt watching him. His posture in figures three, four, and five illustrated above indicate the emotions I quickly detected throughout the session – fear, frustration, and fatigue. What Mikel sensed gives validation to the connection between emotion and learning. (Feldgus & Cardonick, 1999, p. 29) Despite his apprehension, I constantly gave positive words of affirmation to let Mikel know how brave he was for trying. Likewise, I did my best to set an emotional environment, instructing him to write about his own topic and presenting Mikel with several different templates to pick the paper he preferred. Spotting the crayons also gave him comfort. When he constantly appealed for help, I took a moment to ask him to point to his head and believe that everything he needed to write was within