Week Five: Section Three - The Essential Writing Day
There is a lot packed into this third section of the book, read and comment on what was most relevant to you:)
ASSIGNMENT FIVE: WRITTEN REFLECTION-Section Three- The Essential Writing Day Chapters 7-10
Chapter 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills
• How might we integrate skill work into student writing rather than teaching it in isolation?
• Daily Oral Language exercises – THEY DON’T WORK!!!
• The importance of focusing on meaning and quality first
• All writing needs both a PURPOSE and an AUDIENCE
• How thinking aloud can make your teaching more explicit
• Teaching WRITING – not just the language of writing (process, process, process)
• What about writing standards? In your District and State?
• Key writing minilessons
• Revision – how to get students to care about it
• Letting kids in on the secret that – Yes! – Conventions do matter!
• How can we effectively use word walls?
In Chapter 7, suitably titled “Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills,” Regie gets to the heart of what so many teachers struggle with: “Fitting it all in!!!” Many of the elementary teachers that we work with are beginning to feel as though their personal motto is: “Jack of all trades; master of none.” We just don’t have the time to teach well what has to be taught. The only answer to this problem is to modify our instruction so it agrees with Regie’s stance that isolated skill work (such as Friday spelling tests, DOL, grammar worksheets…) will not help our students grow into writers (or readers.) On page 144, Regie shares four components for an integrated Writing Workshop:
1. Identify writing genres that would interest students (and meet district requirements)
2. Decide who the audience would be for each piece of writing.*
3. Model your own writing process and show students how you struggle.
4. Have students share writing regularly (for both celebration and great teaching moments.)
*This created the biggest change in my own class’s writing - once my students began to write with an audience in mind, the quality of writing shot right up!
Regie also gets to the heart of what writing with “voice” really is and addresses how to teach children to write with an honest voice in their own writing. She describes voice as “the writer’s unique personality on paper, his own melody in words, her ‘mark’ as an individual. To write with voice, the writer has to be interested in the writing.” We think that many teachers and students are unclear as to how to add true voice to their writing. Regie suggests, “Voice is in the details – but details that show the real person and story behind the words, not just details for the sake of adding more words…”
Integrating those isolated editing skills such as grammar, punctuation, and spelling into our writing will increase the efficiency of our instruction. Bottom line – if the students care about their writing, are writing for a specific audience, and understand that “the importance of editing (and spelling conventionally) is to make their message clear and easy to read for their audience – or reader, they take this job seriously and work hard at making their writing clear.”
Chapter 8: Organize for Daily Writing
• What is our definition of Writing Workshop? What does Regie say?
• How can we have student choice within a structure?
• The importance of writing talk (teachers and students)
• The ultimate nightmare for all of us…scheduling…finding the time to write everyday
• The importance of routines, organization and modeling expected behavior
• Genre study – why it’s important to have both school-wide and district-wide conversations
• The possibilities within genres
Figuring out a way to “fit it all in” is usually one of the most frustrating things many of us face. It starts at the beginning of the year as we first plan our daily schedule and continues throughout the remainder of the year. Considering how you will create your schedule to include a solid chunk of time for both reading and writing will probably be the most stressful piece to the start of your year.
Create a Comprehensive Literacy Framework: Play with your time and consider what changes you might make in your daily literacy framework for next year. Take a look at the samples that Regie provides on pages 185-187 for some possibilities. You do not have to post your schedule, but we believe this is a worthwhile activity to complete on your own.
Chapter 9: Conference with Students
• What is the purpose of a Writing Conference?
• What are the different types of Writing Conferences?
• How can Share be used effectively?
• How to conduct a productive conference
• What about management and routines?
We are so glad that this chapter talks about Share during Writer’s Workshop. Too often this component is skipped by teachers who feel there isn’t enough time in the day to “fit it all in.” However, it’s a vital piece of the workshop and beneficial to all the students. Share sessions are an additional time to teach. The teachers in my school are quite comfortable using Share as their mini-lesson if the need arises. Given the reality of daily schedules they were finding that they couldn’t have a mini-lesson, confer and share everyday. They then realized that their Shares sometimes were the minilessons. For more information about Share we recommend looking at Leah Mermelstein’s Don’t Forget To Share: The Crucial Last Step in the Writing Workshop. In this slim book, Leah explains in detail four types of Share: Content Share, Craft Share, Process Share and Progress Share.
The “Tips for Successful Whole-Class Shares and Conferences” on page 215 are excellent ones to keep in mind. The bottom line for Conferences and Shares is that students should feel successful and want to continue to write. Make sure what you say to the child encourages them to keep on writing. “The conference is secondary; the student as writer and confident learner is primary.”
Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count
• Understanding how rubrics work
• What about Test Prep? THE BEST TEST PREP IS EXCELLENT TEACHING!
• How can we collect reliable data on students’ writing throughout the day?
• Guidelines for grading and providing evidence for parents, administrators and the public
“There is lots of writing assessment going on these days, but little of it actually improves the quality of students’ writing.” As Regie continues she points out that this ‘assessment’ “is seldom used to improve daily instruction.” This chapter is about becoming more knowledgeable about assessments. Regie notes, that unless teachers know how to teach writing well, it can be a waste of time to examine students’ writing and place students on a writing continuum. She encourages you, as a staff to “write together, study together, converse together, gather school-wide data, analyze these data and set goals for improving writing instruction. There is no shortcut to helping students become effective writers and there is no program you can buy that will do it for you.”
Remember to use rubrics judiciously and not overdo it. They should be “used as an evaluation tool, not as the driving instructional force.” “Use professional common sense. It is not advisable to apply rubrics to ALL writing nor to score ALL writing. Just as our students need lots of practice reading many texts without the expectation that they will be assessed on everything they read, they need lots of practice writing without being assessed on everything they write.” (Page 243)
Have your students do a lot of writing! “Extensive writing across the curriculum as part of an excellent writing program is the best preparation for doing well on (standardized) tests. Readers have to read avidly to become readers and the same holds true for writers. Kids who write a lot develop higher-order thinking and understanding that translates to higher achievement on all types of tests.” Be sure to check out “Try It Apply It” on page 246 and throughout the chapter for ideas to incorporate into your program.
As Regie points out in this chapter, “The joy has gone out of writing.” We need to “concentrate on developing kids as learners rather than kids as test takers.”
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Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteI have really tried to encourage AUDIENCE with literacy this year—in speaking, in writing, and in reading. I am also working on building skills that carry over into their writing rather than just skills in isolation. Our state standards of course include the 5 areas of literacy (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, fluency and comprehension) but I want it to be meaningful to the work that they produce as well. Part of our PLC (Professional Learning Community) work and Power Standards work is geared toward getting kids to master the essential standards rather than being minimally good at all of the standards, much like we feel as “jack of all trades, but master of none”. I also want to model and encourage “voice” as “the writer’s unique personality on paper”. We spend so much time on creating a coherent sentence in their journals or thoughts that is it hard to extend upon that. Kids either seem to come up with very little snippets of thoughts or a major run-on story!
I like the idea of interviewing someone; the process of forming questions, asking questions, and then writing about it. Having an environment for spelling is also appealing; having a purposeful, workable word wall, teaching word patterns, and having an expectation of correctly spelled high frequency words. The research stating 5/6 misspelled words of 300 being “unreadable” is critical to remember in teaching. I put “word walls” in their journal for quick reference. Now that I think of it, it would be good to have them put them in themselves, but they’re working on handwriting at this point. Maybe I could have them glue them in as a purposeful activity?
For Valentine’s Day we do a similar activity only I like the idea of adding pictures to our matching activity. We’ve done a lot more games this year with names: how many syllables, alphabetizing, “bonus” names (with 2 or more of the same letter), how many vowels, etc.
Finally, I like the idea of writing based on familiar stories; I was thinking of reading multiple versions of the same story and then adapting our own OR using wordless books. Creative writing is intimidating to me so that would be a positive start. The importance of note-taking was brought up—maybe that is something I could pursue in kindergarten (writing key words or phrases).
Chapter 8 Organize for Daily Writing
ReplyDeleteIt is impressed upon me that I need to spend the majority of our very short day reading, writing, and doing math (which includes reading and writing). As the book said “having daily time set aside for writing produces twice the volume and ideas”. I think I need to change my schedule to reflect deeper lessons not just quantity. As I read this book I think about how much more I could squeeze out of content areas, but also at the expense of losing other lessons. I’d like to do even more class books and journal entries, “how to” books, modeling writing, conversing about books and writing, and creating a knowledge base for writing. It’s important to prewrite, then share after writing. That is SO MUCH TIME! So I ask myself: what is my knowledge base? I am not an expert in many things. BUT I can talk about teaching, child development, working out, healthy foods, soccer, coffee, clothes, and hair to name a few things. Writing would also be a good way to take advantage of knowing how kids are learning; it is a good way to get feedback and adjust lessons as needed.
Regie makes writing doable. We can make a book of compliments, book of memories, “gratitude message board”, and snapshots. We did something like snapshots at the beginning of the year where each person got to be the person of the day. We wrote their name, wrote 3 things about the person, and then highlighted each letter that was the first letter of their name—so we discussed punctuation, uppercase and lowercase letters, how letters look alike, high frequency words, matching words, etc.
Chapter 9 Conference With Students
ReplyDeleteI am so thankful for this chapter because is simplifies the term conference. It defines it as informal and brief (if you choose it to be). The purpose of a writing conference is to further the children in writing; to take them to the next step, to encourage, to build up, to provide scaffolding and better the writing. Conferences can be long, short, formal, informal, whole group, small group, or individual. Conferencing is just a conversation.
The benefits of conferences are to celebrate, to provide opportunities for teaching points, and to focus on each student (I like the idea of recording conferences on a class list to ensure participation and not allowing dominating students). I’ve already printed out my anecdotal records for math, reading/writing, and centers.
To conduct a productive conference we need to establish expectations for writing, listening, and comments/compliments/suggestions (“frontloading”). I was surprised (although I understood the purpose of training kids in ACTIVE listening) that Regie mentioned NOT restating kids’ responses. I feel like I am doing that often. Hmm—I wonder why she said that? I wonder why I do it? A lot of times I feel like I can put pieces together for children or help make connections.
Things to remember are to focus on content first, then editing. I like her suggested comments! “I’m confused…can we try___?” I am reminded that writing is vulnerable, exposing and intimate—probably why it has always been hard for me to share publicly! I like Don Graves’ comment: “when I confer with you about writing, you are more important than the writing.”
Chapter 10 Make Assessment Count
ReplyDeleteA writing continuum CAN be helpful—to know developmental stages and expectations, and to share them with parents and create effective lessons. I believe the more I can inform parents of classroom lessons, topics, expectations, standards and ideas for support, the better off students will be. It is important for us to be up to date with reading research and tools, and incorporate that in homework as well as report it in newsletters.
Working in isolation is not an option. In fact, this book teaches us how to teach kids to learn in groups rather than isolation—to focus on language, to learn from others, to converse with others, to help others correct and to self-correct, to share whole group, and to listen to ideas for a purpose. I used to teach expecting that kids would carry over skills either in a different project or in a test situation—now I do not make that assumption. But they will experience tests in isolation. I try to make connections or encourage them to make connections as much as possible. Like Regie said in the DVD—build on what kids do know.
As I have put value on centers format, I need to make sure that kids are writing and reading every day in their week’s rotation. I may need to reassess and reformat my day, although the kids are learning to work independently in a structured way. They are learning to listen and take responsibility for completing projects without me being right there. I need to remember to structure more lessons that are collaborative and teach collaborating language. Our Bridges math allows for problem-solving and team work and I would like to carry that into writing and reading across the curriculum. I base my centers on Science, Social Studies, and relevant material, and incorporate math. This year more than ever I am giving students more time to build skills for assessment and decreasing anxiety. I am trying to create more anchor charts for communicating expectations and for reference. I am also hoping to use more conference sheets, anecdotal records and work samples as keys of growth and lesson formation.
Regie says to create rubrics as a staff. We started that process a few years back, but then budget talks, school-wide Title I funding plan (SWP), PLCs, RTIs, and such has dominated our focus. We are trying to have PLCs as grade-level teams (now that I have one!), cross grade level, district-wide grade level, and possibly school-wide. As we finish up the school-wide Title I process we will have more cohesion and better communication about strands starting at kindergarten and teaching processes (best practices). We will have a better idea of reading and writing progression (with curriculum maps) and better resources. We’ve found out in this SWP that we are a staff that values professional development. Hopefully we’ll do more as an entire staff.
Assignment Five
ReplyDeleteYou are right; these chapters are jam-packed. I liked chapter 7 best because it had me arguing with the contents as I read. At first it seemed that Regie talked in circles about teaching skills, but I think she and I have finally come to an understanding!
Chapter 7
I have been looking forward to this chapter. All of my teaching struggles are centered in this concept of absolutely knowing that grammar and spelling are important, hearing that they cannot be successfully taught in isolation, but not quite buying into that. I take that back. I know spelling tests don’t work, at least not in the long run. However, like I said in one of my earlier reflections, some concepts simply need to be practiced often. Does that mean with worksheets? No! There are lots of other ways to practice things. Let’s see what Regie has to say.
Right off the bat, I agree and disagree with Regie when she says that after drills,” students can perform the skill in isolation, but don’t apply it in the course of daily writing and reading.” My students do use skills better after we practice them, but I make them accountable for those skills in their writing. Of course drills don’t improve student writing. They aren’t meant to. They are meant to improve a specific skill.
As I read further, I see that Regie isn’t ignoring skills teaching, she is advocating for its place within the context of a writing assignment. Absolutely I agree with that!
So how can skills be taught without worksheets? They can be taught during the writing process. Sometimes I’ll ask students to put a sentence into their work that includes (for example) commas with an appositive. I tell them that they do not have to keep the sentence for their final draft if they don’t like it, but I need to see an effort. We play some drill games with the new interactive whiteboard I have in my classroom.
Working on voice with shared writing – I can see this working very well, and maybe even better with students helping me with my writing. They of all people know exactly what I sound like! Who better to give me tips and tell me “That doesn’t sound like you!”
I love the revision section. I will do more revision of my work in front of the students. During revision, I encourage students to give another student their writing and listen to their own work being read out loud. The other students read exactly what’s on the paper. Sometimes when students read their own work out loud, they read what they have in their head and not necessarily exactly what is on the paper. From the first day students come into my class, revision is a normal part of every writing experience. I hope it becomes part of a process that they don’t even think twice about.
Chapter 8
ReplyDeleteI do use writing workshop in my classroom, but after reading this chapter, I am going to quit calling it that. It’s writing. Sometimes I give them genres or other guidelines, but not always. If I gave the students free choice all of the time, we would never cover what I need to. But I always try to leave room for some choice.
We are just beginning to write informational essays about ancient Greece. I am very conscious of giving students choice. We started out by skimming all kinds of books: fiction, non-fiction, mythology, and reference books. The students noted any topics, people, or events that interested them. When they had narrowed their choices, they did more reading on their chosen topic, writing down any thing that they found really interesting. Our next step will be to look at those lists of facts and try to determine how they speak to the student. What opinions do they trigger? I modeled this with some interesting facts about Ares, and then we determined that Ares was the least courageous of the gods. The next step would be the actual research for specific details and examples that support this opinion. After reading this chapter, I have a few new ideas; I will definitely spend time modeling and “shared writing” some summaries of non-fiction. I think that we can write most of the students’ introductory paragraphs together.
Chapter 9
I’m not very consistent about conferencing. Regie has great specific advice and really great conferencing questions. That isn’t my problem; it’s time. I could definitely handle some roving conferences. I will have to put some thought into whole class conferences. This can’t happen unless the class trusts each other and me. I think that I would start this process with those students willing to share favorite parts of their writing or with students who had done an especially good job with something we had been working on. Once students can respond positively and productively, we can work towards the students sharing more of the responsibility of the conferences.
Chapter 10
The standardized testing used by the Archdiocese does not include a writing sample. If we begin to test writing, I have a good chapter to refer to, though I don’t know that I would change much about the way I teach.
I might be a rubric over user! I always want to make sure that the students know exactly how their work will be assessed. Parents of my students would not like Regie’s assertion that 80% of students’ writing needn’t be assessed. I assess everything, though I don’t use rubrics for everything. Sometimes I just check for effort or content. I do feel that students should get credit for everything they do.
I have looked at many standardized rubrics, and I agree with Regie that the best ones are teacher created. As we get ready to write the final drafts of our Greek projects, I will ask the students for their input in creating the rubric for the final draft. If I do this, I must be prepared to include their ideas, however. I do try to keep my focus on effective writing and not look too much at the traits in isolation. Content, organization, and voice do apply to the whole piece and address the development of ideas and relevance and coherence of the piece.
There, I think I've caught up!
Assignment #5: Chapters 7-10 Reflection:
ReplyDeleteChapter 7: It was refreshing to read about integrating skills into all content areas. It is easy to forget that writing isn’t a different subject area, it is a part of every area we teach, and a life-long skill. What I get most from this chapter is the real focus on quality of writing, and making writing connect to the individual students. This cannot be accomplished by teaching writing in isolation. Students must have some investment in their writing in order for the essential skills to be implemented. I will work harder at giving the students a lot more choice in what they write about and how they write it.
Chapter 8: I really got a lot out of this chapter on organizing daily writing. On p. 187, Regie’s sample schedule for daily writing instruction was extremely helpful! I have been doing all of her components, but not necessarily in the most effective way. (My mini-lessons weren’t always so “mini.” I loved the suggestions for teaching a mini lesson, followed by sustained writing every day, with time at the end for students to share. I tried this framework last week, and it went very smoothly!
Chapter 9: Conferencing with students is a challenge, especially this year with 32 students. I appreciated the suggestions for whole-class conferences, and roving conferences. These are much easier to implement in such a large room. I will be giving both of them a try in the next couple of weeks.
Chapter 10: This chapter is timely, as my students just began the Oregon State Writing Assessment for 4th graders yesterday. I’m wishing I would have taken this class a year ago. I would have approached these tests differently. There is so much pressure to get the scores up on these tests, but I’m not very confident right now about how they will do. Regie’s comment about the best test prep is excellent teaching hits home. I have room to grow as do my students. One of the most important things I learned in this chapter was to create the kid friendly rubrics for what good writers do. It makes sense that the kids have an investment and understanding of what it is we really expect out of them. I wish my kiddos luck this week and next….
And, yes I will get you the information for the publishing company. I left it at school, but I will get that for you on the next assignement-the free books they do for students are amazing!
Sincerely,
Julie Payton
It is SO good to hear that that DOL doesn’t work. I hate DOL and have never seen anything positive come out of it, other than a few quiet minutes while the kids are working. I tried it my first year teaching because the other teachers on my team were doing it, but I have never gone back to it.
ReplyDeleteOne thing that really resonated with me was teaching voice…I have always found that no matter the level of the writer, voice just naturally comes through their writing, especially when they are passionate about the topic. Second graders have such a unique voice, and I enjoy seeing the world through their eyes.
As a district we have been focusing on the 6 traits of writing. The past two years we have used those traits to focus on teaching one each month. I have found that particularly challenging because how do you write with only one trait in mind? After a few months of struggling with this, I have begun to not pay as much attention to teaching one trait a month, but rather using the 6 traits to guide me, and remind me the important parts of writing that need to be focused on throughout the year.
A big problem I was running into year after year in Writer’s Workshop was that writers were getting hung up on spelling. Even after many mini lessons about inventive spelling, sounding words out, etc. Many writers were spending time or effort trying to be perfect spellers. Many of them wouldn’t take risks with more descriptive vocabulary when they were worried about being correct. Some writer’s would even sit and not write until it was time to conference with me because they didn’t want to be wrong. So I made up a rule that students had sound out their words or use their personal dictionaries (sort of like a personal word wall) and if they wanted some help with the word they could circle it and come back to it. In between conferring with students, I would say “Okay, I am an open dictionary for the next 5 minutes, if you have a word that is circled and you can’t find it in your spelling dictionary or by asking a friend, now is your time to ask.” This helped tremendously and my whole team uses that language now. It gave the kids a reassurance that there would be help if they needed it. Often, once they used their inventive spelling skills, they didn’t want to come back to it, even when the opportunity was there. It really freed me up, as well as the students, to write more fluidly too.
An idea I liked was “Share the pen” for struggling writers’, I am going to try it. One thing I struggle with this year is balancing how much support I give them with giving them some responsibility too. This class in particular wants a lot done for them, (really only about 7 kids, but that seems like a lot), so I don’t want to create this monster, of my assistant or I bearing most of the load. Then not being able to transition them out of it.
One last thing, the model given for daily writing was around a hour a day at the short end (15 min mini lesson, 30 min write, 15 min share). I agree that we need this much time, but with everything else that we need to be teaching, science, health, social studies, etc. it is impossible to do this. This is where I struggle. I make sure to have 40 minutes a day for writing but I really can’t find much more time than that. Any suggestions?
Wow, there is a lot packed into these chapters, and I found gems among it all. Today I tried shared, informational writing with my class. This was the day of the "Valentine Party" and we had to come up with some rules for our Valentines (like provide one for everybody, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything, etc.) and some rules for our games. Today we played "Heads Up 7 Up", but before we did, we made up rules for all games played by our class - even outside on the playground games. My class was Sooo into this. They all contributed, stated what was important to them, recorded and edited our chart, and made a final poster. It was awesome. I will be doing many more of these texts, and it really took very little time.
ReplyDeleteAs far as time goes, I really like the writing schedule for 4th grade given in the book. We have a similar schedule, and I am blessed with about 1:45 min of class time with my students before recess. We focus on geography "Go to a place" for 15 minutes, then science/SS, and often when we are done have 45 to 30 minutes of writing time. I will be doing many things different with this time that I have done before though - such as the shared writing projects, journal with purpose or integrated learning, and celebrating our writing successes. I do believe that integrating writing into the other curriculum is one way to get more writing in if you have limited time (as Nicole's concern is real, above).
Chapter 9 was helpful for understanding how to conference better with students. I have done some individual conferencing with students, but mostly found myself working on editing with them, not so much reading the content! As I know from most writing we have done, students just want to share their ideas and stories. Again, I need to get better at "putting the writer first"! I liked the list of ways to chart what student are expected to do while I am engaging in conferences. Like our game rules, this will be helpful in our day to day class operations.
I also do not like DOL - and have a book someone gave me, but when I saw how much my ELL students struggled with this "activity" quickly gave up on it. I have done some DOL like activities with the students where I have created the paragraph to be edited based on what has happened recently in our class, school, or news. I just focused on one thing, like capitalization of names, or punctuation. This was much more popular for the students, but again, many of the ELL students still struggled. So again I have removed DOL from of daily schedule - a good choice after reading Regie's comments!
In regards to assessment, I loved the idea of students filling out a self-evaluation of their writing and writing progress. More practice writing down what they feel is important in their learning, and what they like to do during our class and shared writing time.
I agree with Regie when she says that the way to support writing skills is to do so within the actual writing process (in context), therefore, meaning and understanding are enhanced. Anything we can do as educators to simplify the writing process for students is helpful, thereby eliminating the writing experience as something difficult to attain. We are moving in the right direction when we work on "checking on the parts" within a meaningful whole of a piece of writing. This is definitely the direction we ALL need to be heading, though administrators/districts/state requirements and expectations may create challenges to this path, when we all adjust our thinking and practices, I do believe Regie's ideas are proactive and helpful.
ReplyDeleteOn page 150, Regie states that if you focus on excellent teaching of writing, you will be teaching beyond what the standards require. Getting beyond the state standards: the challenge! Writing, being a complex skill, cannot be decontextualized or compartmentalized into discrete skills.
I keep the Oregon state writing standards posted on my wall. They are broken down into 5 areas and a brief description of each area. I find them a helpful reminder of what I'm helping kids with. I refer to it as a reminder or reinforcer, as opposed to my only focus with writing. Though I rarely refer to it with students, I know that the information is there, and I know that they're aware of it ,as well.
Minilessons are a great way to focus on 1-2 writing areas at a time: Regie's sampling list on p.155 is a helpful resource. Reminder on p.160: "Be sure students write for audiences that matter to them. An awareness of audience sensitizes writers to their readers and encourages revision." I think this one I;ll tape to me computer! I think I need a chart in my classroom with "Spelling Strategies", because this is a challenging skill for most of my writers, and they need resources to become more independent. I think word walls would be effective with my students because they're generated by them and they are visual
Chapter 8:
Chapter 8: I think one of the best things I could do to help my students is to help them learn how to choose worthwhile topics, because we know that engagement in a topic is crucial to the quality of the writing product. I totally LOVE the prewriting ideas (p.179): never can have enough of those!Regie discusses simplifying genre teaching, which I found helpful. She presents numerous avenues to teaching writing about narrative, informational and other genres. This is not only helpful, but a great reminder to keep options open when asking students to write in a specific genre. Nice idea to use writing to perform acts of kindness: kind of a win-win for everybody!
ReplyDeleteChapter 9: I do a lot of conferencing with students about their writing. Primarily during the prewriting stages and proofreading/editing processes. I tend to primarily work with students one-on-one with their writing, because most of them require a good deal of this kind of support. Often, one os the best things I can do for students is to listen to what they are trying to say, and scribing their words so they can take this information to start their writing piece. On p. 215 (Tips for successfull....): Put your pen and pencil aside, and watch your language of response; such valuable reminders and words! Teacher Talk:using the language of helpful response. There are many proactive/positive statements to use here that help to support the writer. Regie emphasizes the importance of keeping mindful about keeping student independence in mind, as a guide to our teaching and assessing.
Chapter 10: A very hot topic these days: assessment. I too (along with my co-bloggers!), have been involved with state testing (writing) this last week. I am concerned about the "negative outcome"of writing assessment that Regie refers to, that students are said to demonstrate what they do wrong with language rather than what they do well. It is soooo true that looking for student's progress overtime, for purposeful communication to real audiences, is far more valid. We're back to remembering to use our common sense, when it comes to using rubrics. I agree with Regie that we need to be judicious in our use of rubrics, because the overuse can result in a stifling of our ability to write freely. I've seen rubrics for the 7th grade level this past week which students were supposed to utilize in their writing. I know for the writers that were being assessed, there was way too much information for them to process efficiently. I think that next year I could probably present the same information to the writers in fewer words, to help simplify the assessment process for them. My school recently put into practice an all-school writing prompt, to help us get a baseline of student writing skills within the building. We are a K-8 school, so the wealth and breadth of writing samples was great. Each grade level presented a range (from hi to lo) examples of student writing. Next, we are looking at ways to increase teaching effectiveness. We are fortunate to have a skilled vice principal, who has taken on a leadership role in assisting us through this process. Sharing these writing samples has been a positive professional development opportunity for teachers. Another thing that I find positive abut this process has been that ALL staff are involved: special education, math and science teachers. This is helpful to all staff getting a clearer idea about student abilities within our building.
ReplyDeleteGreat comments – Lauren, Katy, Julie, Nicole, Jenni, and Erin! I enjoyed your comments as each of you seemed to have found your own personal support and confirmation of your own teaching in Regies’s chapters!
ReplyDeleteRegie’s point about making sure students have writing opportunities that have a real, authentic audience is very valid. Also, making sure students feel that they are writing for authentic reasons allows students to delve into writing in a very purposeful way. I am halfway through my second year of working with the Daily Five system that allowed choice for students and indicates short specific mini-lessons before work time for students. One of the benefits I see from using Daily5 is the empowerment of choice for students. I believe that the choice of Literacy activity helps provide a better jumping point towards authentic writing.
ReplyDeleteThe genres that I have worked with my students are: narrative- imaginative and expository
stories about themselves – I like to start the year with narrative so that I can really emphasize the idea that really good writer’s write about what they know and what they care about. I have a large poster the kids and I created that we refer to whenever we start a new writing project
I love to watch the students start there first imaginative stories. By teaching the basic organizations with narrative genre I see the students feel more confident as they are able to choose any idea they can imagine and turn it into a story. I
Expository- I think that a big part of teaching writing is empowering students to look at themselves as writers and to show them that they are experts and they know about important things and important people. One assignment that my class really enjoyed happened because of a boring Health Unit. The unit I had to teach in January to my fourth graders was pretty “baby-ish”- don’t pick up sharp things, don’t talk to strangers. Well, I decided to turn the teaching around and give it to the students themselves by presenting the information and asking them to create a “Common Sense” book to share with our first grade buddy class. The kids really engaged in the assignment. This work gave me the perfect chance to stress the importance of thinking about the audience. What is appropriate for an audience of six year olds.
Whenever I introduce a new genre I like to make sure to show student examples as well as my own examples. This year I am also modeling how I write and tackle new genres and writing assignments (as suggested by Regie.). After working in this textbook I also see how important shared writing experience is especially as students delve into new genre writing. I love how Regie compared teaching writing without modeling to tryi9ng to do a puzzle with out seeing the cover of the puzzle box. What a powerful image to take to heart as a teacher.
Writer’s Workshop- What I appreciate about Regie’s definition of a writer’s workshop is that it does not dictate a formulaic process to produce a certain amount of writing per day or per week. I agree with Regie about creating times in the day for students to have the opportunity to write for themselves.
All this year I have been pushing conventions so hard because across the board my class scored lower in conventions last year on the writing test than the other scored areas. I just feel that this year I have pushed formulaic writing on my students and that is the absolute worst thing I could have done. I need to have the courage to teach what I know students need to be strong writers for throughout their life rather than teach them the formula to pass a writing test in fourth grade.
I find the process of leading student’s through writing conferences very challenging. How much do we say? How do we begin a conference when the piece of writing in question is really not good on a variety of levels. I think switching the writing conference into a conversation allows for more open communication. I always find it extremely difficult to speak with certain students that are more sensitive than others. I think that taking the focus off of the piece of writing being discussed and making the goal of each conference to improve the student as a writer rather than to improve the writing is changing the focus of my conferences.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteIsolated skill activities: Again, I am an inexperienced teacher, but if it works, it works, right? Although I DO agree that activities like grammar worksheets and DOL overheads (correctly the sentences) have not translated into the writing, when else do we address them? Regie has some thoughts here, “Only isolate the skill if students know how and why that skill is used” (143). My 8th grade students rewrite the two sentences for DOL, focusing on word choice, capitals, punctuation, and formatting. They do this independently then we come together and correct as a group—me making the edits on the overhead as they tell me what to do. When someone points out a change that is incorrect or unnecessary, that is a time to talk about WHY. I talk a lot about the skill of recognition and trusting their ears. When something sounds funny, it most likely is. It doesn’t matter so much that they are able to recite the rules of grammar or parts of speech or when to use a dangling modifier or not, but when they look at their own writing or writing of others, they are able to identify what needs revising/editing. I’m also able to use the language, “DOL your own writing when you’re through,” to encourage them to just look at the sentences and see if they want to change anything.
Chapter 8
It seems Regie has a pretty loose definition of a “Writing Workshop.” Any event where students are writing based on their choice within a structure, for an audience, and the teacher has done some conferring with students. To me, this seems like a multi-day workshop, where my previous vision of a workshop is more like a lesson that covers a few specific topics in order to for students to revise their already completed writing. So is a “Writing Workshop” just designated time for writing? I think I may have missed something here…
Something I’ve been doing for the past couple of years, since the start of the school year, is journal writing. Each student is given a spiral notebook, specifically for their journal writing which occurs each day or every other day as a warm up. Regie calls this free writing on page 179; five to ten minutes of time for students to write whatever they want without hesitation or concern for conventions, grammar, etc. I have a fun box filled with small “fortunes” or writing prompts that students enjoy drawing themselves (sometimes a handful) and they decide if one or more of the prompts will help them get the writing juices flowing.
I like the writing history chart for students on page 191. I like this for me, for my students, and for school/district records as we track progress through their high school years at our school—especially for IEP students making strides towards their short and long-term objectives.
Chapter 9
My hope is to hold one-on-one student conferences this spring when I focus our unit on creative/narrative/imaginary writing. Because all of my students are on IEPs and have some specific writing goals and objectives, I want to custom-create a short list of focus areas for the student to target on each of their writing pieces for the term. For instance, as a class, look at the state scoring guide and have them find one or two traits for each area that they understand and want to improve on. Strengths and writing goals on page 219 is also a great visual for us to keep looking at when we meet.
Chapter 10
Building personal, custom rubrics for each student (I only have 11 in each of two classes) seems like the only way for each student to be individually success in his or her own writing—not trying to fit their writing into a cookie cutter that just doesn’t work! I even look at the First Grade rubric on page 241 and see how that can even fit for a few of my deeply struggling 9th grade writers!
Thanks Virginia and Lindsay! Virginia – I also believe that The Daily Five system empowers students with choice! I’m trying to convince a teacher I work with to “pilot” it in her classroom with me. Beginning with narrative and writing from what they know best, their own lives, is a great way to start. I absolutely loved the idea of having the kids write “Common Sense” book for younger students – what a great purpose for writing! Lindsay – Transferring the learning from DOL into their real writing is great! And yes….a “writing workshop” is just daily time for writing with a consistent format each day, beginning with a, followed by independent practice with the teacher conferring or working with small groups on their writing, and ending with a brief share which usually brings the minilesson back into focus. Best of luck as you work on conferring in your upcoming unit!!!
ReplyDeleteChapter 7
ReplyDeleteChapter 7’s discussion of teaching writing skills within the actual process of writing, rather than in isolation resonated with me. I feel like I’m pretty good at teaching many of the components of writing, and my students will integrate those components into their writing. But I’ve always kind of felt, as Routman describes, that by teaching these components or standards rather rigidly it can actually constrict my students’ writing. When students feel, as in the example of the straight-A high school senior, that there are certain expectations for their piece of text that they are “assembling” they will be far less likely to take chances with their writing. This was shown recently in my class when I was trying to encourage my students to address the opponent’s argument in a piece of persuasive writing they were doing. Many of them were confused because they weren’t sure where this would fit in their “5 paragraph” model. They were so used to writing a certain way that many of them were unwilling and unable to try something new. In contrast, by teaching these skills within the context of the creative writing process, we offer our students a wider field to practice in as well as creating more enjoyable lessons. Teaching writing in isolation can feel like a drag for both teachers and students. Additionally, it does seem simple to teach standards without “teaching standards”, as they are pretty hard to miss. I felt encouraged when Routman wrote “if I focus first on excellent teaching of writing through writing for a valued reader, I will also be teaching all the skills in the context of that writing.”
I learned early on as a teacher that Daily Oral Language exercises don’t work. At one time I did do them, mostly because other teachers did, I did as a student, and it seemed like a good activity to begin a class. But it wasn’t long before I realized that the learning gains were minimal compared to the amount of time spent on them.
I also liked the idea of being very explicit in the revision process. Teaching revision has often felt a little awkward and disconnected to me. Like the DOL exercises, many attempts at teaching revision can seem disconnected and difficult to transfer. But I like the idea of thinking aloud while revising and explaining that I am careful to revise important pieces of writing.
Chapter 8
To me, the most useful part of Routman’s discussion of writing workshops was the list of that they are not. I like the idea of the writing workshop being a time for demonstration, exploration, and celebration. I also appreciate the idea that students will gradually be eased into individual writing after plenty of shared writing and demonstrations. How often have I provided students with a prompt, told them to write without any previous demonstration, and heard “I don’t know what to write about” within about 2 seconds.
The big question for me in this chapter is, of course, how do I make time for the amount of writing that Routman and others advocate? There is probably a way, and I have no doubt there’s more time for writing than what I currently do, but it will be tough. My block classes are exactly 90 minutes in length, so 45 minutes of writing a day takes half the time. As I write this, that amount of writing totally seems feasible (and there are many instances where we do spend as much time or more writing). But on the other hand, it does seem like the realities of school will interrupt this more often than not. Routman’s suggestions are well taken, such as being flexible in scheduling (while also having a predictable plan) and making the necessary commitment to writing. At the very least, being conscious of the need to write daily (as well as reflect, discuss, and model) will increase the amount of student writing.
Chapter 9
ReplyDeleteWriting conferences are crucial for students to grow as writers. They provide opportunities to receive feedback, set goals, teach important concepts, and celebrate their writing. In chapter 9, Routman describes a number of types of writing conferences, from whole class share to one on one teacher-student or student-student sharing.
The “teaching tip” side boxes in this chapter were great, by the way. I am intrigued by the tip to try not to restate students’ oral responses. This is counter-intuitive to me, but it does make sense.
Chapter 9’s explanation and discussion of conferences and sharing was helpful. I especially liked Routman’s suggestions for peer conferencing. Peer conferencing can be very powerful for students when done well, as it provides students with an audience, a variety of feedback, and teaches important skills not only for writing but also in how to actually productively and cooperatively communicate and exchange ideas. However, in the past I have certainly struggled with getting my students to peer conference well, as students tend to lack confidence and certainty of what to do. This is indicative that I have not demonstrated conferencing enough myself, as the optimal learning model would indicate. Students will not be ready to conference with each other until they have observed and participated in many group conferences with the teacher.
I also thought that Routman’s suggestions to be very explicit. That is, students will need to be clearly taught how to listen, the necessary procedures, and how to behave during writing conferences. As well as being a key to the classroom management aspect of conferences, it is also important in teaching students exactly how to share their writing.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 discusses assessment of student writing, and places it in context. Routman is conscious of the state testing pressures that many of us are under, and does not neglect the seemingly universal 6 traits of writing. However, Routman is clear to note that good teaching of writing will address these traits (or whatever is being used to assess the students) without teaching them in a vacuum. Rubrics are useful tools, but Routman cautions “when you focus on a checklist instead of the child, you miss a lot of what the child is trying to do.” I thought this was a thoughtful discussion, and found myself thinking about the way I use rubrics. I use them fairly frequently, but am never really sure to what extent they are used by or are helpful to my students. I will continue to use them frequently, but perhaps will have a better context for them.
With that said, many of Routman’s ideas in this chapter will be useful for preparing students for high-stakes tests. Some of these best practices include writing on demand, writing often, self scoring, and frontloading.
Ch 7
ReplyDeleteI’ll admit it. I’m guilty. I tried to teach AP style guidelines to my students this year by giving weekly quizzes. They bombed the quizzes, and I’m still making the same corrections. As I’ve said before, my new idea is to spend more time with each student going over my edits on their final drafts. We have a conversation about what changes I’ve suggested. Although I’m not a really negative teacher, I’ve made a conscious effort to praise one or two things about a student’s work before I begin to talk about the changes that we need to make. I think it is helping. Sitting down at a computer with each and every student does take a little more time, but I think it has been rewarding for the students. (We’ll see; we have a paper coming out next week. Our evening session, called “late night,” will be a good test for how things are going.)
I really enjoyed reading about voice. Even though I have used rubrics, I’ve always valued voice. Usually when I get high school students I have to unteach the rigid, formulaic writing; however, I admit that as much as I value voice, it’s not something I’ve actively taught. I’ve kind of assumed voice is what the good writers have intuitively. Now, I’m going to work on more actively teaching voice.
In journalism we do a ton of revision. We have three steps of revision before a story even gets posted to a page, and then we have several more revisions as we edit the page layout. I think my journalists get the importance of revision at least in journalism class. I’m not sure how much it influences the writing they do in other classes.
I don’t have to deal with many misspelled words. It’s amazing what a computer will do for you! However, I am very aware of how misspelled words and grammar problems can be distracting for the reader. My journalists know these mistakes make them “look dumb,” like when we misspelled “skier” in headline.
I enjoyed Regie’s comments about dictionary and thesaurus use. It’s so obvious when a student uses a thesaurus; their writing sounds so fake. Again, it’s about the voice.
Ch 8
It’s ironic; I teach journalism, but most of our time in the classroom is NOT spent on the actual writing. The classroom is kind of chaotic. I have 25 students doing 25 different things. Some are interviewing. Some are revising. Some are working on layout. And admittedly, there are probably a few students out there secretly working on an assignment for another class or watching youtube. By its very nature, the computer room is a very distracting place where students have learned to multi-task.
As a goal, I’m going to try to set aside some silent time every day to work on writing, writing alone. Now, I know I will get some resistance. Student will tell me they don’t have anything to write about today because they haven’t done an interview. I’m going to give myself a week to figure out how to incorporate this, but I like the idea.
One thing that happens naturally in journalism class is that we build a climate of trust. We are all putting our best efforts out there for the community to see, and we can feel vulnerable. We are all supportive of each other too. I support my students, and they in turn support each other and me. Yeah, there’s a little griping about the kids who don’t pull their weight, but every student in journalism would bend over backwards to help each other out. We have a saying posted on the bulletin board, “Whatever happens at late night, stays at late night.” We made up that rule after one particularly late night when our editor admitted she’d had a crush on one of the guys in the class when she was in the 8th grade. It’s trust building at the silliest and most serious levels.
Ch 9
ReplyDeleteI’m really lucky. By about November, most of what I’m doing in the classroom is writing conferences. I do lots of different kinds of conferences from whole-class share to roving conferences. However, chapter 9 made me think seriously about how I structure conferences and how I can do it more effectively.
I also want to hand over more responsibility to students. Right now, the editor-in-chief (a senior who has been in journalism since sophomore year)and I spend hours correcting little grammar, spelling and punctuation errors. What if I told student we weren’t going to do that? What if they felt more responsibility about producing more accurate stories and layouts. I can’t wait to implement this, and I’ve got my first chance this Wednesday. The biggest struggle will be getting my editor-in-chief to buy into this idea.
Ch 10
One of the reasons I can’t imagine going back to teaching in a traditional high school English classroom any time soon is because I remember how much time it takes to grade writing. I have spent so many hours over the past 16 years grading writing, and I’m wondering now how much of it was time wasted. Now, I have always used the roving conferences and whole class shares as ways to teach without having to evaluate everything at home. Regie says 80% of writing need not be graded. I know that I grade more than 20% of student writing, but I doubt I grade more than 50% of what my students produce…in class essays and longer assignments. However, it’s still overwhelming for me.
I enjoyed the story of Wanda WASL. How cute. In the last few years I’ve been doing my own standardized testing, getting my OR teaching license, and it’s funny because as a test taker myself I’ve always visualized the reader.
I really like the idea of students working toward being better communicators and trying to have students take responsibility for their work. So often I see high school students staying up late and throwing together an entire essay in one night. We all know it is going on, but I think as teachers we need to do a better job of building a culture where students take more pride in the process of writing.
I have to post this in two parts because I keep getting a message telling me I have too many characters even though I have deleted words to drop below the warning level.
ReplyDeletePart 1
The information in chapters 7-10 covered a wide range of information. As I read I was excited to incorporate the information into my teaching. I have written all over the margins of my books and even made sticky notes to take with me to class. But the reality is, when I am in my classroom, in front of the students all those ideas go out the wayside and I am back to my old ways of instruction.
The key elements I took from section three were model, practice, feedback, and expectations. I thought I was doing those but now I am not sure, at least not to the degree of effectiveness Regie talks about. I often find myself frustrated that my students are not producing the quality of work that I am expecting from them. I wonder if they are not paying attention. I ask for questions but nobody raises their hand so I send them on their way to work. The frustration builds as the line at my desk grows, and students work does not seem to be improving. The problem is not them, it is me; I haven’t modeled well! I now know what I have to do of you … I expect you to spell the word “went” correctly from now on … etc.” The word expect flows freely out of my mouth!
This change up has been fun and I am actually enjoying changing my style and modeling in front of my students. While I have not tried writing in front of my peers (spelling weakness!), I have been modeling writing in front of my students. They have all noticed how I “reread” as I write; constantly checking to make sure my story makes sense. We are learning the difference between revising and editing … something I used to teach as one.
Of all the concepts covered in these four chapters Conferencing is the one which I find most time consuming. I have yet to find the system that works best for me. I struggle with the realization that I will never be able to meet with every student everyday. My goal is to meet with all of them once a week and still be able to wonder around the classroom for mini on-the-spot conferences. My writers are starting to get use to the idea of when I am in a conference I am off limits, and to hold off on spelling questions until the 5-minute spelling help window is open.
Part 2
ReplyDeleteA few tips that really capture me: “…teach with a sense of urgency … attempt to make every minute count … instruction are relevant and interesting” (pg 184), and Teaching Tip: Listen Up “Don’t restate children’s oral responses, this compels students to listen to each other …” (pg 213). I am so aware of the minutes I waste throughout the day by repeating what children say, repeating directions, and transition times. I tell myself: awareness is good, working on a solution is better!
We shared opening sentences earlier this week from a piece of writing we have been working on (our own Secrets of a Third Grader book). As students read me their sentence I wrote several of them on chart paper. Then we looked at each one carefully. The students were able to identify the sentences which grabbed us and made us want to hear more verses the ones that really do much (we call this Super Sundae –vs- Plain Vanilla). It was a great exercise. I thanked the “plain vanilla” people for offering up sentences we could use as examples. I then encouraged those students to go back to their seat put some ‘toppings” on their opening sentence.
I have made an accountability chart like the one on page 217, along with the list of questions to keep in mind during a content conference from page 226. It is easy for me to “think” I have met with all my students on a regular basis, but this visual is helping me keep record of when I actually do meet with them.
Breaking down the process of content conferencing and editing conferencing was helpful for me. I struggle with doing it all at once and discouraging my students.
The most time consuming and most difficult part of writing is assessment scoring. We use the state scoring rubric district wide. There is nothing exciting to say about this final chapter. Scoring is the final piece of writing that I put off; it stacks up and stares me in the face.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteIt was so refreshing to hear Regie say that DOL lessons don't translate over to real writing. I hate doing these activities and totally felt it wasn't matching the skills my kids really needed to work on. I would get so frustrated to see students making errors in their writing that we had just practiced with DOL. I am glad that I can use Regie's reasoning and opinion to back up my phasing out of these lessons. I love the sample writing goals on pp.144. This will be so valuable when restructuring writing instruction.
I have been foucsing so much on conventions and organization that I left out some major factors in good writing. I am thankful that I was reminded of the importance of audience. I hope that focusing more on the audience will give my students more motivation to write. Before it felt like my class wrote because they had to. Now, I hope the better understand the WHY they write.
I also need to try and revise my writing in front of my students more often. We do it a lot using a GLAD strategy, but I know that it needs to be more. We have a class size revision check list. But, I thought that I could have them put one in the cover of their journal to be more handy.
I was a little surprised about the idea of limiting dictionaries and thesaurus. I thought I was teaching my class a valuable spelling strategy. But, I get that it is very time consuming and there are better options like a work wall. I always a negative about a word wall, but it was because it was never student generated or seemed to be over looked. This chapter has a lot over great ideas and elements that I need to quickly implement to make my writing block more valuable.
Chapter 8
ReplyDeleteWithin my Literacy block I have a scheduled writing time. We have mini lessons, journaling, daily oral language, and topic writing. I felt like my writing time was strong and the students were making growth, but it needed more. I would like to write my class books, add more shared writing, and take out isolated skills instruction. I also need to allow my students more freedom to free write and choose their own topics. I need to build their stamina and confidence as writers. Currently, they get so frustrated with freewriting because they feel they have nothing to write about. By focusing more on these areas the structure of my writing block will be a lot stronger and smoother.
I recently attended a Lucy Caulkins conference and several of her ideas cross with Regies. I now have a double dose of how to perfect my writers workshop!
Chapter 9
Conferencing with students about their writing is one of my favorite parts of my writing block. I love hearing their reasoning and explanations. I feel it is also one of my most valuable teaching moments. I am making real connections with students. I am always looking for ideas of home I can fine tune things or introduce something new. I like the Purpose of Writing Conference check list on pp. 206. This would be good to copy and have during conferences just as a little reminder. I also found the teaching tip on pp. 217 so important and something I need to remember. Regie list the only time you should write on a students paper. I can totally improve on this and show more respect to my students and their writing.
Chapter 10
Derek, Jenni, Hillary and Clara – Thanks for sharing your comments from Section Three. It was interesting because you all had some common themes in your responses…the importance of more modeling…TIME to write…(and how there wasn’t any) :) The issue of revision and editing….I enjoyed reading each of your comments! We are all struggling with similar issues!
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ReplyDeleteChapter 10
ReplyDeleteFor my class I have created a rubric that matches with the terms used on the state writing rubric. I have just made it into more 3rd grade friendly terms. I like having my students aware of what is expected of them and how they will grade. I like the idea of allowing student input on the rubric. I also like having a rubric or check list available to parents so they understand what is expected. The only time I use my rubric is when it is being scored for school wide assessment and report cards. Like Regie says, "use rubrics judiciously."
Regie talks about putting a school wide assessment policy into practice. I am so glad my school is on board with this.
Something I can take and work on is the aiming for fluency. I really need to help my class build their stamina to 20-30 minutes of silent write time. It is so doable. I just have to put it into action. The Try It, Apply It on page 246 will be my goal to teach my students to follow a similar format.