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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: This week we started our latest writing project: animal research reports (science link). Because of what I read about the importance of having an ‘audience’, I suggested to my students that we share with our second-grade reading buddies what we are learning about animals. We then talked about how we would have to organize our work so that they would best understand; about how we could organize the facts that they collected. I don’t know how this will turn out, and I am trying to keep my expectations in check because I know there can’t be a huge change with just one writing assignment. What I do know is that my girls were absolutely engaged in the conversation. They were actually excited about getting started, and were talking to each other as they were writing – about their writing. All of that has to be good stuff.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8: As I mentioned earlier, I am moving to Lithuania to work in an IB school next year, so I am not sure that I can completely lay out my schedule for literacy. What I do know is that they encourage this ‘workshop’ type model of teaching, so what I am learning in this class will certainly compliment what I am currently doing, and will fit with the expectations of my new school. I have to admit, I am looking forward to watching the DVD she mentions, because I want to see her in action! I really like (and have already started incorporating) some of the things she mentions here. For example, I really took to heart what she said about teaching skills discretely, like the prewrite. It’s sort of embarrassing that I sometimes get so caught up in teaching my students how to do something, that I forget – I don’t actually even use it myself! I do want my girls to be able to organize their thoughts, and for some things, like big research reports, I do feel that learning how to use an outline is important. I now let my girls just think about/talk about what they want to write, and then let them just start drafting because that’s how I write! Already, there is a more pleasant buzz in my room.
Chapter 9: I LOVE this chapter!!! I think I may have to just make a copy of it to carry around! While I do meet with my students now and conference with them about their writing, I find it difficult to keep the conferences short. There are so many great tips in here! Cannot wait to meet with some students on Sunday!!!!
Chapter 10: Currently my school is in a data collecting frenzy, and it’s driving me nuts!! Don’t get me wrong - I absolutely think that we need to assess student learning and use that data to inform our instruction, students, parents, and the public, but I am frustrated on my school’s need for outside evaluation of everything! When I was in graduate school, I was taught that there were many ways to assess student learning: formal assessments like standardized tests or end-of-unit exams, and informal assessments like quizzes, self-evaluations, and teacher observation. I agree with Regie when she says that not everything our students write needs to be scored. If you are conferencing with them, both you and the student know how she is doing. It seems to me that it should suffice to officially score a few pieces of writing (I like the 6 Traits+1 for that), but to also include on report cards a child’s growth. And the only way to see that growth is for the student to write. A lot!
I really like your chapter 10 response. I agree with you and Regie, with all the overload there really isn't time to score every piece of writing. However, through effective conferences and scoring simple pieces you know where each of the students is at. I only fully score their portfolio pieces for the standards. The other short writing responses, practice writing assignments are scored for a specific writing trait that we scaffold before hand.
DeleteThat is def. "good stuff!!" How are the reports going?
ReplyDeleteYour post makes me smile the further I read. :D I'm glad there is a happy buzz in your room. I agree, there is a benefit to knowing how to use outlines, but I agree that letting your girls go and get their ideas down is the most important piece. (I don't think I really understood outlines unitl college, maybe??? I still use my list format the most. :D)
Jackie and I also work at keeping conferences short. :D
Yes, the assessment frenzy is out of control. I'm sure it will swing the other way in time. Keep doing what you know is best for you and your students and do only what you need to in order to satisfy administration when you know it won't inform instruction.
The reports were a hit! My girls were very proud, and I think that the sharing aspect did give them more real ownership of their writing. One of my girls, Fatma, had pretty much just answered the questions about her animal with straight up facts, and so I read her report to her, asking her to listen like her second grade buddy, and when I finished she said, "that was boring." I laughed, too, and then she started coming up with ideas of how to add the cool stuff she had learned rather than just the height/weight kind of facts. I felt really good about that conference.
ReplyDeleteI am also really proud of my Zeinab. She is an extremely bright girl, who was very efficient at writing reports (this was not our first). And so I challenged her to write a story (Diary of a Worm style). It took her longer than the other students because at first she was having her animal simply state some of the facts, like "there is a drought and now some of us may die." We talked about how she would write about a drought if she were a zebra (who could write!), and whether or not she would even know it was a drought at first. She ended up adding a PS to about 5 of her entries where she kept saying how thirsty she (the zebra) was, and then wrote an entry about how happy the herd was when they found a water hole! I was proud of her.
Chapter 7
ReplyDeleteThis chapter both gave me insight but brought up many questions. I am embarrassed now to mention that I use Daily Paragraph Editing as a warm up for part of the year. I totally understand that they don’t transfer to their writing. I see that in their daily writing when they misspell words or forget all about conventions, but they can point out errors and edit paragraphs easily. However, I guess I just struggle with the fact that the steps to fix that are: having a specific audience, interesting topics, modeling and sharing their writing. How do they fix sentence structure from that? I really would like to know how to set up a lesson that is most effective in that area with out just skipping how to use conventions and hoping they figure it out from my modeling and reading. How are my ELL kids to do that? Would a good daily writing lesson that specifically addressed spelling, grammar and conventions, be like writing a paragraph for an audience, after I model, with an interesting topic and then we edit and share them out loud?
I guess I am looking for what type of lesson to use specifically. We address grammar in our content standards by using our literacy program. We learn irregular verbs, consonant doubling, etc. in our daily-required word work. After reading Jon Hattie’s meta-analysis I know that feedback and explicit instruction are the greatest indicators of student success. I have a hard time with the idea that if they just like what they are writing about they will be successful. I think there is some useful ideas here and there but I really think that students need more structure and knowledge of how to use different writing techniques than about who they are writing too.
Chapter 8
ReplyDeleteI get not always using a linear process and I value writing for a purpose that they love, but I don’t understand why you cannot follow a program, or practice skills or writing topic sentences. High stakes writing exams, advanced placement classes in high school, 5 paragraph essays (even with a beloved topic) all require a topic sentence with supporting details. As a writer the topic sentence and supporting details was the most effective thing that I learned and I was easily able to focus my essays knowing that knowledge. I like Regie’s environment for success and I think that all her ideas are good but I think that they are just the surface of writing. I want more explicit teaching methods. I like the short writing projects they are inspiring for new topics to write about.
Chapter 9
I think that writing conferences are effective and I like the ideas that Regie has. I like the, I can… and I am working on… sheet. I think that I am going to make one of those sheets for my next years class. I like the idea that Regie has about using students as teachers. I also like the idea of writing notes about what the student is going to do, and having that student write a note for themselves. I think this is a good way for them to hold themselves accountable. This is also a good thing for them to remember what to do after a few minutes. I like the whole class share conference, I am just worried about those students who wouldn’t want to share their writing, so is it only effective if you are able to share all of the students writing whole class?
Chapter 10
I really like this chapter about rubrics. I definitely believe a good rubric is essential. I think that being clear about what you are grading in their writing is helpful to them to know what is expected of them. I believe teaching to the rubric is the best test prep, since there is a rubric for tests, writing samples and essays they will have to write. I recently finished three rounds of speeches. I told them that a speech needs to convey their message and it is more about meaning and that message than it is about the conventions and spelling etc. 1st round was a letter that they wrote to the author of their favorite book. They had to read it to the class; this was their warm-up speech to get comfortable. The next speech was a persuasive speech to persuade the class to read their favorite book. I actually did the rubric last minute after reading this chapter and so the students didn’t get to see it before the speeches, which I don’t like doing. However, it proved to be a really great exercise for them in learning about rubrics. I told them about the requirements, they did the speeches and then I had conferences with all of them and gave them kudos and critique and their scores, and how to pass it. Then for their final speech it was a character show and tell and they had to write their speech as if they were the character. I gave them the rubric, with all of the things that had to be in it to get a 4 in each area. I made it simple to read and it reflected the state-scoring guide. I told them that they needed to use it as a last checklist to make sure they had everything to get the score they wanted. They were so much more successful in their final speech. I was wowed by their effort and writing, in the character speeches. They acted, they used great words, great transitions, so much that my principal even commented after we celebrated a few speeches by having them perform at our weekly assembly. Everyone was impressed and most of all, me. It was very impressive the writing that my class finished with when they embraced their character and had a goal.
I agree that students need to learn certain skills, not only to be successful on exams (of which there are too many!), but also to be successful writers. I don't think that Regie is saying not to teach these skills, but rather, I feel that she is cautioning us not to isolate skills so much from writing that our students don't ever learn to incorporate them into their actual writing. I am reminded of the Friday spelling test syndrome: students memorize words and ace the Friday test, but can't spell basic words correctly when writing essays. Trying to use students' own work as a springboard for mini-lessons about topic sentences, or organization of expository paragraphs, or any other isolated skill/concept, has worked really well for me this year. Sometimes I only pull a few children aside for a lesson, if I think that only those few need/are ready for it. Other times, I do whole class lessons. I have noticed that my girls this year are taking my lessons more seriously and actually applying what I have taught because they can see how it directly affects their writing. Honestly, I feel like I have differentiated more this year than any other, and I also feel that I have had the greatest impact on my students learning than ever before.
DeleteRemember what Regie said: use your common sense about what you know is good teaching, and the results of your hard work, and theirs, will show up those exams! Hang in there :)
For the students who don't like to share their writing, I would talk to them and explain that it is an expectation that everyone shares some writing in the class. I would also either give them advance notice so they could practice or find something they were proud of a day in advance, or whatever timeline worked for you, or suggest that you could read it for them.
DeleteEarly in the year I would have clear rules and expectations about share time and that we remain positive and encourage our classmates. Hopefully building this sense of trust and community would help encourage and support the students who were reluctant to share whole-class.
Oh my word, you weren’t kidding when you said this section was packed.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 7, I was drawn to a couple key areas, the first being the minilesson ideas. I can really see how the student conferencing format lends itself so beautifully to determining which minilessons are most valuable and important to your students. The list of suggested lesson ideas was also much appreciated, rather than thumbing through my half dozen books and lists. I appreciate the overarching list that Regie provided. The section on revising in front of students was also particularly encouraging. I especially found Regie’s comments about not focusing on conventions during this process very interesting, the idea of simply focusing on the revision and quality writing was refreshing. This tied into the comments Regie made about not even thinking about editing until the writing is worth editing. I am already thinking of ideas to get started in September with this mindset. When it came to the spelling and word wall section, I was excited to see what Regie had to say. I used a word wall two years ago, but found that it was not effective in my room, clearly not using it in a way that most benefited my students. Regie’s section was highly encouraging and I tied the use of personal word walls back to the SIOP training and a plan I already had to do personal dictionaries or word walls starting in the fall. Since I already color coordinate the heck out of my classroom, the use of content area words on my wall could easily be tied into the colors already in place for my students.
Chapter 8 was so meant for me! And my school! When I talk about writing or that I have been reading the Routman text, or taking a writing class, I’ve had staff members comment on needing a writing program or some scripted ideas so we can improve writing. And of course there I am beating my forehead against the wall… Not literally, but mentally! I so desperately want my whole staff to read this book! This was especially an interesting chapter because the writing section in our literacy curriculum is very much the opposite of what Regie talks about for a writing workshop. I was so jealous of the schedules that Regie showed in the text, they had such significant writing times! I would love that sort of time, unfortunately in a 7 hour school day so much time is all ready accounted for. I have about 30 minutes per day, for writing time. Even Regie’s suggested reading times at the minimum are more than the allotted time that I have, my goal for the fall is to look at our new daily schedule in order to get the most time out of it for writing. After reading the chapter, I also realized that although I am consistent in many other areas of school, my writing time is not always, not nearly, consistent. I need to focus on establishing better norms for how writing activities look.
I share so many of your concerns, Melissa! When I arrived here in Dubai three years ago, my school only had 45 minutes for literacy a day. Yes, that was for reading, writing, spelling, grammar.... Now, the girls did have another 45 minutes for Arabic, but still ~ I cried most nights! Now we have 90, technically, but many of us have been 'creative' in our scheduling.
DeleteI also am frustrated at the way my school has approached writing. We have used the 6 Traits+1, which I love, but there has been little in the way of professional development for those teachers who are not familiar with the Traits. We also, however, are supposed to use the Step-Up to Writing format when we teach expository writing. My list of issues with this doubled after reading this book!!!! Not that some students don't need to have some support for writing, but the idea that all students should pump out these formulaic and boring paragraphs is nauseating!
Maybe you can get a professional book club started at your school. I was hoping to do that here, but it never took off. Crossing my fingers for my next school. In the meantime, Melissa, keep doing what you are doing. We teachers learn so much from simply watching our colleagues ~ you are setting a great example!
Kathy,
DeleteThank you so much for the encouragement! I have been on my principal about this text and how much I am gaining from it, and not so subtly pushing for a book club!
I agree again with Kathy! I think having to be "creative" with schedules helps find some time. I know when Jackie and I taught together we didn't get our idea literacy schedule and had to make adjustments...sometimes we didn't see everyone every day like we wanted or one year we had plan only for a 4 day schedule so Fridays could be open for _____. I forget what now but know we had to adjust and do the best we can. As Kathy also shared, that over time and with advocacy schools often can find longer blocks for literacy. Stay positive and good luck with that book club! Ask for funds from your principal, PTO, director of curriculum. Encourage people to find the book at their library...though I think they'll want to keep their copy after they read it. :D
DeleteOh I also meant to share the site donorschoose.org when you mentioned about the little phones to whisper read. Perhaps you can put a request out on this site and get funded. Plus "grant writing" is a great skill to add to your resume. And on a last random note--those little type writer computers were called alpha smarts. I mentioned in an early post. I finally remembered what they were called. :D
Chapter 9, on the other hand, left me feeling like a slacker, but also highly motivated to improve my use of conferencing. I have always shied away from whole class conferencing, mostly because my students are so hesitant to write or share, and then the idea of sharing and taking on criticism seems so scary! This part of the chapter though was so informative and made me believe that I can use the process to the benefit of my class. As I think about the students that will be returning to my class as 5th graders, I know that we will have to do a lot of practice in being a good audience and providing constructive suggestions. I can definitely see myself modeling this strategy and using student observation to create a list of good rules or things to listen for as they act as the audience. I also loved the anecdotal notes on the roving conferences. I have seen anecdotal notes, often on post-it notes so they can be restuck onto pages dedicated to each individual student eventually. I know that would then keep a running track of student progress and teacher comments over the course of the quarter, semester, or year. I think I’ve said it before but I’ll repeat myself, I so appreciate Regie using lists and bullet points for ideas. I am a list maker myself, so even though the list isn’t necessarily detailed, I am able to garner quite a bit from them. Plus, I think they will make great quick references and reminders for me as a refresher between conferences or if I am looking for a specific way to comment. And many of the lists would great visual prompts for students to reference in the classroom!
ReplyDeleteChapter 10: I am so glad that Regie says that not all writing has to be rubric graded. Fortunately, but also unfortunately, my school does not have a grading requirement. There aren’t any writing criteria actually… but it does allow me the freedom to choose what I want to grade using a rubric and how often. Our teaching team developed a loose goal of having one graded piece per quarter. These assignments are based on specific writing modes, a specific focus for each quarter. I don’t feel comfortable basing an entire quarter’s grade on one assignment, so I personally do two assignments by rubrics, and then I also give them small points for participation in class, active working during writing, and good writing behavior. Most students score very well on those points, loosing maybe a point or two during the quarter, but it allows me to recognize students’ hard work and effort even though their writing skills may be low. Rubrics do show growth from one assignment to the next, but students that are very low may still have “poor” grades based on the rubric even though they have made good growth from where they started. That is one thing I would like to know more about, how to effectively figure out how to show growth grading in a way that is understandable for students, but also not time consuming for teachers with limited schedules! Thoughts, Jackie and Mary? I see growth in students, but grades don’t necessarily reflect the change. And how do I help students and parents see that growth?
Thanks Kathy for sharing your thoughts on Jessie's post. I agree with you. I take Regie's advice to be exactly what you said.
ReplyDeleteJessie, there isn't a one-size fits all approach that I know about. It sounds like you are looking for a set scope and sequence that lays out lessons for you. I'm sure there are programs that you could find that may work for you but I don't know of any. (If I'm misunderstanding let me know and I'm happy to chat with you on the phone...sometimes that's easier than trying to communicate with each other online.)
We feel the beauty of Regie's ideas is that they fit with any method a teacher may use. Even if they are using a prescribed curriculum.
During writing time teachers need to differentiate their instruction based on what each child needs. So your ELL students may at times be needing different strategy groups than other students. Conferring and working in groups and reading your students' writing would all inform what you decided to teach whole group or when you needed to pull groups or when you needed to work with just one or a few students.
We would use student work and examples on the document camera or overhead and also point out excellent convention use in books that you share.
We may have a difference of opinion or instructional philosophy, but I don't take Regie to only mean students will write better if they like who they are writing to. You can follow a program if you want and teach about topic sentences, as Kathy reminded us, Regie encourages us to "use our common sense about what we know is good teaching."
Like Kathy, I also found that my students' writing greatly improved after I had read this text and utilized some of Regie's suggestions and ideas.
Oh that's great that the speeches went well and that your principal noticed and commented on them. It feels wonderful when we are recognized for our (and our students') hard work.
Melissa,
ReplyDeleteDo you keep/use writing portfolios for your students. I feel like the real proof of growth comes from sharing samples of the students work from the beginning to the end of the year. I agree, I would not be comfortable giving a whole quarter grade based on one assignment.
The thing with grades are that they are often subjective. When I was in Lake Oswego we wrote a little blurb about grades for the first report card that went home, explaining to parents that grades are subjective and that they are a communication tool between home and school. We also said that they are used to show growth and areas of need from the beginning of the year to the end of the year so students will NOT all have 4's or A's or whatever your best "score" is for their report card in October. That it is more typical to have scores of 2's or 3's and that a 4 indicates mastery or exceptional. Anyway, you get my point. Maybe you and your team want to create a little blurb to send with the report cards or give at conference time to help parents understand exactly what the grades mean. Hope this helps. If other people have ideas, please share.