Chapter 3: Share Your Writing Life
• Write together as a staff
• Note your writing practices
• Tell students why you write
Chapter Two of Regie’s book segues right into her third chapter, “Share Your Writing Life.” In this chapter Regie drives home the importance of teachers sharing their writing process with their students. She encourages teachers to become writers in front of their students, on their own and with their staff, and also to share their daily writing practices with their students. The purpose of the assignment below (Assignment #3) is to get you writing.
ASSIGNMENT THREE: Sharing Your Writing Life!
For many of us, writing is not enjoyable and/or is very difficult. Perhaps it is because we ourselves were never celebrated as writers. Or perhaps we only remember the “skills” based comments written in various colored pens on our papers…that always sliced deep (and turned many of us into “non-writers.”) These comments never really helped our writing become any better. As a requirement of a summer writing institute (which I was conned into attending “so that I could become a better teacher of writing”) I (Jackie) bit the bullet and wrote extensively throughout the course. What they say is true: the more I wrote, the more I enjoyed it, and I believe I grew as a writer. The goal of this two-part assignment is to get you writing.
Part One:
For the first part of this assignment you need to think about topics for your own writing (ideas/stories that you can share to excite your students) and then actually write a short piece (ideally in front of your students.) If you do not presently have the opportunity to write in front of your students then please complete the activity on your own.
1. Use the topic idea list from Regie’s “Try It and Apply It” on page 26. Choose several topics, and then create a list of sub-topics for each.
2. Choose the sub-topic that most interests you and write a short piece that you can use to model writing in front of your students.
Part Two:
1. On pages 45-46, Regie gives suggestions for writing exercises for the start of school (or really anytime you need to get writing started.) Follow her criteria for “Capturing A Moment” (from the summer or any other time ) and draft a short piece. Follow the directions in the chart on page 46.
2. After completing the draft, which should take no more than 10 minutes, take a moment to write down some of your observations of your writing process. Again, use the suggestions from the chart or the bullets below:
o What are you thinking about as you are composing?
o What exactly did you do to plan, to get started writing, when you got stuck, or when you completed your piece?
o What does your process look like? Do you write straight through? Stop to re-read? Revise as you go? Look up information? Edit?
The goal of this activity is to get you to write - which will hopefully get you more comfortable writing in front of your children! Complete this activity and let us know how it went by sharing your answers to some of the bulleted questions above.
Please post your comments to the course blog. (We don’t need to see your writing piece. We are more interested in your thought process as you completed the exercise.)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Part 1:
ReplyDeleteStart of School
• Setting up my classroom
• Getting to know my new students
• Working with new colleagues
Travel
• Living on the economy in Germany
• 10 day road trip to 5 different counties
• Getting hitched in Las Vegas (really you would never know from the pictures)
• Honeymoon in Italy; only 1 ½ years late
Family
• Izzy & Maggie
• My Papa
• 4 sets of Grandparents
• Cooking with Grandma Draper
Pets
• Skeeter (my first dog, named after the Muppets)
• Skooter the Guinea pig; a short lived pet
• Hannah the beloved dog who we thought would out live us all
Cooking with Grandma Draper
My Grandma Draper was the most fabulous cook in the world. She knew how to cook anything and everything and it always tasted out of this world! I remember going to visit Grandma in Twin Rocks for the summer. She would have an entire menu planned for our visit. I was by her side every time she was in the kitchen. I wanted to learn everything I could about cooking. We would make elaborate and tasty meals, especially for dinner. As I remember the meals we made together my mouth begins to water. I can almost taste the food. The entire house fills with the smells of Grandma’s cooking, me her sous chef constantly by her side watching her every move. It is funny that after all the hours we spent preparing intricate and sophisticated meals together my finest memory of cooking with my Grandma is making “sticky popcorn.” It is a simple recipe of popcorn, marshmallows, and butter. After making this very easy recipe we would curl up on the couch to watch one of our favorite movies and dig in to the sticky, gooey mess. Enjoy!
Part 2:
It was a long and exhausting day. Up early for swimming lessons or at least I was. Izzy and Maggie didn’t want to get up. They were too tired from skating the night before. Not to mention they were up way later than usual. We made it just in time for Izzy’s swim lesson, well kind of. I drop her off at the front door. She runs in while Maggie and I park the car. After swimming we come home for study time. I know I am the mean mom who makes her children study over the summer. Wow, the fight to start study time only last 20 minutes today. Are we making progress? Both of them finish and the first thing they say, “I’m hungry.” They play while I prepare lunch. Lunch. Check. Now we are off to the library to return old books and pick up new ones. After that we head to the bank, fireworks stand, and the grocery store. Check. Check. And Check. Finally home. Can I rest? No. Time to get dinner ready. It takes about an hour to cook dinner and less than 20 to eat. Now, for sure I can rest, right? No. Oh, I forgot to mention, Maggie my youngest has a horrible heat rash over 80% of her body. So, as I am covering her with calamine lotion my husband comes in from his run. He is NOT happy. He thinks he tore is quadricep muscle. Shower and ice for him. I can’t take anymore!!! Will this day ever end? I need to sit down. Sit down, everyone! We are watching Little House on the Prairie. People always say, “It must be great to have the summers off to relax.” Relax…I think not! Summer is exhausting!
Observation of my process:
• I thought about my story before I started writing. It was very fresh in my mind.
• I found myself revising and editing as I drafted. Many times I went back a sentence or two to re-read and then make changes. When I was all done, I re-read the entire paragraph and made a few more edits including different word choices to make the story more interesting and clear to the reader.
• I realize I couldn’t give all the details of the day. So, I had to pick and choose.
• I was able to show the dialogue happening in my head as the day unfolded.
Assignment #3--Joyce Reynolds-Ward
ReplyDeleteI'm in the midst of a writing process as I plot out the next novel I will be working on. I hope this works for this assignment--please let me know if it doesn't!
I am putting up free background pieces for my Netwalk Sequence stories on my website twice a month, under the Netwalk Foundations tab. Originally, the plan was to pull out bits and pieces from my worldbuilding thoughts, a "behind the scenes" look at how I am developing the novels and novellas that I am selling. I had planned for these pieces to be drabbles, nothing major, but I'm finding myself writing stories instead of the sketchy notes I'd originally planned to create! Nonetheless, the Netwalk Foundations pieces are still writing exercises.
Currently, I'm working on a set of three stories called "The Daughters Series." The concept started out as a simple framing device with Story 1 about mothers and daughters arguing about boyfriends, Story 2 being daughters and boyfriends arguing about mothers, and Story 3 being boyfriends and mothers arguing about daughters. But that ended up not working by the time I sat down to plan out Story 2. My brain went on strike and refused to do anything further. I realized that the problem was, simply, that I had too much arguing going on. Arguing has its place in story creation, but this arguing was not building character or advancing the story. It was arguing for the sake of arguing. The arguments ended up being the same ones from different points of view. Boring. Not really needed, not for the reader, not for me. So that had to change.
I got my cue from the development of the covers for all three stories. My son as co-collaborator on the production end had suggested a particular concept--me holding a bag. In the first story, I hold the bag in front of me, staring down at it. In the second, I'm carrying it in front of me, getting ready to move on. In the third, it's over my shoulder as I walk. So, taking the cue from those pictures, I realized that the first story was about Conflict. The second was about Conciliation. The third was about Collaboration. Now this framework did not come easily. Conflict and Collaboration were easy to create, but the second word? Well, it needed to be a "C" word, preferably a "Co" word. I grabbed my dictionary and thumbed through it, quickly noting possible words for that second them--conciliation, concession, complication, concern were the primary words. Then I thought about where I wanted to go with the story--et voila! The outline happened nicely.
But there was more to the creation of the outline and advancing the story than just these themes. As I laid out the plot foundations for each story (each story also has three separate scenes, it's a very elaborate structure), I realized that I was also advancing my own understanding of an overall series arc--namely, the function and role of a particular device called Gizmo. I ended up expanding themes and making connections with the first story that I hadn't planned to create. The first story was not as consciously created, but I am finding that my outline is giving me the structure I need so that each scene advances the overall story, even with the changes in point of view. Now I need to make sure the bag is in each story!
Process comments--I plan much of my writing, whether it's a casual blog post or more formal writing. Often this takes the form of a quick mental outline--"oh, I want to write about this, these points need to be included." If I'm writing to advance a point of view or persuade, I'll spend more time outlining and thinking about my points, even in a blog post. When I get stuck, I may do the following:
*print out what I've written and edit on paper
*outline
*reread and revise to build up momentum
*look up needed information
It all depends on what needs to happen with the story,
Running out of character length restrictions, so that's all for now.
Just a quick share for folks...here is an excellent blog post by Laura Resnick about working her way through writer's block. I think these are good ideas we can use with our students.
ReplyDeletehttp://lauraresnickauthor.wordpress.com/2013/07/03/the-long-haul-writing-process/
Joyce
Part One:
ReplyDeleteSpecial Memory
• Playing in the snow with my dog Baba
• Trip to Sweden with my sister and my parents
• Clamming with my family (when I was young)
• Getting ice cream with my Grandmother
• Meeting a bear while running alone in the woods (bad idea but a funny story)
Summer
• Camping with my family
• Going to the Beach
• Hiking
Beach Vacation
Every summer my family and I spend a week at the beach. We all look forward to our annual vacation. We go to the same spot every year, so we already have in mind our favorite things to do. I love to wake up early in the morning and run on the beach. The air is cool and I can taste the saltiness of the water. I run right where the wave breaks so I can hear the slurp of my foot as it sinks into the wet sand. I make a game of it and see if I can outrun the tide. Sometimes, when I feel silly and no one else is around, I skip over the waves. My kids love to play in the water. They spend hours jumping in the freezing waves, skim boarding and collecting sand dollars. Last year we found 6 perfect sand dollars! My husband likes to fly kites. He brings 2 or 3 kites down to the beach and we take turns flying them. Usually he flies the kite and we run around and chase it, or dig it out of the sand. His kites are so colorful I love watching them soar through the air. He has a special kite that does tricks. It zooms through the air and does loop de loops. He likes to scare us by zooming the kite over our heads while we are reading or napping! It sounds like an airplane is zipping past your head. Even though we do almost the same thing every year, I think this is my favorite part of the summer.
Part Two:
We almost reached the shore on our little dinghy. If we didn’t get there soon my bladder would explode! Just as we drew near the beach the keel of the boat popped up. Oh, no our boat was tipping over! The mast hit the water with a thud. Helen, my sister, started yelling at me to pull the mast up. The more she yelled, the more I panicked. If she would just calm down, I could think. What were we going to do? Dad was going to be livid. In the midst of the pulling and pushing and yelling we heard this voice calling us from above, “Girls, what are you doing?” It was dad looking down on us from the bluff. We were on the beach right below our house. I looked at my sister and a wave of relief washed over us. We broke into a surge of laughter, as our boat lay beached on the shore.
Observation of my process:
• I told my story before I actually wrote it down. It helped me think about the important elements.
• As I wrote down the story, I told it out loud to make sure it made sense. I would also revise and edit as I went along. I read the story out loud to my children to make sure they understood my story.
• I took a while to condense the story. I really had to go back and think about word choice. In addition, it was hard to add dialog and keep the story clean.
• It was difficult to come up with an ending.
Lori Fossati Assignment #3
ReplyDeleteObservations of my writing process:
• As I was writing, I was thinking about “Our Trip”. I would find myself stopping and just sitting, thinking about our road trip to Canada to pick up our new puppy.
• I started the writing process by remembering our trip and writing down the answers to the questions from Regie’s “Capturing A Moment From The Summer”, criteria. (What happened? Why remember it? How did it make you feel?) I found that I didn’t stop writing as much as I normally would have if, I would have been writing for someone else. So, definitely author’s purpose had some affect on how I wrote. I know that I was less inhibited because I knew that I didn’t have to share it with anyone. When I did get stuck, or stop writing, I would go back and reread the whole piece, revising and editing as needed, each time I reread my story.
• I always start out on paper. I am not exactly sure why, I just do. Once I am done with a real rough, rough draft, I rewrite it on my laptop. As I retype I revise and edit. I don’t write straight through, at least not to the end of my story. I tend to stop after each part (thought) and reread. Again revising and editing.
Part 1
ReplyDeleteStart of school:
• First day as a teacher
Special Memory:
• Hole in one
• My son’s first fish
• Great Grandma
Pets:
• Friskey the cat
• Bandit the dog
My dog Bandit is a one year old, 12 pound Shih Tzu. He is black and white with a black mask around his eyes. The “mask” is where his name comes from as he looks like a bandit with a mask. Bandit was also the name of the dog in my favorite cartoon (Johnny Quest) as a child. I remember the first time I took him to the groomer. Upon picking him up, the groomer said she knew why he was named Bandit…..10 minutes spent with him and he will steal your heart! Bandit doesn't want to chase squirrels and run free, he only longs to be around people and primarily in your lap. Our favorite times together, besides when he is curled up next to me, are our daily walks. We take one together in the morning and again in the late evening. I let him lead and decide where he wants to visit. His nose leads us along a trail of smells that are important and noticeable only to him. I enjoy the quiet and solitude of our walks together. But the solitude is often broken by the greetings of the many fans he has developed as they stop to greet him. Other dogs we encounter on our walks are merely tolerated by Bandit, but what a show he will put on when people are approaching. What I love most about Bandit is that he is always there to greet me with excitement and a wagging tail whenever I return home. It does not matter how long or short I was away or if my day was good or bad; he is always happy to see me. And I am always happy to see him!
Part 2
Observations of my writing process:
• I organized my thoughts deciding what were the important parts I wanted to include
• I reread continuously to check for the flow
• I edited as I wrote changing word choice, etc
• When completed, I read the entire piece out loud and made final changes
Hi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteWe hope you found this assignment useful. It is helpful to think about our own process when we write and to share our thoughts with our students. We hope you plan to incorporate writing in front of your class next year. The more you do it, the easier it becomes.
Thanks for the link Joyce.
First, I want to express my appreciation for the exercises presented by Regie in Chapter 3. It was helpful to read her tips for how to demonstrate the writing process for our students and how to get started. I also thought it was a great reminder to read about letting our students see us struggle. Writing is something that I am not always comfortable with. I feel like it often takes me a long time to plan, think and compose my work - but allowing my students to see this process, giving them insight to what I go through when writing can still be meaningful for them. I always feel like because I'm the teacher, it needs to be perfect, when in fact they are learning from observing my process. Refreshing to read for sure!
ReplyDeleteObservation of my writing process:
- I think about what I am going to write about and will write down notes on important items I want to include in my writing (so as not to forget and to also help streamline my writing).
- Then, I went to work just writing. I always write on paper. It's more comfortable for me than composing at the computer. I guess I like the process of drawing lines through words or ideas and making changes as I go. It would look like a mess to someone else's eyes, but it always seems to work for me!
- I revise as I go, but don't always go back and reread too far. I save that for when I'm done writing and then really work on revising for clarity, word choice, conventions, etc.
- Lastly, I read it aloud and then make any final changes. I think hearing it out loud helps me to focus more on my writing (a comprehension strategy I'm reading about in Regie's Reading Essentials).
Megan Downey
ReplyDeleteWriting Essentials Assignment #3: Sharing your writing life!
This was such an interesting process, I haven’t written like this in such a long time. I choose to write about a moment from my summer, specifically when my husband and I went to Leavenworth, WA with a couple friends. It felt so refreshing to write about a personal experience and just get my ideas out there and recount what we did on this vacation. I have become so accustomed to writing IEPs and quick emails that there is little joy in writing anymore. In my reflection of chapter 3, I shared my hesitancy to write, but even something like this seems doable in front of my students.
-What are you thinking about as you are composing?
The primary thing on my mind as I wrote about my trip to Leavenworth was thinking about the events, and just allowing my fingers to flow as I recounted the things we did, how I felt while I was there and what I enjoyed most about our trip.
-What exactly did you do to plan, to get started writing, when you got stuck, or when you completed your piece?
The criteria for capturing a moment on page 46was really helpful in getting my brain started. I started out by writing down the big ideas or moments that were most memorable about the trip, which helped me start an outline for my writing: the day on the river, sausage!, scenery, friends. This allowed me to kind of remember what happened. From there I addressed each of Regies’s criteria within each event, why remember it and how it made me feel. This helped me organize my thinking a little bit.
-What does your process look like? Do you write straight through? Stop to reread Revise as you go? Look up information? Edit?
I was a bit surprised, this process looked a bit different than my usual IEP writing and/or email writing. Usually, I am more concerned with stopping as I go to reread or edit/revise each sentence as I go. In this type of writing, I found I was more concerned with getting all my ideas out rather than focusing on how things sounded or if I misspelled a word (even though I was using a word document, some of my quick typing is unrecognizable even to spellcheck). It was much more relaxing and freeing to be able to write like this.
Assignment #3
ReplyDeleteShare your Writing Life
Part 1
Start of School
Special Memory
Family
Nicole’s Softball Team
Favorite Author
Best Friend
My best friend Laurie is 12 years older than I am but we have daughters the same age, 13. My daughter Nicole and Laurie’s daughter Sarah have been school mates since they were in Kindergarten and friends since 1st grade. They went to school together until 6th grade. That is when Nicole went to the local public school and Sarah went to private school. However, they are still friends.
Besides getting the girls together, Laurie and I frequently have coffee together. If I need something sewn or fixed she is my go to girl. Our recent camping trip to Detroit Lake was with Laurie and her family. We both serve on two softball boards together.
Sarah had an older brother, Jeremy. Even though Laurie was not his biological mother, he was hers. Laurie was Jeremy’s stepmom. You would never know it unless you knew he had another mom. 1 ½ years ago while in Australia living and working Jeremy go sick. He was diagnosed with Leukemia. He was treated in Australia but eventually he had to come home for treatment. Jeremy battled for 1 ½ years but in May this year he lost and that horrible disease won. Laurie was so strong for her husband, daughter, Jeremy’s other mom, and the extended family. I can’t imagine what she went through. All I could do was be there to talk and that felt like so little. The most horrible part for me is by the time Laurie and I met, Jeremy was out of the house and I never really got to know him. I so wish I had known him for the wonderful young man that Laurie knew him for.
How does someone be the rock for everyone else in this horrible situation, keep her daughter’s life as normal as possible at this time and carry on while her heart breaks with every breath. I am in awe of my friend. I hope I am as a good of friend to her as she is to me.
Part 2.
The patio boat ride out to the cove was beautiful and it was fun watching all the other boats out that were faster than we were. The sun was out, no clouds and a bit of a breeze. Once we finally hit the cove and met up with the three other boats in our group Marty had trouble us lined up with the others. On his first attempt he buddies up to the other boats on the side where the ladder went for getting in and out of the boat- time to turn around. Finally we are all secured and everyone was hungry. We grab a quick lunch then time to check out the water. Wow, colder than I thought it would be. I start to step down the ladder and I climb right back up in to the boat. Wait and minute and try again. There is no way I am jumping off the boat into that. Finally I ease myself far enough into the water that I can let go and start swimming. Once I was in the water I did not want out. I was disappointed when it was time to head back.
This one was harder to write.
I stopped and went back to change words a few times- didn’t like the flow.
I tried to use “and” too many times and needed a new word.
I had to stop and think what to write, how to start and what to say.
I don’t like this piece as much as other writings.
Hi Stacey,
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed the chapter! Writing on paper is also my first choice, though I write so much now that I’m equally comfortable composing on the computer. But I still print out my work when possible to make edits and changes. It’s easier for me this way. It would be wonderful for you to share these steps with your students; especially the last step of reading it out loud. This strategy is so helpful for students to find their own errors or omissions without us having to say anything.
Hello Megan,
Leavenworth is such a cute town. I was there when I was pregnant with my first son, so 9 years ago. Wow, time goes fast. :D
I know I’ve said it, but your point of just getting your ideas out is worth mentioning again. Our students’ brains work so much faster than what they are able to record. As you said, just focusing on getting your story written and all of your thoughts down was important to you. This is really important for our students as well. It is very difficult for students to do this while having to stress about capital letters, correct spelling and punctuation right away. The easiest way to start to bring joy back to writing is to tell students that the most important thing is to get their ideas and story down so they remember it and can work with it. Then after this is done is when the work of making it clear for the reader begins. (This can include: adding details, taking out repetition, rearranging, correct grammar, spelling, mechanics and legible/neat handwriting.)
Oh Karyn,
What a beautiful, sad piece. The power of words…I cried as I read through your post. I am so sorry for any family that goes through a loss, especially one such as your friend did. I hope you have or planned to share it with Laurie. I’m sure it will mean more to her than you can know.
What is another point about writing that I would like to mention that you brought up is that sometimes our students just do not like the piece they wrote. They may even abandon a topic at times (which I think is absolutely fine…but not something that should happen frequently.) Remembering this and respecting our students as writers (and people) is important. Giving them the choice to adjust, abandon or put away for a time should be courtesy’s we afford all students. This is how many real authors say they work and create.