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.)
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ReplyDeleteFor this assignment I wrote about my pet. As I confer with students about their writing I bring a mentor text from the author we have been working on, writing I have been working on, students' writing, and my conferring sheet. I was looking for the book I was working on and pulled out one that I had written for my class earlier this year. One of my students said, “Mr. Whipps- I love that book. It was so funny.” It made me feel like an author. I want my students to feel the same way that first grader made me feel.
ReplyDeleteo What are you thinking about as you are composing?
As I was writing I was thinking about how I wanted to make my book like the mentor author's. What could I learn from Doreen Cronin that I wanted to try out in my own writing. I was focused on the content of the story and not about the mechanics or conventions.
o What exactly did you do to plan, to get started writing, when you got stuck, or when you completed your piece?
I used Doreen Cronin's book Wiggle. I decided that I would write a story called “Bump!” where I have different bumps through the day. I was also teaching my class about temporal words so I was using those for planning each page of the book. I did authentic writing in front of my class. When I got stuck I referred back to the author's book. I wasn't intending to at the beginning, but I ended up writing “Bump!” at the end of each page. This made the story more interesting.
o What does your process look like? Do you write straight through? Stop to re-read? Revise as you go? Look up information? Edit?
I like to write straight through. I did not stop to revise, but saved that for the end. I did refer to the mentor text when I was stuck. I wrote this over a few days. I stopped to re-read many times. When I finished writing it I edited and then revised by adding details and interesting adjectives.
I love how when you ask Kinders who is an artist, they all raise their hands. They also think they are authors...I'm not sure what happens for them to lose their confidence in the upper grades...but I agree all students should feel as though they are authors.
ReplyDeleteThat's great that you demonstrated referring to the mentor text. Students need to get the message that they can stop and check out books or information if they need to.
Assignment three: Sharing Your Writing Life!
ReplyDeleteI completed this assignment with a small group of fourth graders. I started off by telling them I was going to write a paragraph about a great memory I have of my mom coming home from the grocery store.
I started off by explaining that I gave myself several topics to choose from and I picked a special memory. Next, I made it more specific and I picked one special memory that I wanted to share with others. I verbally shared a little tease about the story I was going to share before I started writing. I shared with them that I had thought about the whole story before I started writing. I then started writing. I read the sentences as I wrote them down. This was a perfect way to teach them that we all make mistakes. They listened while I made changes to my own sentences after I read then aloud. I talked to them about “good writers” always making changes and adding to their writing. This helped them understand why I ask them to read their own writing aloud after they feel they are finished. I explained how our brain notices when things sound weird and then we can quickly fix the error.
I was at an excited part in the story, (the grocery bag started to move on the table) and I asked them what they thought happened next. To my surprise, they said, “You added capitals and periods.” I had an epiphany. I was totally shocked. It was just like Regie had mentioned in her book. I never would have guessed that would happen. I explained to them that conventions are important, but I was looking to add an exciting sentence to excite my reader. I then modeled the next sentence for them. After the paragraph was finished I had them pick a memory and begin writing their own story.
The students did create great paragraphs. Some students had very similar stories to my own, but they created a good paragraph. It was a very successful assignment and the students finished this paragraph quicker than usual. I also allowed them to sit in the, “teacher chair,” to share the story. I will continue to add new ideas to my groups.
I really enjoyed this exercise! My students seemed to be engaged in what I was writing and it was great to model the way I think when I write (which was different than I thought). I often see teachers teach our students to brainstorm and write in segments using graphic organizers, but as I modeled I didn’t do much of that. I brainstormed my topic options, but not much of my actual writing. As I started to write I thought about 2-3 things I wanted to say. My second sentence ended up being my concluding sentence as it made a nice summary statement of what I wrote about. Right before I started writing I thought about how I wanted to end it, which may be why I created my concluding sentence sooner than intended. As I continued to write I reread my story about every two-three sentences so to make sure my story flowed. I tried not to worry about spelling errors until I was finished and had reread and revised before correcting spelling. I can’t wait to model more with my students! When I did this they were more engaged and asked questions while I was writing which helped them see what I was thinking while I was writing.
ReplyDeleteHello Leah,
ReplyDeleteI wanted to touch-on your point about how some of your "students had very similar stories to my own." I'm guessing you feel as I do... I believe it's absolutley fine for beginning and struggling students to "copy" or have stories just like the teacher's example or whole class shared writing. If this is the support they need to feel confident and successful I believe it's fine for children to borrow your copy or see the chart better so they can model their story after the example given.
Hi Tia,
Your post is exactly why we added this assignment to the course. As you posted, it "was different than I thought" referring to your own writing process. My own style (and I believe the style of many other adults) is to just write. Many of us do not use graphic organizers or outlines. We just sort of start writing after thinking about our topic or maybe making a list. I do think showing students different ways of organizing and using graphic organizers is a good thing, but it's the overreliance on these tools that sometimes stifles the creative writing process for children. Well, that and the constant worrying about spelling and grammar. We need to teach students that the most important thing is get their ideas down AND THEN to care enough about our audience to go back and re-read the piece looking for spelling, grammar and punctuation errors. We want the piece to be clear and easy to read and understand and many errors distracts the reader from the message of the piece.
Glad you both found the assignment worthwhile. :)