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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A couple of weeks ago my students started a unit about poetry. We’ve also been studying children around the world, and ways to use describing words to help the reader visualize, so I thought that acrostic poems using their names would be a good first poem for the students. To get them started last week, I led a shared writing of an acrostic poem about an object. My students seemed to do pretty well with that shared writing, but when they went off to write their own poems using their names, it all sort of fell apart, and many were struggling. Several just used whatever random words they could think of that started with the specific letters in their name, so the poems were quite disconnected from the intended subject (the student) and very impersonal. I decided that this would be a good place to do some writing in front of my students, to model my own acrostic poem, using my name.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that the idea of writing in front of my students was a bit scary, and I was somewhat reluctant to do it. I noticed that I spent a lot of time thinking about what exactly I should write and questioning myself a lot about the potential focus of my poem. But over one weekend I was Skyping with my mom, and started feeling a bit homesick. I felt better when I realized that it was almost summer, which is when I normally travel home to visit friends and family. So I decided to share those feelings with my students. I told them that I wanted the readers to learn something about me when they read my acrostic poem; I wanted them to learn how I felt about my family and what I did each summer. I also told my students that since this poem was about my family, I would use my family (last) name instead of my first for the poem. And I reminded them that they could use any of their names (first, last, English, Chinese, or Korean) for their poems.
I had prepared for this poem probably more than I should have. While prewriting, I focused a lot on specific words/phrases I wanted to use. I wasn’t comfortable with just picking a topic and waiting until I was in front of my students to write more. I hadn’t completed a full draft, but I knew what I wanted to say for several of the lines. I had written down some of my ideas in a list form. I didn’t share this list with my students or talk about a prewrite. The next time I model writing for my students, I will remember to include this part. However, I was still able to talk through the rest of my writing process with my students. I found myself rereading a lot. Some of the students even started rereading aloud with me. Most of the students were engaged, and whenever I would pause to think about what I wanted to say, one or more of my students would shout out several suggestions of what I could write. I made several additions to add more vivid words, which I explicitly stated for my students’ benefit, and I changed an entire line by crossing it out and rewriting it, which seemed to interest my students a lot. I’ve noticed a great reluctance this year with some of my students to make these kind of large changes to their writing. I wanted to model for them that it was okay, and I believe seeing me actually do it was more powerful than me telling them that revision was a good step in the writing process. When I was finished, I thought aloud and reiterated that I was happy with the poem because I thought my readers would learn how I felt about going home to see my family.
I write in front of my students a lot. I like to tell them about my weaknesses. Hopefully they feel better knowing that the teacher makes mistake and they can, too.
DeleteI am terrible at poetry. I never teach it. I guess maybe I will step out of my comfort zone. Do you write a lot of poetry? My teammates do and I just don't get it.
Absolutely not! I think poetry writing is scarier (and harder) than other kinds of writing. I'm pretty comfortable with the kinds of writing that have gotten me through my life, academics, and career--namely expository writing. But creative writing and poetry are not something I consider myself good at, so I know how you feel. A coteacher of mine from the past used to write poetry, and so did her daughters. I didn't get it either.
DeleteI think something I need to do this summer is spend time reading good poetry and bravely trying to write my own. I'm spending a few weeks in Europe this summer with some very good friends, so I'm hoping I'll have enough inspiration to do journaling and poetry. I have to start somewhere, I suppose, or I'll never consider myself a writer.
Hi Ladies,
DeleteI wanted to reply to a couple of things. :)
Kelly, the more you write in front of your students the easier it becomes! Trust me, as you mentioned it's so powerful for the students to watch and see what we do when we write rather then just telling them… maybe the next time you do it you can be a little less planned and more on the spot having to really write without the prep work for your students. We make them do it all the time, so it's good for us to experience the same situation. :)
I strongly feel that poetry is an amazing genre to use for both reading and writing! It's short and less rigid for the students…I love sharing that poetry does not have to follow the rules of grammar. (I believe this allows students to focus more on the content and feeling of their writing, rather than worry about capitals, punctuation marks and spelling.) (We'll talk more about this later…YES, all of these are very important, but we want the students to feel successful and comfortable and work on their meaning. The conventions can come later.)
I don't love reading poetry or go to poetry readings, but some people do. I do recognize the value of poetry in the classroom though. You might want to check out some sites, here's one from Poets.org. If you are so inclined you can even see what poetry events are happing in your area.
http://poets.org/poetsorg/materials-teachers
I also love that you share the areas you are less strong in with your students, Kelly N. I do this as well. You may actually find that I am a poor speller. I tell all my students this frequently, but also tell them even though I have a hard time spelling, I am a great writer. I share that I have strategies that I use to make sure that my writing is error free so as not to distract my audience/reader. That is my job as an author or writer, to make sure my final product is error free. I use my husband, dictionaries, and have friends read my writing to make sure I did not miss something. I think it's important for students to realize that we adults also can struggle, make mistakes and have to redo what we are working on.
DeleteBefore I let the students go back to their own writing, I asked if anyone wanted to share what their readers would learn about them through their acrostic poem. At first, they were reluctant or unable to share, but I provided some guiding questions and they all eventually decided what they wanted their poem’s focus to be. When I conferenced with each individual student, I helped them clarify their focus further. A few of my students actually decided to completely rewrite their poems from last week, which I was happy to let them do. Other students just changed some wording or a line or two. But all of their poems are shaping up to be better than they were last week, so I’m quite happy with that. It’s too bad that I hadn’t read this chapter before we started!
ReplyDelete(Sorry for part 2; my original post was too long!)
This is wonderful that your students are gaining confidence in wanting to share and celebrate their work. We need more celebrations in school, and it doesn't mean we have to have cake and juice and a zillion people in the room. Quick shares can also be celebrations. They don't even have to be a finished piece. Teachers can ask, "Who has an amazing lead to share with the class?" Or, "Who has some descriptive language to share?" Or, any clever endings to share?" These quick celebrations are just what our students need. It can also be, "Who has something they are proud of that would like to read it to the class or to me?"
DeleteAssignment 3, Part 1: Share your writing
ReplyDeleteThe day before I do this assignment:
Tomorrow I am going to write a funny thing that happened. I will start the lesson by letting the students know that I feel like writing something funny. I will tell them I am not sure which story I want to share with them, but here are my ideas thus far.
1. I was in the shower yesterday and a spider was crawling on the curtain. I didn’t notice until I stepped into the water.
2. The slippery floor at the grocery store. Not only did I slip, several other people did, too.
3. The statue that was not a statue at Universal Studios. I would title this one, “The not a statue, statue.”
I will choose a topic and begin writing by thinking of a lead. “What is my story about?” Hopefully I will get to the retelling of the story and finish up the next day. Before the students leave the carpet, they will have time to think about a funny thing that has happened to them. Then they will talk to students about that story.
We will see how it goes. More to come about the process of my writing and what I was thinking as I write.
How did it go? I think it's great that you'll be modeling your pre write for your students.
DeleteI found, for my students, that the chance to spend some carpet time thinking about their topic and then sharing that with me really helped them focus their writing and get started more quickly.
Kelly N., all of those ideas were intriguing to me… I wonder which one you picked. A couple of things I have found: Having students write about what they know or have experienced is always way easier for them. For the little kids, I would even pick things that happened during school so I could help them with the story, like the day the hamster escaped or When Mrs. M slipped on the water in the room. Or the day we went to the apple orchard. This way you are able to prompt and support those early writers.
ReplyDeleteYou touched on it but time for thinking is so important. Also oral rehearsal is a valuable tool to use with reluctant or struggling writers. Having them get the words and order of the story out and processed helps so much with the writing process. Some students may need help with sentence stems to get their ideas flowing. The ultimate goal is we want them to feel successful and feel like writers. No one likes to do anything they aren't good at.
During my lesson, the students stopped throughout the lesson to think. One thing about first graders, they always want to talk about their thinking. As in all of my whole group lessons, kids stop to think and then share with a partner every 2-5 minutes. Therefore, during any given lesson, they think and then talk to peers/teacher 3-7 times. Then after time to independently work, the students stop to talk about what they have done so far with peer/teacher.
ReplyDeleteAfter this lesson, the students that weren't confident about their topic met with me in a small group to further focus their ideas. Here is the reflection of my lesson (written immediately following the lesson):
I just finished the lesson. Wow there was a lot of laughing. While I was writing my think aloud included rereading. I reread to make sure it sounded right and when I needed to know what to write next. I stretched out sounds. If it didn’t look right, I circled it to check later. Don’t get stuck for spelling. Try it, circle it and move on. I stopped to consider word choice. I thought about how Elephant would say it in the Elephant and Piggie books. I thought about the transition words began my sentence. I used then already and wanted to make sure to start sentences differently.
Yes!!! "Lots of laughing." Shouldn't we all be saying this everyday? School should be fun. :) I do exactly what you do with spelling, I stretch it out, check it it looks right and if not, circle it and move on, knowing I need to go back later to recheck.
ReplyDeleteMo Willems Rocks! Just read my students Pigeon Needs a Bath. :)