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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While reading chapter 7, I began to think about my own isolated skills lessons. Our reading program not only has whole group/small group reading lessons, but also includes daily writing, phonics, grammar, and spelling lessons. With only a 90 minute reading block, in which I have to include whole group and meetings with 3 small reading groups a day, there just seems to not be enough time. My main focus is to include reading, writing, and phonics into our small and/or large group instruction daily. Before this chapter, I would spend 20-25 minutes each morning 2-3 days a week teaching a grammar or spelling lesson. My students would also complete a two-sided worksheet with me. After reading this chapter I began to think about my students and their learning during these lessons. Many would be working with me, some would be finished ahead of time, and a few would just focus on copying the letters correctly. Now I have changed how I teach these lessons. I include the lessons into our morning messages on our Smart Board. Rather than completing worksheets, we complete the activity on the Smart Board. My students are more engaged and I feel better knowing that they aren’t spending the majority of the lesson copying. Chapter 8 gave me helpful ideas on organizing my daily writing. I liked the idea of establishing a purpose and audience for each writing piece. I plan to tell my students about my purpose and audience during my writing demonstrations. When they notice that I have a focus, they might begin to do this more as well. This chapter also gave me great ideas on how to get my students to have more conversations about writing. I like Regie’s idea of having in-depth conversations with one or two students in front of the whole class. I could easily do this during my mini lessons when I have a student share his/her writing piece. Finally, this chapter encouraged me to look more in-depth at my lesson plans for next year, and schedule a writing block that occurs at the same time each day. This years schedule does not allow for a writing block at the same time each day. I feel like my writing instruction and the time that my students actually get to write is rushed. In my school we have a master schedule. Reading, specials (music, library, and computers), recesses, lunch, and intervention, are all established during the summer, and it is very difficult to make changes since a change will require all grade levels to change. I am hoping to meet with our scheduling committee and make changes for next year. Chapters 9 and 10 gave me great information about writing conferences and assessment. Knowing that writing conferences can consist of a number of purposes helped me realize that the conferences don’t always have to be formal. I also liked Regie’s idea of keeping the conference focus on one or two main areas. She gave great suggestions for language to use in writing conferences which will help me when having individual conferences. I also agreed with Regie when she stated that she rarely expects beginning writers to assume full responsibility for editing. She explains that she wants beginning writers to find delight in writing. As a first grade teacher, I too want my kids to find delight in writing. This year writing is the one choice that many of my students choose on Thursday mornings when they can choose their literacy centers. Many stay at writing for three center rotations, and I couldn’t be more proud of their choice. In regards to scoring my first graders writing, we (kindergarten & first grade teachers at the school where I teach) use a rubric that is geared toward the beginning stages of writing. It has a scale from 1-11 and our goal is to have our first graders be at a 10 or 11 at the end of the year. This scoring rubric is what we use for our formal writing assessments. Chapter ten did inspire me to create a simple writing rubric to display near my writing table, and my students could also place the writing rubric in their writing folders. Regie provided great examples that will help me when I create my own.
ReplyDeleteAssignment Five
ReplyDeleteChapter 7 Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills
I was impressed by Regie’s view of the importance of telling students “why I’m doing what I’m doing,”(p.147) and that “Revision takes place even when we’re not writing.”(p.156)
Regarding integrating skills work into student writing rather than reaching it in isolation, I was especially interested in Regie’s view of invented spelling as “faster and more effective than teaching letter sounds in isolation.” (p.163), and that it also enables students to use lively vocabulary beyond words they can spell correctly. (p.162) She suggests placing the correct spelling below the invented spelling during shared writing.
In respect to word walls, these were great ideas:
• Highlight part of a word in color so that word can be used to figure out other words;
• When a student misspells a word wall word, write “w.w” above it.
• Posting words on individual cards using Velcro allows you to remove words that all students know, and to group words to suit needs and interests.
Chapter 8 Organize for Daily Writing
Writing Workshop—“a time in which everything that writers do to create a meaningful piece of writing for a reader.” (p.274)
Regarding the possibilities within genres, I agree that “Choice within structure means that students have a wide range of choices within a predetermined, engaging topic (one they often have had a hand in choosing).”(p.177)
Since I am a reading specialist working with individual students, changes to my literacy framework will be somewhat different from those of a classroom teacher. However, I am making these changes:
1. I have scrapped many of my worksheets.
2. Thinking aloud, talking as I write, makes my teaching more explicit.
3. Model my struggle with my own writing.
The concept of holding public conversations with a few students increases efficiency. It reminds me of when my dancing instructor danced with me in front of a student peer, then asked the other student, “What moves did you see us making?” It was very powerful teaching.
Another technique I love is “How to help narrow the focus...What’s the most important thing that happened or that you want to remember? Just tell about that.” (p. 182)
Also, “Voice is in the details that show the real person and story behind the words.” (p. 147), and “Teach it first, label it later.”(p.195)!
Chapter 9 Conference With Students
I was impressed with the efficiency of the teacher’s anecdotal notes (p.217) from roving conferences with an emphasis on content.
Also in this chapter is a directive to neatly cross out unwanted words. This helps teachers see a student’s thinking process as he/she writes. “Kids, when you reread your writing today, if you have parts that are boring or repeated, you can just cross them out the way Nathan did.” (p. 212)
“I can see that you crossed off a word. Tell me about this.” (Whole class share, p. 208).
Regie expresses such respect for the writer, always asking for permission before using a piece in whole class share, before cutting and pasting, and refraining from writing directly on students’ work. Another great suggestion for writing conferences is to just listen while the child reads, without looking at the words. (p.224)
Chapter 10 Make Assessment Count
I was impressed by Regie’s expectation for a whole page of text in 20-30 minutes from grade one on, with endurance and stamina developed by timed daily writing. Teachers’ minilessons should be 15 minutes at the most.
The description of Wanda WASL (p.247) is brilliant, and punctuates the importance of visualizing your reader. As Regie states at the close of this chapter, we want students to be asking:
Did I do enough?
Have I done my best?
Have I met the criteria?
Will my writing engage my reader?
Have I communicated clearly and accurately?
Hi Leslie,
ReplyDeleteDo you think your students need the phonics instruction? The last time I taught first grade we were mandated to use Read Well (NOT a fan.) Aside with my major issues with the scripted program, I truly felt that most my students didn’t need the intensive direct phonics instruction. It’s been a while since I taught first grade, but I was wondering what you notice or thought about phonics instruction. Perhaps if you don’t think the majority of your students require it, you could save some time and just pull a small focus group for the ones who still do need heavy phonics instruction.
It sounds like you are making some good changes in your classroom. Having students more engaged certainly makes instruction easier. ☺
That’s awesome that your students are loving writing and choosing it as a center. Kudos to you!!! I agree, there should be MORE delight in everything for our primary students…in reading, math, writing, drawing, all of it! (In fact, I think we need more joy and delight for all of us, teachers included!)
As I read about your rubric I wondered if you share examples of writing with your students on the document camera? If not, I def. would. Save pieces from other years, borrow from other classes, find some on the Internet, however you do it, show them what you are expecting and looking for by the end of the year. Let them see it and try it out and have conversations. I’d even show them an OK piece that meets standard and pieces that do not meet standard and discuss why. (Having no names and using pieces from other years or classes makes this easier to do, so you are not hurting anyone’s feelings.) I like to make it a practice to show them the three levels: Exceeds standard, Meets standard and Does Not Meet standard. I think first graders can handle this and learn from it.
Hi Jean,
ReplyDeleteYou are making some impressive changes to your instruction! We were also very impressed with how considerate Regie is towards the students. It is def. something to strive for and model.
Excellent recap on what we want and should be expecting our students to be asking themselves:
Did I do enough?
Have I done my best?
Have I met the criteria?
Will my writing engage my reader?
Have I communicated clearly and accurately?
Hi Jackie or Mary,
ReplyDeleteIn regards to phonics many of our staff use Read Well during our intervention reading block, I however do not. I have never liked the early books and I feel that there is too much time spent on teacher reading and not enough of student reading. We have the newer version and the stories are great when you reach the upper levels (students that are reading at or above grade level), but I find for my lower level readers guided reading, making words and some Write Well are much more beneficial during my reading intervention block.
I do feel that my first graders benefit from phonics instruction when it relates to sounds like ey, igh, ie, etc… and I incorporate phonics now more in my small groups rather than whole group instruction. I also modify the phonics instruction depending on the level of readers that I am meeting with.
Thanks for the suggestion on sharing writing pieces. I will definitely start to copy some pieces this year to show my students next year, since they will not recognize the writing pieces, and I will remove names :) What a great idea! Thank you!