Make sure you have a plan!
While writing can be seen as an organic process, students function best, especially when asked to be creative, when they know they will have thirty minutes every Monday, Wednesday, or Friday to do so! Students like knowing what is coming, planning for it, preparing for it; some students will even think about how writing is tomorrow and bring in something to help their writing or come in with an idea all ready.
Make sure you have a... Predictable Plan!
I love this question from Calkins about starting a writer's workshop: How will we initiate, scaffold, and guide the classroom to deeper engagement?
This is all in the planning process! The organization is vital to help students flourish! Will they have a writing journal, folder, or will they start with a graphic organizer? Will there be small groups, individual, or whole group time in each lesson? When will students write? When will they share with others? What kind of writing are they doing? Do the students already understand this type of writing, or will they need guidance in creating their pieces? Will there be conferences? How will they ask for or get a conference with a peer or with each other? What sign will they do to show you that they are stuck? If they are stuck, what will they need to move on? Asking these questions in the planning process will save you so much sweat, blood, and tears later when students may struggle or turn in a piece that is not their best work.
Writing research folders and index cards, two things that I wish I would have used when writing in school. Storing all of the writing and research for a research project in one folder or binder would really help students who lose papers or get things out of order; creating this organization system for them helps control the chaos in the classroom, and stop the frenzy of students coming in frazzled because they have lost all of their work.
Use Post-It Notes as you walk around the room; maybe put those Post-It Notes on a clipboard to save for a conference, or put it on their work at some point so they can read the feedback that you have for them. In this way, you don't disturb their current thoughts and you don't mark on their work.
Focus conferences using specific questions, by conferencing when they have a question or a concern, or by making sure you open the conference with a specific question that focuses on a minilesson that has been done with the class. For example, if the students just learned about punctuation, or transition words, or about the first sentence of a paragraph, the conference can start with a question that asks, "How do you think you are using (insert item) in this piece of work?" Not only will this avoid empty or meaningless questions or conversations, but it will help both teacher and student use their time constructively in the conference.
Reading conference questions and writing conference questions have a few things in common; one is that you must ask enriching questions that help students get more out of what they are doing than what they would have on their own.
"Status of the Class" reports and share time are great ideas! During the writing process, students can share with each other, with you, or with the whole class a quick, thirty second synopsis of where they are and what they will do next; or in a sharing circle, they can read a piece that they have been working on in class. This also forces a student to look over what they have and engage in meta thinking about what they are working on. One question that I asked: How can we extend sharing circles to other subjects?
Digital Writing Workshops
What do we want digital tools to do? Is it enough to just do something old with the new digital tools?
For example, one class did PSA with a movie maker program. This involved writing the announcement, but the tool was used for more than typing up the report or doing the research.
My favorite quote from Hicks? "Digital writing is malleable."
What are questions or consequences that we have about using technology?
Calkins also suggests that we ask students these questions to help students seek self-approval and self-driven work instead of merely seeking teacher approval:
What are you going ot do next?
How do you like your draft?
What are you planning to do with this piece when you are done?
The whole point of the workshop is to:
"Teach the writer, then the writing." ~ Hicks
While writing is a personal act, and held personal by the writer, it is mediated with and interacts with and reflects the world around the reader, and that is what gives the writing of a student so much weight.
References:
Calkins, Lucy M. (1994). The Art of Teaching Writing. New Hampshire:Heinemann.
Daniels, H., Zemelman, S., Steineke, N. (2007). Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide. New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Hicks, Troy. (2009). Digital Writing Workshop. New Hampshire: Heinemann.
While writing can be seen as an organic process, students function best, especially when asked to be creative, when they know they will have thirty minutes every Monday, Wednesday, or Friday to do so! Students like knowing what is coming, planning for it, preparing for it; some students will even think about how writing is tomorrow and bring in something to help their writing or come in with an idea all ready.
Make sure you have a... Predictable Plan!
I love this question from Calkins about starting a writer's workshop: How will we initiate, scaffold, and guide the classroom to deeper engagement?
This is all in the planning process! The organization is vital to help students flourish! Will they have a writing journal, folder, or will they start with a graphic organizer? Will there be small groups, individual, or whole group time in each lesson? When will students write? When will they share with others? What kind of writing are they doing? Do the students already understand this type of writing, or will they need guidance in creating their pieces? Will there be conferences? How will they ask for or get a conference with a peer or with each other? What sign will they do to show you that they are stuck? If they are stuck, what will they need to move on? Asking these questions in the planning process will save you so much sweat, blood, and tears later when students may struggle or turn in a piece that is not their best work.
Writing research folders and index cards, two things that I wish I would have used when writing in school. Storing all of the writing and research for a research project in one folder or binder would really help students who lose papers or get things out of order; creating this organization system for them helps control the chaos in the classroom, and stop the frenzy of students coming in frazzled because they have lost all of their work.
Use Post-It Notes as you walk around the room; maybe put those Post-It Notes on a clipboard to save for a conference, or put it on their work at some point so they can read the feedback that you have for them. In this way, you don't disturb their current thoughts and you don't mark on their work.
Focus conferences using specific questions, by conferencing when they have a question or a concern, or by making sure you open the conference with a specific question that focuses on a minilesson that has been done with the class. For example, if the students just learned about punctuation, or transition words, or about the first sentence of a paragraph, the conference can start with a question that asks, "How do you think you are using (insert item) in this piece of work?" Not only will this avoid empty or meaningless questions or conversations, but it will help both teacher and student use their time constructively in the conference.
Reading conference questions and writing conference questions have a few things in common; one is that you must ask enriching questions that help students get more out of what they are doing than what they would have on their own.
"Status of the Class" reports and share time are great ideas! During the writing process, students can share with each other, with you, or with the whole class a quick, thirty second synopsis of where they are and what they will do next; or in a sharing circle, they can read a piece that they have been working on in class. This also forces a student to look over what they have and engage in meta thinking about what they are working on. One question that I asked: How can we extend sharing circles to other subjects?
Digital Writing Workshops
What do we want digital tools to do? Is it enough to just do something old with the new digital tools?
For example, one class did PSA with a movie maker program. This involved writing the announcement, but the tool was used for more than typing up the report or doing the research.
My favorite quote from Hicks? "Digital writing is malleable."
What are questions or consequences that we have about using technology?
Calkins also suggests that we ask students these questions to help students seek self-approval and self-driven work instead of merely seeking teacher approval:
What are you going ot do next?
How do you like your draft?
What are you planning to do with this piece when you are done?
The whole point of the workshop is to:
"Teach the writer, then the writing." ~ Hicks
While writing is a personal act, and held personal by the writer, it is mediated with and interacts with and reflects the world around the reader, and that is what gives the writing of a student so much weight.
References:
Calkins, Lucy M. (1994). The Art of Teaching Writing. New Hampshire:Heinemann.
Daniels, H., Zemelman, S., Steineke, N. (2007). Content-Area Writing: Every Teacher's Guide. New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Hicks, Troy. (2009). Digital Writing Workshop. New Hampshire: Heinemann.
Having a Predictable Plan was the largest "take-away" I received from Calkins' chapter! This is so important as a teacher. Students need to know what to expect so they too can plan for it. They will unconsciously start to think about their writing up ahead.
ReplyDeleteI loved the post-its ideas and the Status Updates. This will help to keep students accountable of their writing, while also keeping the teacher informed on progress or lack there of. Students will still be given ownership of their work.
"Teach the writer, then the writing"... wow! This is a quote that is SO powerful. One that I hope sticks with me through all of the future writers I teach. I am excited to get creative juices flowing in my writer's minds!
I complete agree with Heather!
ReplyDeleteI found that having a plan and structure for a writing workshop is one of the most important things that Calkins revealed in his readings. With all of the different ways to implement a writing workshop, as shown in your multiple questions, teachers must be aware of their plan. BUT I do think that it is as important to scaffold as it is to plan. Many teachers just plan, plan, plan, and they completely disregard to scaffolding and guiding part of the writing workshop. Students need our scaffolding and our help as much as they need structure.
I also found Calkins' idea of asking students where they are headed next after a peer conference to be so important. Not only will teachers be able to see what students learned from the conference, they will be able to get insight inside their students' heads and the direction of where they are going with their project. Having students discuss where they are headed in a writing project is so valuable to the teacher and the student.
I think you included some great points from the readings, Victoria. I especially liked the suggestions for how to make conferences and share time more valuable. When conferencing with students, it's important to remember to refer to the mini-lessons we teach to ensure that we are reinforcing those skills and helping our students recognize how to incorporate them into their own writing. And sharing at the end of the writing block does not need to be limited to one student reading his/her work to the class--there are certainly more options that would keep everyone engaged and allow the whole class to share something every day.
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