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Writing Activities
Your Links for This Section
The Student section has writing prompts and a story maker. It also includes the School House Rock recordings.
Author’s folders are notebooks in which
students keep their ongoing current writing. Along with this folder two others
types should be created-- One for final drafts and one to collect writing that
is incomplete and no longer active. The author’s folder can be organized in
the following way.
 Outside
Front-Topics sheet where students jot down ideas for topics for future pieces
of writing.Inside
Front-writing log perhaps titled “What I did today” in which students note
what they are working on, the status of the project and the date.Inside
back--This should be an evaluation form in which the teacher notes ideas for
students writing. It is important to provide positive feedback as well as
providing constructive ideasOutside
back—this is where students list their published pieces
Teachers
should try to review student progress at least once a week..
Traditionally
teachers used to ask all the questions. Today we encourage students to ask
questions based on their own schema and for their own purposes. The idea is
that the student knows what questions he or she needs the answers to.
Learning
Logs-The primary purpose of learning logs is to make students responsible
for the own learning and thinking. It allows students to write across the
curriculum. In these logs students ask questions, make guesses, and organize
information.
Learning logs
provide a great place for students to record questions they have regarding
material covered across the curriculum. Generally students will keep these
questions in mind and seek the answers through their study.
Just as you
encourage students to ask questions, you must also encourage them to
hypothesize the answers to these questions. The emphasis should not be on
correct answers but on educated guesses.
Students
should look for clues to the answers to their questions in such places as peer
questions and answers, books, teacher demonstrations.
Teacher Student conferences—the
purpose of this conference is to assess and guide. As teachers observe
student writing in groups and alone she jots down notes. These notes should
be put in the Author folder.
During the
conference the teacher focuses on content rather than mechanics. To begin
teachers should find something positive to say about the writing. This
allows the student to feel successful before digging in to see what can be
done to improve the writing. Through a series of questions about the writing
teachers can help students to draw out ideas regarding improving the content
of their writing. Teachers should be careful not to overwhelm the student
with revision suggestions. This is especially true of younger students just
learning to write.
Peer Content Conferences—students
show their final draft to one or two students who in turn comment on the
strengths and weaknesses of the piece. Students should be instructed to
write specific comments. If they believe a piece is good they should be able
to explain why.
Teacher-Led Editing Conferences-children
should be required to do their own editing first. After students finish
their own editing they sign up for an editing conference with the teacher.
In this conference the focus is on grammar, punctuation and spelling. As
with the content conference teachers need to limit their suggestions to the
knowledge base of the student.
Peer Led
Conferences-students look over each others work for grammar, punctuation,
and spelling errors.
“Group-composed
writing is a means for children to share the process of writing to
negotiate the form of various types of writing. Group composed writing can be
done in one of two ways:
 Teacher-Led
–the teacher does the transcribing and leads the composition process
Peer-collaborated-
children contribute portions or sections of a larger piece and do the
transcribing themselves
In both
instances children are supported in the writing process because they share the
process and learn from one another about composition strategies.”
Teacher led
writing is particularly useful for younger students because the teacher
takes care of the mechanics of writing while students can concentrate on
content. For this reason it is also a useful tool for older students in the
fact that the teacher is demonstrating the writing process. While students
are sharing ideas for content they are learning from the teacher how to form
this ideas into good writing. While transcribing student ideas into
sentences the teacher should explain what she is doing in terms of grammar
and punctuation and spelling.
Peer-Collaborated Group-Composed Writing
Children do
their own transcribing but work together to create a finished product. This
strategy is helpful for students overwhelmed by tackling a whole project by
themselves.
Journals
have many uses in the classroom. Different kinds of journals can be used to
meet varying needs. All journals are similar in that they provide for
informal writing experiences.
Book Response Journal-
Dialogue Journal-the concept behind
dialogue journals is that children may write about anything they choose
and share it with the teacher without fear of evaluation or lack of
privacy. This allows the teacher to get to know the child’s thought
processes better. These journals encourage spontaneity in writing which in
turn, builds self-confidence and writing fluency. Some things to keep in
mind are:
1. Use a
separate journal for all students. This can be as simple as stapling
notepaper together.
2. Set a
schedule for when students will write in the journals
3.
Encourage students to write about anything they wish
4. Make
sure students know that they can use invented spelling and that their
journal entries may be as short or long as they like.
5.
Respond to children’s entries often or they may stop writing willingly;
6.
Respond to the content of the message the child has provided.
Make sure
to avoid correcting the journal entries. The goal is communication, in any
form.
-Putting
brainstorming or stream of consciousness on paper. Once called a “free
write”, students are given 5 to 10 minutes to get their thoughts on paper.
Displays-posters, charts, maps, puppets, games, dioramas etc
Author’s Chair-actual chair where student’s sit to present their
writing to their peers.
Bookmaking-these books may be shared with other students and even
placed in the library. These books can easily be made with cardboard,
glue, paper, contact paper and scissors.
Teaching Grammar in Context
The
element of description-teachers may use various texts to show how
descriptive language is used.
Classroom
genre studies-have students all write on the same topic then have
student’s compare how each wrote about this topic. Examine some published
works on the topic so student’s can see how language can be used to convey
meaning.
 Have
students write on the same topic from two different genre.Examine
dialects in booksCommon
grammatical concepts-use children’s books to illustrate how and way
sentences are constructed the way they are.Children’s
own writing-during editing conferences students will learn about their own
grammar errors and learn how to fix them.
Students
love to play with language. You can capitalize on this natural inclination
and teach students some phonics and spelling in the process. One great
tool to use is nursery rhymes. Another idea is to play word games such as
the teacher saying a word but doing so with individual sounds. The
students then attempt to guess the word. Read books that focus on language
such as stories and poems with repeated lines or phrases. These could be
used to create a reader’s theater or choral reading activity. Keep it
simple. Teach initial and final consonants, consonant clusters, long
vowels with markers, consonant digraphs, and short vowel CVC pattern.
Teach high frequency word patterns. Word Walls-put words up that relate to
the current thematic unit.
References
Kiefer,
Barbara. Levstik, Linda, Pappas, Christine
An
Integrated Language Perspective in the Elementary School.Addison Weley
Longman, Inc.NYC, ã1999
All
material in this presentation is from Chapter 7
Writing
Activities and Experiences beginning on page 285.
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