Writing Activities

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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this folder two others types should be created-- One for final drafts and one to collect writing that is incomplete and no longer active.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 ideas

Outside 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

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 books

Common 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.