Writing

Writing is an important part of early childhood literacy.  Reading and writing go hand in hand.  If a child is a good writer, they are also a good reader.  My book club did an in depth study of writing this month.  I have learned so much about how to create 'good' writers in my classroom.

I read the Lucy Calkins book, THE ART OF TEACHING WRITING, along with a few others in our book club.  Here are our Calkins book club discussions from this course.

The Art of Teaching Writing

Book Club Meeting

Section 1

         My group found the fact that she compares writing to artistry in the first chapter of this book interesting.  We know there is a lot that goes into writing, and being a good writer, but we had not thought to compare it to a piece of art.  To the person writing, you must put many thoughts, feelings, and strategies into your work.  Comparing it to artwork makes sense. 

         Calkins discusses 3 essentials to children’s writing:  (page 3)

1) Children are deeply involved in writing.

2) They share their texts with others.

3) They perceive themselves as authors.

She feels these are interconnected and that children will gain a sense of authorship through their writing.  She also tells us that us that writing doesn’t begin by sitting at a desk and brainstorming ideas, but with living your life as an observer.  Noticing things in the world around you, wondering about things going on, remembering important things that have happened in your life, and a yearning to write is what makes a writer. 

         We loved reading the writing samples she provides in this chapter. Comparing the writing of a 7 year old to that of a 15 year old was enlightening.  Children grow so much and can accomplish so much as writers if we expect it of them and guide them to think like an author. 

         I liked how the author said, “significance cannot be found, it must be grown.” (Calkins, page 7) Growing as a writer can happen by finding something significant in our life experience.  Revisit an experience, find something beautiful in it, and simply write.  I am going to try and put this into practice with my third graders this year.  I want them to blossom them into artists.

Our book club this week read pages 59-287 from Lucy Calkins

Krista Milen, Tina Hatcher, Crystal Lawrence

The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy Calkins

         Our book club this week read pages 59-287 from Lucy Calkins. The first part dealt with the foundations of literacy (writing in the home, nursery school and kindergarten). She emphasized that oral language “takes place on a non-sequence, whole-task basis.” We wouldn’t dissect oral language into component parts and we shouldn’t drill young children on all the sounds of the alphabet before inviting them to write. We should treat early writing with respect just like we would a baby’s first words. She says when launching a writing workshop in the primary-level, classroom teachers need to accept whatever they may put down. Children don’t need to be afraid they will “fail”, but need to be accepted and praised for what they can do. Tina, Krista, and I liked how she addressed the students as “writers” Calkins also stresses that children’s drawing is rehearsal for them. It plays an important role in that it provides a supportive scaffolding within which can help children write. They can return to their drawing and the picture carries most of the child’s meaning. Calkins later discourages drawing, as a way of rehearsing for writing because she says that no solution works for every child and no solution should work forever. She says we should watch for signs indicating that a child no longer needs to weave drawing and writing together. She states that drawing is a predominant form of rehearsal for many 1^st graders, but talking is the most effective form of rehearsal for 2^nd grade. We all three liked the idea of notebooks in primary grades. They have it with them throughout the day and go home with them at night. It is a place for gathering bits and pieces of their lives. She also states that peer conferences may not get better writing, but longer texts.

          Calkins went on to discuss Writer’s Workshop in the upper elementary grades. We discussed how a lot of students are no longer comfortable to really get in to their writing due to peer pressure and bullying. We all agreed that students at this age need us to care about them and what is going on in their lives outside of the classroom. Building a community is especially important at this level of Writer’s Workshop. When building the community we must demonstrate our love for reading and writing. This is the age to make the reading/ writing connection. Students at this age still apply some of our values to their lives. We agreed with Calkins when she said that launching Writer’s Workshop with students in secondary grades is difficult. The teacher in Secondary Writing Workshops must build one on one relationships, seize the moment, teach on your toes, encourage students to voice themselves through writing, and see the energy in the classroom and go with it.

          Tina, Krista and I agreed that in order for Writer’s Workshop to work it must be predictable. Teachers must be organized, and set-aside particular times every day. “It is almost impossible to have a successful writing workshop if students write only one or two times per week. We like the components of Writer’s Workshop. We discussed the mini lesson, work time, conferencing, share sessions and publication. The mini lesson is just what it says. This is the time that is set aside to “teach” all the students something. We shouldn’t expect for every student, however, to use what was taught in his or her papers. There is not a set curriculum on what to teach in the mini lessons. Teachers must decide what to teach based on the needs of the students that she is teaching. A problem that teachers face with mini lessons is that teachers often struggle with reverting to the “old” way of teaching at this time. We all agreed that we must remember who ever is doing the most talking is doing the most learning.

         Tina, Krista, and I had a lot of favorite things about the book to discuss when we met.  One of the sections we all agreed upon was the section on mini-lessons of revisions.  I told the girls that I especially enjoyed the phrase by William Faulkner, “Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house in a strong wind” (Calkins, page 209).  The sense of urgency he discusses is what it is like when students are writing their first draft.  They need to get the ideas all down on paper quickly before they forget what their ideas were in the first place.  I will list a few of the recommended strategies for topics of mini-lessons here:

·      Write about a subject in a different genre

·      Rework a confused section- the ending, the title, etc

·      Take a long draft and make it shorter

·      Take a short entry of a draft and expand it

·      Imagine a purpose and an audience for it

·      Reread the draft evaluating what works and what does not

·      Read the entries/draft and think, ”Where’s the mystery here?”

·      Put the draft aside and return to it another day

·      Take a jumbled piece and rewrite it in sections or chapters

These are just a few of the strategies that we found would be most helpful to our age group of students.  (Calkins, pages 209-210)

         In the chapters on ‘conferring’, one phrase stood out to me that I shared with my group.  “Creation and criticism- these are central to our work with clay and blocks, and they are also central to our work with words.” (Calkins, page 222)  In these chapters of the book, Calkins was discussing how important it is to question themselves about their writing.  As readers, we should ask a question or two about our drafts. No matter the age, questions like these can be used over and over.

·      What have I said so far?

·      How do I like it? What is not so good that I can fix?

·      How does it sound? How does it look?

·      How else could I have done this?

·      What am I going to do next?

These are some questions that can be discussed during teacher-student or peer conferences to get a student to learn to interact with their own writing.  The goal for the teacher, over time, is to be unnecessary or unneeded. We want students to be successful at self-questioning.

         I enjoyed the different stories and anecdotes in this book.  There was a particular story about a little boy named Noah on pages 262-263 that was meaningful to me so I shared it with my book club group.  The story was in the chapter on publications.  Calkins was sharing how the 5 year old had written a 10-page book, with words and a picture on each page.  After reading his book to the class, his teacher asked him what he had written on the back of the book.  He told her that it was “nuthin”, just “sumfin” for the library.  He had put symbols for the section of the library that it would go into for the librarian.  This is humorous, yet significant, because he already sees himself as an author.  As Calkins says, “His teacher has not only helped him develop skills, she has also helped him develop a self-concept as an author.” (Calkins, page 263)  We want our students to not only act as writers, but to become one.  To see him/herself as an author causes the children to make connections with the books they read.  When they make connections, they are learning. 

Book Discussion #3

Krista Milen, Tina Hatcher, Crystal Lawrence

The Art of Teaching Writing by Lucy Calkins

     Our group read pp. 285-517 from Lucy Calkins’ book this week. Chapter 18 dealt with editing and the best way to approach it during writer’s workshop.  She discussed how many kids come to us thinking writing is a display of spelling, penmanship, and punctuation and they will focus more on that than the content.  We all three have seen this happen in our classrooms.  Students will just freeze up on spelling a word or where to put punctuation and then forget what they are even writing about.  Calkins stresses in this chapter that we need to help them write freely and unselfconsciously.  No one learns well while feeling afraid and ashamed.  We need to let students realize it’s ok to make editorial errors as they write; all of us do, and then we correct them as we edit.  She states that the best thing we can for their syntax, spelling, penmanship, and use of mechanics is to help them write more often and with confidence.  When she launches writer’s workshop, she tells them their notebooks aren’t meant to be displays of perfect spelling and handwriting.  It’s a place for deep thoughtful ideas and careful observation.  Our group agrees that young students need to focus, above all, on what they are saying and let spellings come out naturally. We liked her quote, “This is a rough draft. It is meant to be rough.  There will be a time for making it beautiful.”  Some other ideas/comments we liked when writing rough drafts:

-Let them use a pen or pencil

-If too much time being spent making letters perfect, she might say,” No erasing allowed- Just cross out and keep going.”

-She might show students one of her first drafts

-When children keep asking how to spell a word, they keep asking because you keep giving them the answer.  They need strategies for spelling words.  Say the word.  How many parts in the word? Now listen for the sounds in the words.

    It was also interesting the research she did among two third-grade classrooms comparing how they were taught writing.  Ms. West taught mechanics through daily drills and workbook exercises.  She started at the very beginning, teaching simple sentences, periods, capitals.  She did pretests and post-tests, but the children rarely wrote.  In Ms. Howard’s class, the children wrote every day and chattered as writers do, about conventions of written language.  When Calkins met with the “writers” who had not had formal instruction in punctuation, they could explain an average of 8.66 kinds of punctuation, whereas writers who had studied punctuation every day through classwork and drills could only explain 3.85 kinds of punctuation.  Even more important, children in the writing classroom liked punctuation.  Calkins stresses that when children view themselves as writers, like students in Ms. Howard’s class, they see punctuation everywhere.  They start noticing it and becoming familiar with it.  The nonwriters described punctuation by trying to remember the rules they’d been taught. How many of us do this?  We get bogged down writing as adults because we can’t remember the rules or how to spell a word.  Many of us were not taught to write “freely” and our first draft was our final draft.  We wanted it perfect the first time. 

    She discussed one way to help students edit is by giving them a checklist to go over before they turn their work in. The one she gave was very simple and we can see ourselves using it with our students. When conferencing with students, notice the things a student can do and only pick out one or 2 things for the student to work on as a writer.  We liked the idea of having a sheet of paper in their writing folder and jotting down what you notice and the one thing that student is working on.  Calkins also stresses that kids need to know that when authors finish their writing, they move on to another piece. 

    

     We discussed that poetry is a powerful genre because of its condensed nature. Every child in the classroom can be a poet, because poems can be very short. We liked how she allowed the children to use pieces from their notebooks to turn those in to poems.

     We all loved the section on Making Memoirs Out of the Pieces of Our Lives. Virginia Wolfe said, “A memoir is not what happens, but the person to whom things happen.” We all agreed that Memoirs will be a great way to really get to know our students, because we will learn their feelings, ideas, and insights rather than just reading about an event. The stage of writing memoirs is described by Randy Bomer as the stage of “shoving kids out of the nests.” He says this because they are forced out of their notebooks into a draft. They suggest that the easiest way to do this is by setting a deadline for a draft.

    In chapter 25, Calkins discussed how we used to do research from an encyclopedia, but today research starts out with what we experience and what we know instead.  She said we should tell our students to seek out new life experiences and relationships, which will help them to learn more, and to find more to write about.  We enjoyed the quote from Jean Fritz in this chapter, “As human beings, we thrive on astonishment.  Whatever is unknown quickens us, delivers us from ourselves, impels us to investigate, inspires us to imagine.”  We should watch out for surprise and mystery, these things will make for good nonfiction stories. 

    She discussed how we should create conditions in our classrooms to help the ‘learning’ happen.  We can’t ‘make’ students learn, but we can encourage them to ask questions, to notice and wonder, and to inquire about the world around them.  Writing is a way to do these things.  Writing throughout the day can be used to develop meaning and compose ideas about different topics.  Some ways to use writing that interested us were:

·  Writing to learn journals – add short journal writing activities into the classroom throughout the day to help them develop their thoughts and ideas

·   Take a few minutes to write down what we are thinking about a topic – this helps reel them back in if they have tuned out of a whole-class discussion

·   Have them summarize the ‘essence of the issue’ – use these summaries to get them actively participating in the class discussion

·   Write down what we know or wonder about a topic before you start discussing a new one

·   They can use writing as a tool for thought

·  “The main thing we’re talking about is…” – is helpful to stimulate a whole-class discussion

·   “The main thing I’m talking about is…” - is used for individual self-motivation

·   Writing can encourage students to ask questions and problem-solve in any content area

·    Write to support their reflections on their guesses and predictions during lessons

    Calkins describes ways to make our students into active learners through their writing in this book.  She talks about how much our teaching matters, and what a big responsibility it is to teach our students wisely.  We discussed how important our teaching is, and how we want to use more of the writing techniques from this book to grow as teachers.  We are teachers because we love our students.  How better to show them our love for them, than by expressing our love of learning through writing? 

Here are some helpful writing ideas I have found:

This is a great anchor chart to hang up for writer's workshop!

There are several more great ideas for non-fiction texts on this web site as well.

http://lifein4b.blogspot.com/search/label/verbs

Oh my goodness! This is one of my now-favorite sites for Writer's Workshop ideas! Mini lessons, genre units (complete with publication and celebration!!), writer's notebook setup (binderized!), and more! Uh-mazing!

http://teacherweb.com/SC/bells/madden/apt4.aspx


This is a great bulletin board idea. Teacher just makes the board.
The kids take turns writing sentences to post on the board. Neat idea!

 http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/search?q=writing+center

 I love this bulletin board! It will give so much info to the students
about writing.  She even puts a star beside the skill after she has taught it.
Great Idea!

 http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/


AWESOME  persuasive writing idea!
They will love to write about this topic.

http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/

Great template for writing narratives 

http://stepintosecondgrade.blogspot.com/

 A good anchor chart for writing 'how to' reminders.
  They put their name on the lines throughout the year
as they accomplish each one.

 http://afairytalefirstgrade.blogspot.com/


This is a good summarizing idea. I use it often in my classroom.
The anchor chart will make it easier
for them to see & remember.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then-Fiction-Retelling-P

A great organizer for this summary writing

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Somebody-Wanted-But-So-Then-Summarizing-Worksheet-244694