26 of 31 - What We Wrote In Class!

The March Slice of Life Challenge- Is Nearly Over...
          Thanks to Ruth and Stacey, at Two Writing Teachers for all their work to facilitate this- 26 of 31

      Tweet at #Slice2013

              We’ve all been writing, writing, thinking about writing, then doing more writing!  Stephen King, in On Writing says: If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware off, no shortcut.  

            I have improved my own writing through the years by writing for myself, and by writing with my students.  Audience is important as well as writing for oneself. When I taught my students, I thought it was important for them to write—a lot.  There were formal assignments, but also I did many kinds of things that required writing, some creative and some quick writing that was both practice and a depository for ideas.   Many of my students became more accomplished as writers and I wanted to engage them with varied experiences, many through choice, readying them for their next steps of high school.  Here is a list of things that were written communication that occurred in my class.  This doesn’t even count other writing students did in the other classes they chose to take in what we called a ‘matrix’ choice program. 

What ‘informs’ the student learning in this area?  The top goal is that writing is for communication, and different audiences demand different kinds of writing.  We discussed audiences and point of view quite a lot during workshop and when new assignments were given. 

 Writer’s notebooks-includes many types of exploration, and students were encouraged to try new types of writing in this non-risky environment.  I responded to their written entries. 

Writing within the workshop, brief lessons:  show/tell paragraphs (identifying what is simple telling, that needs showing for elaboration, as in “she is lonely”—give descriptions that ‘show’ the word, etc.); writing narrowly—using things like ‘windows’ cut into a piece of cardboard-to write only what is seen, not too broad;  introductory and concluding paragraphs,   compare/contrast, etc.

Letter journals (3 times a week)-a personal piece just to me, but I asked them on Wednesdays to comment on their current book choices, how the book is going, what they think of the author’s style, etc. I replied to the letters, but briefly.

Workshop writing also included direct study of different genres—fiction (character descriptions, leads, endings, dialogue, setting descriptions), personal essays (memoir, opinions, nature writing, etc.), poetry, humor writing, plays, literature comparison, book reports

Unit writing from research included:  outlines and webbing, short paragraph descriptions, timelines, short and long research reports, speeches, magazine-type articles, mock newspapers and/or articles, booklets and brochures, poetry, picture books, map keys, captions, labels, advertisements, cartoon speech, lab reports, scientific observations, writing in the style of other writers, bibliographies (sometimes annotated), letter writing, thank you notes, directions for games and other devices,  lab reports, math responses as to how problems are solved

Field journals included:  nature writing, scientific observation paired with sketching, data collection, poetry

Misc. writing done in the past, often to support the class unit:  oral histories, discussion article responses, many of the pieces listed in the unit writing list, curriculum

Personal work:  Portfolio Evaluations-letter & short answer, applications for things in and out of school, thank you notes for various experiences

             It’s a comprehensive list, although I probably forgot something.  I wonder if you’ve made a list of the varied writing your students are doing?  It’s probably much more than you've considered. 

    photo credit: Jody Art via photopin cc