This Teacher Attends a Writing Conference!

On February 27th I had the opportunity to travel to Orlando with nine of my colleagues to attend the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project's day long writing workshop.  The K-2 teachers heard Shanna Schwartz present ideas, strategies, and tips to use along with Lucy Calkin's Writing Units of Study.  I spent the day taking notes, turning and talking, snapping pictures, and internalizing some valuable information.

I took pages and pages of notes.  Thank goodness I had the weekend to process everything I learned. Here are just a few of the highlights:

The Units of Study were written for us to teach authentic writing.  Writing that exists in a library or a book store – writing that is written for an audience.  This is public, published writing – not personal journal writing.

Students will gradually develop their knowledge of conventions.  First accept their approximations and then correct them. 

Teach students skills and multiple strategies to do them.  We need multiple strategies.  For example, writing with a strong lead is the skill (what to do).  Strategies to do this (how to do) include setting the scene with weather, starting with a moment of action, starting with the character’s dialogue, etc. 

Writing is a process.  The less sophisticated the writer is… the more stories he/she will need to produce.  Students will go through the process independently.  Kindegarteners will produce a lot more stories than second graders.  Students need to go through the process many times and will learn something new each time.  As the children have more ideas and develop an understanding on conventions, etc. they will take longer on their writing.  (Gather ideasà Draft à Revise à Edit à Gather ideas à Draft à Revise, etc.)  Start new writing, instead of making “this” piece better, teach them to make the “next” piece better. 

Students need many pieces of writing, not one long story.  They need practice generating lots of ideas.  Ask them, “Where do you go all the time?  What do you see all the time? What do you do all the time?”

Children need to write independently and be able to work through the process.  Have a writing center in your classroom.  Release your control and allow children access to what they need.  Your just right paper should have a few more lines than you can fill up in your first go around.  Children will need paper choices.  Even second graders should be writing across many pages.  Each thought belongs on a page.  This is to give them a sense of writing in paragraphs. 

Celebrate the work not just the finished product. For every flap, re-write, edit, cross out, etc.  that is a place where you've grown as a writer.  You've made your work better. 

Mid-workshop editing break.  As adults, we write and edit as we go.  It’s a habit of mind.  To help teach this to children, stop during the writing time and tell them you are going to have a 1 minute editing break.  Set the timer for 1 minute while everyone reads their work looking for a specific thing to edit – could be capital I, could be punctuation.  Make the necessary edits then and there and move on after a minute passes. 

Strategies to Habits:  put a piece of computer paper in a page protector and divide it into four squares.  Each section should have a post it note with an individual writing goal in it.  Check these goals during writing conferences.  When the strategy has become a habit move to a poster/chart/pocket.  No more than four at a time.  Look What We've Accomplished! 

During a teacher meeting this week, I presented what I learned to my second grade ELA team.  We all left the meeting with renewed writing and teaching energy!  

If you ever have the chance to learn from these trail blazing professionals at TCRWP, I highly suggest you take it!