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I'm a student teacher this year as I complete a one-year M.Ed. Starting tomorrow I'll be working in a sixth grade classroom with 22 students. I'm really excited, particularly as I want to get a job working with older elementary students (grades 4-6), and I just finished an apprenticeship in a first grade classroom.
In talking to my mentor teacher before the end of last term, he asked for me to take on writing instruction as my first area of curricular focus. (He has known me for some time, and likes my writing.) He is himself a fantastic writer, so it's an honor to be given this teaching responsibility. I am being given a lot of freedom to design the curriculum however I would like to present it. (This is a an independent school.) After a lot of thought, I want to implement the Lucy Calkins writers' workshop model in this classroom. It will be a big change as these children are accustomed to producing essays only every other week. Assessment has been a final grade given by the teacher based on content and mechanics; very little revision and editing are done. My mentor teacher is very student-focussed and rarely uses text books, so he's comfortable with me taking a new approach as we start this term.
So, after that preamble, my questions to the commentariat are:
1) Have you implemented a writers' workshop? If so, what was your experience like? Any first-year pitfalls that I should know about?
2) Do you have any fun writing assignments you have used with pre-teens?
3) How often do you like to have your students produce writing for formal assessment?
4) What types of assignments have you used as a baseline assesment of your students?
I'm a student teacher this year as I complete a one-year M.Ed. Starting tomorrow I'll be working in a sixth grade classroom with 22 students. I'm really excited, particularly as I want to get a job working with older elementary students (grades 4-6), and I just finished an apprenticeship in a first grade classroom.
In talking to my mentor teacher before the end of last term, he asked for me to take on writing instruction as my first area of curricular focus. (He has known me for some time, and likes my writing.) He is himself a fantastic writer, so it's an honor to be given this teaching responsibility. I am being given a lot of freedom to design the curriculum however I would like to present it. (This is a an independent school.) After a lot of thought, I want to implement the Lucy Calkins writers' workshop model in this classroom. It will be a big change as these children are accustomed to producing essays only every other week. Assessment has been a final grade given by the teacher based on content and mechanics; very little revision and editing are done. My mentor teacher is very student-focussed and rarely uses text books, so he's comfortable with me taking a new approach as we start this term.
So, after that preamble, my questions to the commentariat are:
1) Have you implemented a writers' workshop? If so, what was your experience like? Any first-year pitfalls that I should know about?
2) Do you have any fun writing assignments you have used with pre-teens?
3) How often do you like to have your students produce writing for formal assessment?
4) What types of assignments have you used as a baseline assesment of your students?
It's quite appropriate to moving writing expectations up a few notches with the start of a new term; therefore, this change will fit right in.
I have implemented writers' workshop for many years; however, 4th grade is my highest grade level taught. One thing I know is that the higher the grade level, the more work it takes with writing conferences for editing!
Some of the great ideas I have seen & implemented over the years are who/what/when/where buckets for story ideas. This can even be created by students using magazines & computer-printed words.
We sometimes use a writing prompt for a pre-test in writing (ie. My Winter Vacation) or sometimes have it free choice with a prompt for those who want to use it.
There are a number of websites with grade-appropriate writing prompts such as:
Writing Prompts for Intermediate Students (http://www.thewritingsite.org/resources/prompts/intermediate.asp - broken link)
Peer editing certainly helps with the time element of editing. Spell/grammar-check on a word processing program is also a big help.
Some of the most fun activities I have seen & utilized have been 4th, 5th & 6th graders creating books (even "big books"- they love that!) to read & give to K, 1st, 2nd grade students as "reading buddies." The older students can then help the younger ones create a big book of their own.
Integrating writing across the curriculum is another great way to utilize writers' workshop with social studies research reports, science fair projects, or reader responses to literature.
6th graders are social beings so co-authoring a piece can be very effective. Cooperative learning structures lend well to writing. How about a school newspaper, sending 6th graders out as reporters? Are you in a K-6th?
One of the most valuable writing activities I do with kids comes when we create a rubric after they have completed their first essay. I take several of their essays and anonymously display them on a projector. We then assess them together, pulling out what we liked and disliked and charting the various things we uncover. Then, we go through the chart and create general categories (like mechanics, content, sentence structure, etc.), no more than 3-4 categories. Then we take each category and create a quality scale - I use a four-point scale (great, good, fair, poor) - to create a rubric.
I find this far more effective than using a pre-published rubric because the kids have invested in the creation of it, and they typically can't claim that they don't understand it. You can then use the rubric for self-assessment, peer-assessment and teacher-assessment, and remind the kids to use it when they write or proofread.
It may take 1-2 class periods, but has always been well worth it.
One of the most valuable writing activities I do with kids comes when we create a rubric after they have completed their first essay. I take several of their essays and anonymously display them on a projector. We then assess them together, pulling out what we liked and disliked and charting the various things we uncover. Then, we go through the chart and create general categories (like mechanics, content, sentence structure, etc.), no more than 3-4 categories. Then we take each category and create a quality scale - I use a four-point scale (great, good, fair, poor) - to create a rubric.
I find this far more effective than using a pre-published rubric because the kids have invested in the creation of it, and they typically can't claim that they don't understand it. You can then use the rubric for self-assessment, peer-assessment and teacher-assessment, and remind the kids to use it when they write or proofread.
It may take 1-2 class periods, but has always been well worth it.
What a fantastic idea that could be utilized at any grade level, maf!
Peer editing certainly helps with the time element of editing. Spell/grammar-check on a word processing program is also a big help.
I was going to point this out also. My third graders do a lot of peer revising and editing before I see it in a conference. I schedule my writing workshop period at a time when my instructional assistant can help out.
Mrs. 14 & You wrote: "How often do you like to have your students produce writing for formal assessment?"
I usually pull a writing grade weekly from my students. As for a "formal assessment," those I do periodically with no editing, no help. Our whole school does a formal writing assessment at the beginning of the year & then again at the end of the year to show the comparison at parent/teacher conferences. Those 2 pieces we pass on in a portfolio year-to-year to the next year's teacher. After 6th grade they have a portfolio K to 6th to give to parents. At conferences parents love to see their kinder, 1st grade, etc. writing.
One that my daughter's 8th grade teacher assigned was a Life Story Journal. It was an album and scrapbook, and they had to write their autobiography and include pictures from when they were babies and of their family and friends, etc. The kids really enjoyed it, and it made a great keepsake. She assigned the different chapters and the kids did all the writing.
I recently thought of a fun short writing assignment for around Halloween would be to write "Horrorscopes." I've not tried this, but I think the kids would enjoy it.
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fantastic idea!
