Writing
Here are some ideas that are helping children make progress with their writing.
Recrafting to Need
Creating tiered lessons to address a focus area in writing. The lesson begins with a whole class modelling of the focus (10 minutes) then the students work in buddies to complete a task about the focus (cutting and pasting, correcting, creating). These tasks are shared with the whole class. (20 minutes) Then the students complete an individual task. (10 minutes) This is an opportunity for the teacher to see if the student has caught the learning. The focus is then taken through the writing for the week, giving students the opportunity to practise.
Workshops can also be delivered based on your re-crafting for those students who have not caught the learning.
Using Writing Rubric Pencils to set Writing Goals
Children choose a rubric goal from the pencils for their writing and write it at the top of their writing. They then think carefully about this as they write. At the end of their writing they assess their writing according to their goal and see if they have met that rubric goal. Then they share their writing with a buddy and the buddy assesses the writing and writes a comment in the peer assessment box. The teacher also adds a comment.
All the writing for the term is done on one document so the students can monitor their progress. Refer to example on the right from Kawakawa School.
Click here for links to the Writing Pencils (These were created from the Kaikohekohe Kid Speak Writing Rubrics)
Another IDEA!!
Students use the rubrics to write their goals and create a master doc of them. Each time they write they copy and paste their writing goals at the top of their writing. Once they have finished their writing they go through and highlight the evidence of their goals that they believe they have achieved in that piece of writing. The teacher then tracks the students progress towards their goals by looking at their evidence.
Another SPIN on this Idea!
Get students to create a visual (learning map) of their writing goals and what they want to achieve based on the rubrics. Laminate and have it available every time they write. This is a great reminder of their focus for writing.
Ideas at the Junior Level
Students draw their success criteria for their writing into their book. The teacher has pictures of the symbols the students need to draw available for them to use. When they have finished their writing they check it against the criteria with a buddy. The student puts a tick beside the ones they were successful at and a staircase next to what they haven't done. This becomes their next learning step for writing.
ALSO
Feeding in prior to the Writing Session for your priority learners.
Get the students to write a quick sentence, reinforcing the focus (Capital letter, finger spaces and a full stop.)
Discuss the focus of the writing session. Look at some of the language features they will require for the writing. Eg Writing a procedure, focus on verbs (bossy words)
Using Pear Deck
Pear Deck is an add-on and is built to work with Google Slides, so teachers and students log in with their gmail address. Pear Deck engages students by transforming presentations into interactive questions, conversations and assessments. Students can engage in the learning on their own screen and the teacher can see their responses.
This has been a great tool for the teaching of writing, especially language features.
Check out the Pear Deck presentation that has been used to teach simple and compound sentences. Please note: This google slide is not interactive as the teacher needs to login to pear deck to make it interactive,and then give the students the login code for that specific presentation. (Ohaeawai School) When the students are entering their responses the teacher can scroll up and down through the students ideas, helping students that need support or are confused.
It is a good idea to link the non-interactive to your planning so student's can go back and re-visit that learning. (Rewindable Learning)
Screencastify
Screencastify can have many uses for writing. One way that teachers are using it is for giving feedback to their students about their writing. Students can rewind the feedback as many times as they need, in order to effectively act on the feedback given. This ensures that students can remember the feedback and act on it at their own pace. This means they are not anxious about the editing process.
The students could also create a screencastify as a self assessment tool. Talking about and highlighting what they have done well and talking about what they think the need to work on next.
Front Loading Writing
Here is a brief idea for a front loading session for a target writing group.
1. Create a brainstorm about the Writing topic. Encourage them all to contribute. This could be done on paper or using a collaborative digital platform such as padlet.
2. As a group, select the ideas they will use for their writing.
3. Collaboratively start the writing. This might mean that everyone has the same Introduction/Orientation etc but everyone would of contributed to it.
OR Get each child to start their own writing using the brainstorm and everyone's support.
4. Discuss what they are going to write next. Make sure everyone understands and is clear about what their next steps are. Spend extra time with those that need it and send the rest off. This means they are all ready at writing time with the ideas to write.
Writing Workshops
Run writing workshops that address the student's writing goals and specific needs. It is good to specify who should attend the workshop but also make it open to anyone who feels they need more work on the focus for the workshop.
Here is a workshop planning sheet that you could use for your writing workshops. (Paihia School)
Engaging Boys to Write
IDEAS!
- Quick Write Warm ups - Make it competitive. Eg How many words can you write in one minute?
- Using picture prompts and videos. Eg Literacy Shed or Pobble 365
- Use prompts that are of interest. Eg Minecraft Prompts, LEGO Prompts
- Giving them choice about what they want to write about.
- Creating Adventure Stories - using LEGO to create the characters, places, events that take place etc
- Creating a shared story. Everyone contributes and builds on the story, one sentence at a time.
- Using Story Starters. This is a video resource aimed at engaging and inspiring boys to write. Click here for the link to the Story Starters website.
- Game of Awesome: This is a card game for 3-6 players designed to engage and inspire kids, specifically boys, to tell stories and learn to write. Playing the game helps students generate ideas quickly which they can explore, expand and write stories.
- Creating Comics to tell a story. Some good sites to create comics: Comic Life app, Storyboard That, Make Beliefs Comix
- Digital Storytelling, using stop motion.
Using Sketch Notes
Teach students how to make sketch notes. Sketch notes can be used to create graphics/visuals about topics, experiences etc which will support them with their writing. Sketch notes will trigger the ideas that students can use in their writing. Each part of the sketch note can become a paragraph.
Bay College students are creating sketch notes from information videos and then using the sketch notes to write their reports. Students are finding the writing of their reports easier as the visual helps trigger the ideas.
What is Sketch Notes? Sketch notes is a form of note taking but involves bringing visuals into the process. The combination of both words and visuals is very powerful for the brain to explore ideas.
Create a Digital Modelling Book
Create a document that you can share with your students that has everything linked to support their learning/writing focus. This is also the place where the students will do their writing. Allocate boxes in a table to each student where they can write. This helps support those students who are struggling with ideas to begin writing. It can also be a useful reminder of their writing goals, seeing other students writing. Capital Letters, Full Stops,
Here is an adapted example from a teacher at Kaikohe West School.