RAINBOW Categories in Explanatory Writing

Do your students have trouble using evidence to support their writing?  This is a common problem and it makes it difficult for students to produce strong, focused writing.  

Last summer, I went to a professional development session where Cathy Whitehead, Tennessee's 2015-2016 teacher of the year, led a PD session on rainbow synthesis.  I instantly knew it was the perfect foundation to develop a pre-writing strategy that would be easy to use for students. RAINBOW Categories is my favorite pre-writing strategy and I know once you try it, you and your students will love it too!

Teaching students to categorize evidence into topics is invaluable.   It gives them the confidence and independence to write, without constant supervision and reassurance from the teacher. It is especially perfect for students who are visual learners.  

In my classroom, I use mentor essays, or interactive writing (see previous post), to show the thinking a writer goes through during each step of the process.  During this time, we create a class essay and use RAINBOW Categories. 

The steps for rainbow strategy are easy to follow:

1. Pull apart the prompt and create a question to focus on as you read.
2. As you read, write down words or phrases that will answer the prompt.  This is the evidence you will use when you write. This also helps students with paraphrasing when writing.
3. Once you've finished gathering evidence, categorize evidence by color.  During the model, we try to look for similarities in topics to identify categories. We look for the things that make sense together and circle them.  We create a key to identify topics by color.  These topics will be part of our thesis statement, later becoming the topic sentences for our body paragraphs.
4. Conversations about words that could go in multiple categories will undoubtedly occur, as well as whether some words belong in any of our chosen categories.  Show students the thinking that should take place when categorizing and making those important decisions. 
   
5. After we use RAINBOW categories, we evaluate our evidence to ensure it is adequate.  If we need more, we return to the text.  
6. We create our thesis statement using the categories we developed. For example, in the graphic above, the thesis statement is: The Titanic was remarkable because it was an enormous cruise ship, was luxurious, and had safety features that set it apart from other cruise ships of its time.  What makes this beautiful is the evidence is already organized by paragraph.  This makes writing so much easier for students.
7. Eventually, to prepare for standardized testing, we change the colors to shapes: circles, squares, and triangles.  Students won't always have access to three color markers.
8. After the pre-writing strategies, you are ready to begin writing.

RAINBOW Categories is also great for opinion writing.  It just has to be organized differently.  During that type of writing, instead of organizing our writing as seen above, we use a t-chart.  The heading of each side of the t-chart are the two choices.  As we read, we put evidence on the appropriate side.  For instance, if the prompt asks who made a bigger sacrifice: Ruby Bridges or Karl Heinz-Shnibbe, we label each side with those two names.  As we read, we put evidence about each person on the appropriate side.  When we've completed completed reading our text and filling out our t-chart, we categorize the evidence on the side that reflects our opinion, develop our thesis statement, and begin writing.  So much easier than any other prewriting strategy I've seen.

Providing students with a strategy to organize evidence before they write will improve students writing.  Teachers need to become experts at providing students with a variety of strategies to do this.  RAINBOW Categories is one way your students can become superstars when they organize their writing!

Making Writer's Workshop Possible: Class Mentor Essay

If you had told me ten years ago I would love teaching writing, I would have told you you were crazier than a teacher getting an evaluation on party day.  But I do!  Why, you might ask? Because I've finally figured it out.  I've discovered how to create writers. This year, I've created students who believe they are writers and I owe it all to Writer's Workshop.

Mentor Essays in Writer's Workshop

It's an exciting time to be a writing teacher.  The shift in the new standards emphasize students' ability to write.  As teachers, we need to think carefully about how we teach writing because we play a central role our students' success. We must effectively teach writing and we should embrace that challenge with excitement. 

To make writing manageable, it needs to be broken down into bite-sized chunks, so students can master one element at a time. One of those chunks involves using a mentor essay.  

A mentor text is a term we are familiar with.  It is a text that is an example of good writing for writers. A mentor essay is a text students write with the teacher to provide guided practice of how to write a good essay. 

Steps For Success With Mentor Essays

I start each year with opinion writing.  Let's be honest, our students usually love their own opinions, so I say let's use that to our benefit!  I start by telling them opinion writing is their chance to prove they are right and that appeals to them. Then, I explicitly teach how to write an opinion essay through a series of mini-lessons, while simultaneously writing a class mentor essay. The steps for writing a mentor essay are easy to follow and implement in your classroom.

1. Define It: I start the writing unit by explaining to students we will create a class essay together.  I tell them it will be our "mentor essay".  This essay will be a good example of how to write.  It will have an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion paragraphs that they will want to replicate.  It will be their go-to if they ever get stuck in their own writing.  It will be displayed for them to use throughout the year. 
2. Read Texts: If we are going to write a mentor essay together, we have to read the texts we are going to write about.  Prior to reading the texts, we look at the prompt, as I would expect them to do with their own essays. Then, we read the texts. I have varying level of students. Some students can read the text independently and some read it in small groups with a teacher.  It is important to give your students the support they need to access the texts so they can write about it, without taking away their opportunity to be independent.
3. Write: As I teach each component of opinion writing, we write the mentor essay as a class on anchor chart paper.  When I say we, I mean we. This means let go of your control and use their ideas.  If their ideas need improvement, then help guide them to making their ideas work. Students will value the mentor essay more if they contributed to its writing. During this time, I often pretend I am them, and think out loud. Teach them strategies during this time that a good writer uses.  The teacher must model what a good writer does so students know what good writers do. For instance, when writing an introduction, we write it, evaluate it for effect, check it for the elements of an introduction, and then reread it for clarity.  Many times, I leave mistakes so we can correct them during the edit and revise stage.  Modeling is critical during this step and will lead to better student writing.   

   

   The class uses our rough draft to revise our final draft.
   
   

4. Edit and Revise: It takes us about a week to write our class model, maybe more, because we write each part as I teach it. Once we've written it, we edit for mistakes. We revise parts that are weak or need more evidence.  This is a step many students skip in their own writing, so it's important to teach them how critical this step is.  We mark up our original essay.  I draw arrows, cross out, and change words as they see fit.  I model what I want them to do.  I tell them revising can be messy and that's okay!
5. Rewrite: Once we've edited and revised our rough draft, we rewrite our essay.  I have the students write their own copy of the mentor essay so they have a copy to keep in their Writing Notebooks.  
6. Replicate: Replicating isn't the final step. It actually happens during the other steps.  It is something the students do during their WW. They replicate what we do in writing our mentor essay in their own writing.  

If you have any questions about using a mentor essay in your class, let me know.  Mentor texts are an invaluable part of any Writer's Workshop.  It is important that students see what good writing looks like, so they can apply that knowledge to their own writing.

Making Writer's Workshop Possible: Conferencing

Your students' writing will improve through regular opportunities to write.  The Writer's Workshop (WW) model allows students to work on an Independent Project (IP) of their choice, while focusing on goals set specifically for them. Effective writing instruction is a scaffolded collaboration between the teacher and student. Feedback is a crucial part of that instruction.  Students can benefit from a variety of feedback.  Once your WW routines have been established, add conferencing to maximize your results (see previous post on setting up a WW).  In this post, I will focus on the four types of conferencing I use in my Writer's Workshop:

1. Teacher-Small Group
2. Teacher-Student
3. Student-Student Partnership
4. Student Small Group (no teacher)

When I conference with students, I use these forms to keep anecdotal records, set goals, and monitor progress.  I use these records during the conference or right after a conference to document what occurred.

Teacher-Student Conferencing

Teacher-Student Conferences are specific to an individual need.  I begin each WW by walking around the room and "leaning in" on students writing.  My normal practice is to have 4-5 T-S conferences before I do any small groups.  During these conferences I provide feedback on what they've written, as well as provide "feed forward".  Feedback evaluates what a student has already written.  "Feed forward" focuses on what strategies to use next.  For example, if a student has developed their thesis statement, I would ask them what their plan would be for using the thesis statement to set up their body paragraphs.  It is important to know what all your students are doing during WW and the only way to do this is to "lean in" on their writing regularly.

Teacher-Small Group Conferencing

I meet with a small group to discuss reasons for their opinions.

There are two types of Teacher-Small Group (T-SG) Conferences that take place in my room.  The first focuses on helping students help each other. At any given time during my WW, there are 6-8 different IPs being completed by students.  I meet with at least 2 groups each day to check progress.  If several students start a project together, I may meet with them to discuss their organization using the TIDE graphic organizer, or to discuss some possible reasons to support their claim for an opinion essay. During this type of meeting, I am the facilitator.  I direct students, based on the needs of the group, to work together to help the collective group.  The second type of T-SG focuses on teaching a mini-lesson to teach or remediate skills needed to be successful on independent project.  For example, if I see five students who are struggling to develop a strong thesis statement, I would call them back to reteach the concept.  It makes no difference which IP they are working on because it is the skill they are struggling with.  

Student-Student Partnerships

Hannah offers her partner advice on his introduction paragraph.

This is my first year using Partnerships in my room. When students have a partnership with another student, they "have each others back".  They are not only concerned with making sure their writing is the best possible job they can do, but they are responsible for making sure their partners is too.  They work together to organize, ensure evidence supports the writing, revise, and edit.  They are one another's lifeline.  Partners do not have to be working on the same IP, and in fact, it is better if they are not. Partners may meet at any time during Independent Writing Time in WW.  Using this type of conferencing relieves the teacher of being the primary source of information during WW.  The students begin to rely on each other.  When this happens, the students become the facilitators.  

Student Small Group

Student Small Group occurs when students are in a variety of phases.  They could be looking for reasons to support their claim to an opinion essay.  They could be organizing an essay.  One of the most successful uses I've had so far was a revision train.  I had them edit each others essay and offer feedback on possible edits to improve sentence fluency and word choice.  I usually instigate the SSG by forming them and giving them a goal, but I've also had students form them as well.  Once your routine for conferencing are in place, students will start to take the reigns and work together to improve one anothers' writing.

Students work to edit their essays

Conferencing is an integral part of any WW.  When implemented strategically and regularly, it will improve the writing of all who take part.

My next post will focus on the third part of WW: share time.  

 

Making Writer's Workshop Possible: The Set-Up

It is understood that to improve in any area, you must practice. This adage is especially true of writing.  If we expect our students to become independent writers, then we must provide them with time to practice.  Up until this year, I taught reading.  I used the Reader's Workshop as a way for my students to improve the skills necessary to be a successful reader.  When I was moved to exclusively teaching writing this year, I knew I wanted to maintain the workshop method in my classroom, so I began researching the Writer's Workshop.  

This past summer, I worked my way through most of the writing all-stars: Ruth Culham, Lucy Calkins, Kelly Gallagher,  and M. Colleen Cruz. I quickly realized WW was going to provide my students with a choice about what they wrote, while simultaneously allowing me to teach the standards that would help them develop good writing technique.  I developed an action plan. I am going to spend the next few weeks blogging about my experience as a newbie implementing my first WW.

The strongest writing classrooms have independent writing projects at their heart.  That is, students are following the whole-class curriculum, but they are also working on their own piece of writing on a topic of their choice (Cruz, 2015).  This is the beauty of the workshop method: students spend time every day independently working on improving their skills.  I am sure I was like many of you.  I was just not sure how to make it work for me in my classroom. I believe I've come up with a manageable way to successfully start a writer's workshop into the classroom.  

Before you begin any workshop routine, you must spend some time explicitly teaching writing.  I spent the first five weeks of school teaching Ruth Culham's 6+1 Traits of Writing.  Once we worked our way through the traits, I began explicitly teaching opinion writing using the POW TIDE strategy. I am about a week into teaching opinion writing and we are ready to begin WW so students can independently practice what they are learning in whole group.

One hallmark of the WW is choice.  Three weeks ago, I put up an anchor chart titled "What I Want to Write About".  It quickly filled up with a variety of topics.  Over the last several weeks, I've gathered as many paired texts on those topics as I could.  Some came from Teachers Pay Teachers, some from newsela.com, and others I had to adapt and modify from newspaper and magazines articles I found.  As I found articles, I filed them by topics.

Last week, I chose texts for our first independent project.  Since we are focusing on opinion writing in whole group, I found paired texts that would fit opinion writing. Since this is my first time giving the students an independent project, I decided to start with six choices.  I didn't want there to be too many texts because I need to be familiar with all of the texts they are writing about.  Yes, this means I had to read all of the paired texts so I can help students when I'm conferencing with them.  The topics my students will choose from for their first project are: Football Heroes (Manning or Newton), Basketball Starts (James or Curry), Presidential Candidates (Clinton or Trump), Self-Driving Cars (banned or not), Pokemon Go! (banned or not), and Abolitionists (Douglass or Garrison).

Next, I copied 15 copies of each of the paired texts and prompts. I have 75 students in my three classes.  I set them up on a table. I put a sign-up sheet by each project so I can keep up with who is writing on which topic. This will help when I conference or have peer groups meet together.  

Monday morning, I will establish clear guidelines when I introduce WW.   Mine are simple.  Since this will be the beginning our WW, students are only allowed to work on skills I've already explicitly taught in whole group through our class model write.  I have already taught the POW in POW TIDE and writing a thesis statement.  This means, when we start next week, students can only work on skills such as tearing the prompts apart, reading their texts, and writing a thesis statement.   I will continue next week teaching mini-lessons on organizing an essay and an introduction paragraph.  Once I've taught the skills and we've practiced it on our class model, students can start on that part of their writing.

Finally, as part of the set-up for WW, I've created a board to help me keep track of where students are in the writing process. When students move to another part of the process, they move their name.  Not only does this let me know where they are, it encourages students to think about the writing process and ensures they don't skip steps, such as organizing their essays, which students are notorious for trying to skip.

I have high hopes for my WW. I believe this strategy will grow all writers in my classroom.  I can offer remediation in small groups or individually to students who need help organizing an essay or citing evidence. I can push my high fliers, who often get overlooked, to add sophistication to their writing by including metaphors or symbolism. WW has the potential to meet the needs of all students in our classrooms.  It is a time that should be valued and protected.

Next week, I will blog about conferencing with students, both individually and in small groups, during WW. 

Using Articles of the Week to Improve Writing

Are you maximizing your bell ringer time?  Today, teaching has become a race against the clock.  There's never enough time! This is why we must be deliberate about the bell ringers we choose to use in our classrooms.  Carefully planned bell ringers provide students with opportunities to work authentically with both reading and writing.  Articles of the Week (AoW) is an important strategy teachers can use to support readers and writers during this time.

A large problem with students today is they don't understand texts well enough to write about them, especially informational texts.  As teachers of writing, we often have students dive right in and start writing, without taking this into account.  This explains why students' writing often lacks focus and clarity. Writing is thinking.  If students don't understand the text, they are unable to write about it.  

In practicing writing, we must give students multiple opportunities to work with a text before they write about it. One way to do this is to create Articles of the Week, or find existing Articles of the Week, in your classrooms.  Kelly Gallagher, a leading expert on building deeper readers and writers, suggests using Articles of the Week to help students gain access to the text.

Where Can I Find Articles of the Week?

The good news is, if you teach grades 5-12, there are already a lot of pre-made materials out there! Vale Middle School, Holmes Middle School, and Riverside Middle School offer a full archive of ready-to-use AoWs.  Other sites, such as Brooks Middle School and Scholastic, provide texts to use for middle-schoolers.  There are numerous resources available for High School students too.  Gallagher, Stuart, and Schotz offer paired texts to create your own AoWs activities. Springville High School and Avon High School offer articles with text-based questions.  I have created my own materials for 5th grade students using a variety of Scholastic articles.  I've uploaded week 1 in Scribd for your benefit.

5th Grade, Article of the Week #1

Making Your Own Articles of the Week

If you are like me and you wanted to tailor your AoWs to your classes specific needs, you need to create your own.  It's easy.

1. Choose an article on an appropriate lexile for your students.  If you know you are going to use an article for an upcoming writing assignment, using it as an AoW provides students with an opportunity to work with the text before they write about it.  I use the snipit tool to capture images and insert them in my document.
2. Identify reading and writing skills you want students to practice.
3. Chunk skills by days of the week, keeping in mind you want them to accomplish the daily bell ringer in 5-7 minutes. 
4. Create text-dependent questions and skills questions for each day of the week.  

AoWs are an ideal way to provide students with multiple opportunities to work with informational texts.  The more students work with texts, the more successful experiences they will have with writing. 

The Unstoppable Writing Teacher

Unstoppable Writing Teacher Book Club Flier

Would you like to join us for discussion about teaching writing? Reply to me and I will add you to the discussion through google docs.  Then, buy the book  The Unstoppable Writing Teacher and read.  Discussion will take place on this blog and through google docs.  You are sure to benefit from the collaboration that will take place between a group of educators who wants improve their writing instruction.  Reply if you're interested! 

Using Socratic Seminar to Improve Writing, Part II

In a previous post, I wrote about using Socratic Seminar as a means to help students process their knowledge and understanding for writing.  In this post, I will expand on that idea, as well as provide a step-by-step plan for implementing a Socratic Seminar on any topic into your classroom. 

Students' ability to write relies on their ability to understand the text they are writing about.  Writing is thinking and many students require support to aid their thinking.  If students are not able to understand the text, they are not able to write about it. Therefore, teachers must plan activities that give them opportunities to make meaning of the text they are writing about. This practice will provide students with the tools they need to successfully begin their writing.

In a Socratic Seminar, students discussion of a text help them have a deeper understanding of the material.  It is a collaborative process.  Procedures during the seminar encourage students to take the lead as facilitators of their own learning.  I have used Socratic Seminar in my classroom. It amazes me to see the discussion that takes place.  It reminds me that often times, the best learning takes place without the teacher being the key figure in the classroom.

I've listed the steps I follow in my classroom.  I suggest you try them, then tweak them to fit your desired outcome and goals.  

Steps of a Socratic Seminar: 

1. Before students arrive, set room up your room for the seminar.  I use an inner-circle and an outer-circle.  I also have a "hot seat" where students who are waiting to enter the inner-circle wait.  I put cups on each desk in the inner-circle with five craft sticks in each cup.  Each time the student talks, they must take out a stick (I also keep track of their responses on my grading sheet).  This ensures all students get equal "air time."  You may want to put a sheet of sentence stems on the inner-circle desks for students who need support.  This will give them a structure for their dialogue.

2. To begin my seminar, students were given a preparation sheet to prepare.  They develop three open-ended response questions to use during the seminar.  They also identify three key pieces of evidence they want to address during the seminar.


3. Explain how to fill out the Dialogue Sheet.  Students need to understand what the codes.  Students must evaluate six classmates' dialogue during the seminar. This requires them to listen to other students who are talking.  Dialogue Sheets are filled out by students while they are in the outer circle.

Below, are the sheets I use with my students during seminar.

Socratic Seminar Materials by Christy Bailey McManus

4. Once the preparation sheet is completed and the dialogue sheet is explained, you are ready to begin. This is one of the only times I talk (unless problems arise).  I ask one of the students in the inner-circle to begin the discussion with one of their open-ended questions.  Once this occurs, students are to respond to their question.  Once that has be accomplished, they may bring up a new point of discussion.  Questions cannot be ignored.  Discussion may be slow at first, but be patient.  They will catch on to the process.

5.  While the seminar is going on I use this document to keep track of students' responses, peer observations, and point deductions during the Socratic Seminar.  I give a grade on the students' participation in the seminar.  They are graded on their participation (I require five responses), the strength of the comments (coding), and their observation of their peers.  They may also loose points for talking out of turn or talking in the outer-circle.  

Socratic Seminar Grading Sheet by Christy Bailey McManus

6. When a student has contributed to the discussion five times (their cup is empty), they leave the inner-circle and the student in the "hot seat" enters the circle.  The process continues until all students have been given a turn in the inner-circle.  If time allows, students may have another turn.



Once I've completed a Socratic Seminar, I follow up the next day with an extended written response.  This allows students to show what they've learned through the process of making meaning of the text and their thinking.  

Students must have sufficient knowledge to write.  One way to accomplish this is through strategically planning opportunities for students to understand the text.  Socratic Seminar is one of the collaborative-inquiry strategies that teachers can use to help students make meaning of a text.