Choice Motivates Students to Become Writers

Control. Yes, I struggle with the desire to control my classroom, my students, my environment...  I'm the educational expert, right?  Why shouldn't everyone do exactly what I think is best? Now, with many years of teaching under my belt, I understand that if I seek to control every aspect of my classroom, I will lose my students. 

I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.  When Dumbledore said "It is our choices, Harry, that show who we are," I cheered not just because

it is a memorable quote, but because it is the driving force behind everything I do in my classroom.  Choice is the cornerstone on which my Writer's Workshop is built.  What you choose to write about says something about you.  I know it's true for me. That's why I choose to blog.  I want the same to be true for my students.

The Engaged Writer
I've heard countless discussions on engagement: how can we engage our students? There are endless stacks of books written on the topic by experts in the field.  Countless journal articles explain how teachers can capture their students' attention.  Let me save you some time.  In teaching students writing, the answer is simple: choice.  If we want our students to be engaged in writing, then we must allow them to choose what they write about.  Have students write an opinion piece on whether or not Confederate monuments should be removed or an explanatory essay on the Take a Knee movement.  Give students' voice a platform to be heard through their writing and watch their engagement soar.   

Choice in Writer's Workshop
As a teacher, I consider my students when designing independent writing projects for my Writer's Workshop.  When I design projects, I think about their interests and hobbies, controversial topics in the news, and current events that are important to them.  As a result, students write with passion because they care about what they are writing.  They are writing about topics that matter to them.  I offer four to six independent projects for each unit of study.  

For instance, when we studied non-fiction opinion writing, I offered four choices.  These were my most recent choices: 

1. Should Pokemon Go Be Banned?
2. Should Girls Be Allowed in Boy Scouts?
3. Are Self-Driving Cars a Good Idea?
4. Who is the Better Quarterback: Newton or Manning?

Steps to Provide Choice in Writer's Workshop
Providing our students with choice does require more time on the teachers part, but the pay-off is worth it.  Students will be writing for themselves.  They will be invested in their writing. 

Follow these steps to incorporate choice into your Writer's Workshop:

1. Consider topics in which students are interested.  Their interest, hobbies, current events, and controversial topics will all inspire them to write.
2. Find paired texts that relate to each topic that provide ample evidence for student writing.  The internet if full of exemplarily texts.
3. Create prompts that provide the students with a clear task.  I base my prompts on the state examples for explanatory, opinion, and narrative essays.
4. Set up an independent writing project table when students choose their next task.  
   
5. Allow students to choose a project.  I have them sign up for their project so I can offer conferencing opportunities.
6. After the projects have been chosen, I archive the choices for future choices.  In Writer's Workshop, students are never finished writing.  When they finish one essay, they choose another from the archives.
7. After students have read their texts and begin to plan, I allow them to conference with peers who are writing on the same topic.  They discuss the texts, possible thesis statements, oraganization of their essay, and review evidence they are going to use to use in their essay. 
8. As students write, conference with them using a rubric to discuss their writing. 
9. Once completed, give students the opportunity to share what they've written.  

Choice has the power to engage even the most reluctant writers.  It draws them in.  Students know what they like.  Ask them about something that interests them, and they will talk to you forever about it.  Why not take advantage of that passion and apply it to their writing?  The student who is afforded choice will demonstrate internal motivation to become a writer.  Isn't this what we want for all our students? 

The Painted Essay

       What student wouldn't like to paint in English class?   First-graders, fifth-graders, and high-schoolers alike will automatically be curious when you pull out the paints during your writing instruction. The Painted Essay provides students with a visual example of what good writing should look like and give you, the teacher, another opportunity to help students focus on what makes a successful essay.  

       Essay writing is difficult for many students, right?  Let's be honest, essay writing instruction is difficult for many teachers!  Modeling is a common practice in most classrooms.  However, when teaching writing this practice is often skipped. Writing is one of the most difficult skills for students to master.  For this reason, modeling should be a practice we don't skip.  Teachers need to model how to write an essay through an interactive class essay.  This class mentor essay provides support for students as they work on their own independent essay projects during Writer's Workshop.   After a class mentor essay is finished, students become writing artist and complete a Painted Essay.

What is a Painted Essay?

Fifth-grade students complete a Painted Essay during Writer's Workshop

       The Painted Essay is a strategy that was invented by Diana Leddy and is a featured component of effective writing instruction by the Vermont Writing Collaborative.  It is based on the idea that students are visual learners and need to "see" what an essay should look like.  I applied the ideas present in this strategy, and adapted it to fit the way my fifth-grade students are taught to write an explanatory and opinion essay.

The Classroom Painted Essay

       A Painted Essay will be a welcome addition to your writing instruction.  Follow these steps to complete one with your students:

1. Complete an interactive class mentor essay with your students. My students and I create ours together as I type it.
2. Make copies of your class mentor to use for the Painted Essay.
3. Identify what colors you will use and what each color will represent.  My students use red, yellow, and blue.
   
4. Prepare your paints.  Water colors are ideal.  I mix tempra paint with about a half a cup of water.  
5. Have stations set up for students to paint their essays.
6. Once we begin, I model the process using the document camera.  We complete one color at a time. I randomly call on students to tell us what to parts of our essay to paint.

   

   I model how to paint the essay as students complete their Painted Essay.

7.  Once completed, I let the painted essays dry and return them to the students to use as a resource.  We take some time to identify the colors that we used at the beginning and end of each paragraphs, as well as the colors that make up the inside of each paragraphs.
   

       The Painted Essay is a valuable tool for both students and teachers.  It provides students with a concrete example of how to use a thesis statement, topic statements, evidence, and elaboration in their writing.  When paired with a class mentor, it provides teachers with a structure to "show" students what a successful essay looks like.

Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing isn't just for ELA teachers.  Not anymore!  All teachers are expected to be literacy teachers.  I don't care what you teach, if you look at your standards, they are chocked full of reading and writing skills.  As a result, today's student needs numerous opportunities to write for a variety of purposes.  Teachers, we need to become experts in providing those opportunities for our students.

There are many routine reading and writing activities that can be used across the curriculum.  The strategies I am going to share are classroom-proven to be successful and benefit your classroom. Remember, writing is thinking and it is our responsibility to get our students thinking.

Articles of the Week

For years, I failed to provide effective bell ringers.  Let me say, I am embarrassed to admit, in my early years of teaching I was guilty of quickly copying some mailbox printable and throwing it on the students desk.  I have seen the error of my ways and I repent from that terrible practice!    A good bell ringer should incorporate authentic reading and writing. One day, I stumbled across Articles of the Week and realized it was the answer to my bell ringer woes!  It a strategy developed by Kelly Gallagher that can be used for a variety of purposes, including building students prior knowledge and providing practice on different skills.  In my classroom, I use AOWs as a bell ringer to practice skills necessary for strong writing, such as using evidence to support a statement, summarizing, short response writing, and grammar practice. Students read the informational article on Monday, then answer questions for the week based on that article.  I have found AOWs to be an invaluable part of my classroom.  I strongly encourage you to give them a try in your classroom.  

A.C.E.

With the changes in how students are assessed, all students are expected to be articulate in their writing and incorporate evidence to support their answer. Let's be honest.  Some students are not very good at being articulate in their writing and using appropriate evidence...they struggle. So, what do we do: A.C.E.  It is a strategy designed to explicitly teach students how to write a short response. It provides sentence stems to give students a format to write their responses.  In 5th grade at my school, we use A.C.E. across the curriculum.  All teachers expect students to write in this format.  As a result, students have drastically improved in their ability to answer a short response question.  When we introduced A.C.E., students were allowed to use the A.C.E. helper for a quarter.  Now, it is no longer necessary.  A.C.E. has become how students at our school write when asked to give a short response. They start with restating the prompt to include their answer, provide up to three pieces of evidence to support their answer, and explain their answer.  If your students struggle with fully answering short response questions, then A.C.E. is your answer.

Journaling

My husband is a high school economics teacher.  I believe his journaling strategy is a prime example of what happens when you live with a high-strung wife who talks about the importance of authentic reading and writing in all subjects.  He developed this idea all alone and I absolutely love it!  The routine in his classroom is the same every day. When his students walk into the room they find an authentic text on their desk that will contribute to the conversations that day.  For his class, it may be Microsoft vs Apple or an excerpt from Time magazine's How Scarcity Contributes to Spending. Along with that are directions posted on the smartboard instructing them to either summarize or answer a short response question that goes with their article. Keep in mind, he had previously explicitly taught them to summarize and write short responses.  He takes his bell ringer as a daily grade.  Students quickly understand the expectation is to fully answer the prompt posted and they meet that expectation.  The benefits of journaling is two-fold.  First, it provides authentic reading and writing.  Second, it gives students knowledge about the topic they are going to discuss that day.  Jouraling is a win-win for any classroom.

Imagine what would happen if students had daily practice in all contents with reading and writing.  As teachers, I hope we take our responsibility seriously to provide these opportunities to them. There are so many more strategies out there to incorporate literacy in your classroom.  I encourage you to research the strategies that would best fit your teaching.  

Keep It, Change It, Junk It

How do students become better writers? They write!  It's not rocket science.  If you want your students to improve their writing, provide them with uninterrupted, daily writing experiences.  My students spend at least 30 minutes a day writing. I am proud of that fact.  

One of the skills we are practicing now is producing writing grounded in evidence.  Sound simple?  Absolutely not.  A large majority of todays' students struggle to support their writing with appropriate evidence.  Therefore, students must be explicitly taught how to gather and use evidence in their writing.  Then, they must be taught how to evaluate if they have achieved that.

One day, while my students and I were analyzing our evidence, one of my students suggested we use a strategy one of his past teachers used: "Keep It, Junk It".  This teacher had shared her strategy for writing a summary at a school PD we had earlier this school year, so I was familiar with it.  However it didn't fit our need perfected, so I adapted it. "Keep It, Change It, Junk It" has become a strategy we use to revise our explanatory and opinion writing.

Keep It, Change It, Junk It

An effective explanatory or opinion essay isn't worth a hill of beans without well-chosen relevant evidence.  We must teach our student to produce writing grounded in evidence from literary and informational texts because evidence plays a key role.  I've taught my students to use "Keep It, Change It, Junk It" while revising.

Teach the Strategy

Student need to be explicitly taught new strategies.  "Keep It, Change It, Junk It" needs to be modeled by the teacher numerous times until the student is comfortable implementing it into their own writing toolbox.  I've created a powerpoint that is ready to go to help you teach this effective revision strategy to your students.  It has multiple practices, as well as an exit ticket.  You can access it here at Scribd.  You can access bookmarks here.

The Steps

The steps are easy to follow.  Model this strategy regularly with your students.  Encourage them to use it independently. You might conference with a group of students who would benefit from using this strategy in their writing.  

1. Identify the topic sentence.
2. Read the rest of the paragraph.
3. As you read each sentence decide to keep it, change it, or junk it.
4. If you decide to "Change It", make appropriate revisions to the sentence.  
5. If you decide to "Junk It", remove the sentence from the writing.

This strategy has the power to transform a student's writing. Giving students strategies to use during the revision process helps improve their writing.  This strategy can create independent students who can determine if their writing is grounded in evidence. Get the word out: "Keep It, Change It, Junk It" is a revision strategy we must teach our students!

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.