The Important Book of the Writing Process

North Coventry Elementary School

October 4, 2013 WSFG

The Important Book of Upper-Elementary-Grade Writer’s and the Writing Process

Cycling through the Entire Process

The important thing about the writing process is that we want children to plan and draft their writing, anticipating the day they’ll send the text out into the world. The children must to be productive, engaged, and purposeful throughout the entire process.

Rationale for Choosing the Third Approach and a Description of how this Translates into Units of Study for a Writing Workshop (Demonstrate, Scaffold, Release to Write Approach)

The important thing about the rationale is it supports the CCSS writing anchor standard 10: “Write routinely over extended time frames for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.”

Instruction needs to support both the more extended and the more abbreviated writing processes so that students learn that these are variations of each other.

We work with a sequence of tasks, teaching strategies, and skills but also removing scaffolds as quickly as possible to give students longer chunks of time within which to do their own work.

In life, one will not always ski with an instructor at one’s side, setting goals, assessing, and planning. So it is important for instruction to happen in less frequent intervals that are designed to give learners time to assume some of the instructor’s role.

The most important thing about the rationale is it supports the CCSS writing anchor standard 10: “Write routinely over extended time frames for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.”

The Distinctive Characteristics of Upper-Elementary Students’ Writing Process

The important thing about the characteristics of students is to understand the stamina and pacing across the grades.

As children become older and more experienced they are able to write fluently and quickly. By the time a child is in fifth grade, the youngster should be able to produce a quick and competent flash-draft- perhaps a page and a half or two pages in length- within half an hour or forty-five minutes.

When thinking about the writing process of children, we know that a second-grader differs from that of a fifth grader in that a younger child is not as apt to have the capacity to sustain work on a single text for very long.

You will want to be sure you are not only providing the writing tools to set your students up for success, but that you also set high- but achievable- goals for the amount of writing your students do in a day, a week, a month, and for the speed at which they will move through the writing process.

The important thing about the characteristics of students is to understand the stamina and pacing across the grades.

Writer’s Notebooks

The important thing about writers’ notebooks is that is that they are a physical embodiment of a writerly life.

Yes-they are kept by a wide-awake writer.

And, you can use them to decide which stories can be chosen to develop in to a major piece of writing.

You can collect small ideas.

You can collect BIG ideas.

They have a section in the back for writers to keep track of goals, progress, and conferences.

But the most important thing about writers’ notebooks, is that they are a physical embodiment of a writerly life.

The Writing Process

Rehearsal

Drafting

Editing

Revision

Rehearsal

The important thing about rehearsal is it is never just about generating content. It also involves planning the process and structure of a piece.

Different genres that you read leads to different structures

With experience content, grammar and paragraphs fall into drafting more easily.

Once children have been taught a few strategies, they will begin developing a repertoire of genre-specific strategies for generating writing, and they can learn to draw on that repertoire to generate their own writing topics.

Experienced writers are apt to do more – and spend longer- in rehearsal.

The important thing about rehearsal is it is never just about generating content. It also involves planning the process and structure of a piece.

“Teach the writer, not the writing.” -Lucy Calkins

Drafting

The important thing about drafting is after all the work of collecting, choosing, planning, teaching others, storytelling, and imagining the piece laid out on the page, the writer takes pen in hand and writes.

It is an attitude about writing.

It is the time to let ideas flow fast and furious about the movie in your mind. Don’t describe the tree. See the tree.

We keep our minds on the subject.

One hopes that writers write quickly, knowing that writing a draft is playing in clay, not inscribing in marble, and that there will be time another day to roll up your sleeve and set to work.

The important thing about drafting is after all the work of collecting, choosing, planning, teaching others, storytelling, and imagining the piece laid out on the page, the writer takes pen in hand and writes.

Revision

The important thing about revision is we have an opportunity to revisit our writing through different lenses over time.

We need to question if we have met our primary writing goals.

We can ask what we should work on and what works really well.

The most sophisticated and important sort of revision isn’t fixing up one’s text so that it works more effectively to convey one’s meaning. The revision involves the writer looking through their draft to come to a deeper and more thoughtful understanding of their content.

The important thing about revision is we have an opportunity to revisit our writing through different lenses over time.

Editing

The most important thing about editing is it makes the text readable.

Editing should be done along the way, not just as the final step.

Students should rely on knowledge of spelling patterns and classroom resources, not just the teacher.

Editing involves more than just spelling.

In editing conferences, just like any other conference, a teacher makes a choice, teaching the child a few things that seem to be within the child’s reach.

The most important thing about editing is it makes the text readable.

Cycling through the Entire Process

The important thing about the writing process is that we want children to plan and draft their writing, anticipating the day they’ll send the text out into the world. The children must to be productive, engaged, and purposeful throughout the entire process.