In the Comments section below you will find writing plans developed by All Write! class participants. These plans include visions participants have for their classrooms as well as methods and timelines for carrying out those visions. All class assignments are posted so that they will be available for others. Sharing useful ideas, strategies, and activities can help make us all better instructors of writing.
Robert Young
Writer
Social Media Links
Hi Robert,
Sounds like great writing happening with you this summer. I get so inspired by what teachers are doing in their classrooms. Thanks for giving them a place to share.
Teachers: Your students are in capable hands. Enjoy a joyful and productive school year. Write-On!
Jeannie
Thanks, Jeannie. It’s great to work with creative and enthusiastic teachers. Like you!
Enjoy your journey this year.
As an Educational Specialist in a K-8 distance learning program, my role is to guide and to oversee the instruction of each student as well as to offer labs, workshops, and one-on-one conferences. Part of the challenge of my job is to have a plan and a vision while constantly monitoring, adjusting, and developing programs that meet the students’ needs as needs arise. All of this is done virtually through our school web program as well as in person through workshops, conferences, and short term classes.
In my writing program this year, my vision includes:
-During entry/enrollment meetings, foster an encouraging ”can do” attitude toward writing instruction at home.
-Make sure each student is underway with his/her writing program.
-Make sure each family has access to the new CCSS for writing, as well as information about the new Smarter Balanced Assessment, but also emphasize and encourage having authentic, motivating, enjoyable writing experiences.
-Encourage “publishing” via our school writing blog and other venues I plan to research.
-Provide motivating, encouraging feedback on student writing submissions.
-Regularly provide writing tips and information on my class blog.
-Regularly provide workshops and labs where students can experience success and enjoyment in writing.
Boots on the Ground:
Fall Term–
-Offer parent workshops with writing tips and writing instruction using resources from the following :
*Institute for Excellence in Writing (IEW) “Structure and Style”
http://iew.com/shop/products/teaching-writing-structure-style-dvd-seminar-workbook
-Offer K-4(ish) writing labs and meetings:
*Purposeful Paragraphs (using methods from “Structure and Style”)
*Letter writing using The Jolly Postman and fairy tales.
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/book/jolly-postman#cart/cleanup
*Letter writing in a 50 States Postcard Exchange
https://sites.google.com/site/50statespostcardproject/
-Offer grades 5-8:
*Writer’s workshop/labs on purposeful paragraphs
*Sentence CPR labs
http://www.tpet.com/sentence-cpr-breathing-life-into-sentences-that-might-as-well-be-pushing-up-daisies
*One on one writing meetings via FaceTime or in person to help students with writing class projects. Assist with organizing, outlining, polishing, publishing.
-Encourage publishing/posting all completed works on our writing blog.
Winter Term–
-Continue parent workshops from IEW’s “Style and Syllabus”.
-Parent workshops on understanding the new CCSS and the Smarter Balanced Assessment for writing.
-K-4(ish)-continuation of student writing labs and workshops-
*Purposeful paragraphs (using IEW methods)
*Letters and the Jolly Postman (continued)
*Fiction and fairy tales using IEW’s story sequence chart–adding fun charting such as: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/523543525402833145/
*50 States Postcard project
*Research reports (pulling in Robert Young’s resource ”Beginning Research”) http://realwriting.us/home/workshops/writing-rocks/
Grades 5-8-
*Continued labs and coaching meetings from fall
*Writing Labs featuring IEW’s Writing Intensive A or B excerpts
http://iew.com/shop/products/student-writing-intensive-level
*Writing Labs featuring argumentation
-Encourage publishing/posting all completed works on our writing blog.
Spring Term:
All Levels-
*Finish labs and projects from fall and spring
*Help students prepare for Smarter Balance argumentation writing.
Vision: My 10th grade students have the tools and confidence to think critically and express themselves clearly and confidently in writing.
For high school students for whom writing has been a struggle, it is difficult to get their buy-in, to get them to invest in and really care about their writing, unless it feels authentic, relevant, and meaningful to them. High school students like to write about themselves, but often they don’t feel safe enough to let their peers read their personal writing our of fear of criticism of both form and content. My goal is to help my students make connections between what we read, society, and their lives, and to provide opportunities for authentic writing in a safe and supportive environment.
The 10th grade Language Arts curriculum relies heavily on the textbook. Each semester we read one novel, several short stories, a play, and excerpts from several memoirs. My primary goal during the first few weeks is to establish our classroom, our learning community, as a safe place for expression of ideas. I use parts of a book called The Freedom Writers Diary, and its corresponding curriculum and activities to hook my students. A New York Times best seller, The Freedom Writers Diary is a book of diary entries written by high school students, covering such topics as homelessness, abuse, drug use, gang involvement, and learning disabilities. The diary entries provide a springboard for meaningful, personal discussions and can be effective journal prompts. The activities in the corresponding curriculum help to build trust among students, so that when we get to the point where students are peer editing, they feel comfortable sharing their writing and giving and receiving feedback.
Once we have established group norms for respectful behavior and have established our learning community as a safe place for students to express themselves in writing, I will implement the Editor-Consultant process with my students. I will give them samples of my own draft writing and ask them to engage in writing consultations with me before they peer edit other students’ work. We will practice Compliments/Questions/Suggestions so that students understand what is helpful and productive and what is not.
Most of my high school students do not have a firm grasp on writing conventions. Our 10th grade LA team is developing spelling lists, lists of often-confused words, and grammar and punctuation mini-lessons to reteach many of these writing elements to our students. We will then provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their proficiency with writing conventions through authentic writing opportunities like letters to the editor (NYT, local paper, and school paper), letters to our school administration, blogs, pen pals, argument essays about topics that they care about, and journal entries. We will have “targeted conventions” for peer-editing as well, where students will, for example, search for specific conventions in one-another’s writing.
Last summer I was trained as a Freedom Writer Teacher at a workshop that was put on by the original Freedom Writers and their former teacher, Erin Gruwell. Through that opportunity, I also met several amazing educators from around the world, many of whom work for social justice in their communities. The Freedom Writers and my educator colleagues and I use our connections with each other to provide authentic writing experiences for our students. We connect our students with each other and provide opportunities for them to read and comment on each other’s blogs, follow one another on social media and write about what they learn, and establish pen-pal relationships. These real-life connections to orphaned students in Rwanda, for example, make reading about the genocide in Rwanda much more impactful.
In addition to writing about their own experiences, and those of students around the world, my students really like to write about controversial topics, like “sexting”, cyberbullying, cultural standards of beauty, drug legalization, and other hot-topics. I frequently find New York Times articles that pertain to the themes and topics we read about in the textbook and assign writing responses based on them. For example, when we read The Lord of the Flies, we read articles about youth violence, power and corruption, and gang involvement. Students conduct research on those topics, and complete writing assignments based on those topics as well.
Second Grade Instructional Plans
Writer’s Workshop will be the vehicle that carries my students and myself through writing next year. I will begin the year with an introduction, when I will set clear expectations so students are successful and the limited writing time we have each day is focused and well-spent. Students will learn routines, build stamina, discover the writing process, and learn the six traits. Then, we will move through different units of study, including narrative, informational, opinion, and research. And the fuel for this vehicle will be my vision: We show grit when writing; we are persistent and determined, see purpose and power in writing, and are confident in our abilities to use writing for a variety of reasons.
After spending a few weeks on the introduction, my students will understand how to “do” writing in my classroom. They will know and understand our vision for writing, and we will have fun being authors, editors and illustrators. I envision my students as well as myself looking forward to the times and days when we have Writer’s Workshop, as it will not be every day. A couple days a week, we will get out of the vehicle and sight see. We will spend time writing in squiggle books, writing weekend news, writing letters or lists, etc. I want to give students a day or two each week when they have a routine task yet different subject. But no matter what day of the week it is, my students and I will always be checking the fuel in our vehicle; we will be assessing our level of progress toward our vision, and adding more fuel as needed.
Grit is the key part of my vision because I don’t only think it is necessary in writing, but in all areas of life. I will be tenacious in teaching grit; I will model it, find examples of it in quality literature, and encourage students to develop it within themselves. My first lesson on grit will be to share my personal narrative I wrote in the All Write! class. I didn’t have grit when I was in second grade, until my mom and teacher planted a seed of confidence in me. I hope to plant the same seed in my students, as well as encourage them to be persistent and determined, and see the power of writing.
To hone in on the three ingredients of our vision that make up grit, we will use the 4 Get It method: Get it Ready, Get it Down, Get it Better, Get it Out There. Students will learn to be persistent by coming back to their work multiple times before being done. They will feel pride when they have a product that they have worked on over the course of multiple days. This process will also give them confidence in their abilities as writers. I want my students to know that we don’t edit or revise our work because it was wrong or we weren’t successful; we edit and revise because we can always make it better, and sometimes we do make mistakes. But the part of 4 Get It that I’m really excited about is the final one: Get it Out There. This is a piece of my writing instruction that has been lacking for sometime. I want students to see the power and purpose of writing; knowing that if there is an issue on the bus, they can write the bus driver an opinion piece so he/she can see another side of the story, or if they really like an author, they can write a letter to him/her to ask questions or connect, or when they want to learn about a topic of their choice, they can do the research and write a report to share the information with their friends
As I drive my shiny, new Writer’s Workshop vehicle off the lot this fall, it might be a bumpy road. My students may slam the door on their finger a couple times, or we might get a flat tire and not make it to our destination on time. But we will be on the road together, learning as we go and reflecting on the journey. Undoubtedly, with as hard as it may feel sometimes, learning to travel together, there will definitely be times when we can roll our windows down, feel the warm breeze in our hair, and just cruise. I will look forward to those days as well as the others. And in just a few short months, our road trip together will begin.
Great metaphor, Danielle! Your tenacity will pay off. Guaranteed!
ALL Write Writing Plan
Simone d’Aubigné
July 7, 2014
ELD Program Writing Plan
Vision: My students are able to comfortably express their great ideas and content in an organized fashion using expressive word choices, strong and varied sentences, and with appropriate grammar, correct capitalization and punctuation, and accurate spelling.
Setting: I teach from twelve to eighteen students in grades kindergarten to seventh grade right now. The students vary in levels of language acquisition with a kindergartener who does not speak English to a sixth grader who is adept at listening and speaking English, reads English at grade level, but writes English at third grade level. These students are not learning the academic aspects of their L1 even though it is the primary language in their homes.
Idea: Each student would produce a writing sample for a monthly publication that would be both printed to hand out and also put on the ELD blog on my School District web page. The more advanced students would take part in the design of the newspaper, starting with picking a template from the website: http://www.makemynewspaper.com/free-newspaper-templates.
Execution of Plan:
First Month (October): The articles in this edition would be Introduction Articles. Each student would “write” something about him/herself. For example the kindergartners would draw pictures of themselves and write words underneath that described them. First graders might write simple sentences with a picture. The progression would continue with complexity with the highest level of writers writing a couple of paragraphs. This exercise will show me how well the new students can express themselves and their competency level in the area of conventions. From this I can tailor my lesson plans to fit the learning needs of each student.
Second Month (November): The articles in this edition will be Recipes. Each student will bring in and adapt a recipe for a food they like to eat. I have noticed in the past when talking about food my students usually talk about food from their L1 countries. This would give them a chance to share with the community a part of their culture plus teach them how to write Instructions. Also, the requirement that they bring in a recipe is a precursor of an investigative research project. Once again because of the grade and abilities differences, the complexity of the recipes will vary.
Third Month (December/January): The articles in this edition will be an anthology of stories from the students. Each student will tell/write a fantasy short story. For each group I will find an age and level appropriate short story that we will read and discuss together in class. Then I will give them a worksheet that assists them in coming up with characters and plot. After completing the sheets the students will go through the process of writing the story, revising, editing and then we will publish it.
Fourth Month (February/March): The articles in this edition will be research articles on a favorite animal. I will provide each student with books on an animal of their choice. If possible I will schedule some class times to be in the computer lab so that they can get information from that. They will be provided with a guiding worksheet to lead them towards what kind of information they need to look for and record. We will once again go through the writing process until they have a publishable product. They will include a bibliography with their articles.
Fifth Month (April): The articles in this edition will be Argumentative Essays. (Because most of my students are in elementary school this will be more “opinion writing” than argumentative. This type of writing is a foundation block for the more advanced writing required in the CCSS). I will come up with a list of topics that they can choose from and then lead them through the process of writing an argumentative essay. (Helpful sites: https://learnzillion.com/lessonsets/294-4th-grade-argumentative-writing-opinion-essay-2, http://achievethecore.org/page/503/common-core-argument-opinion-writing-list-pg,
Last Month (May): The articles in this edition will be Book Reviews. In the final edition the students will write a review of their favorite book of the year. They will be required to summarize the story and describe the illustrations. They will tell why they would suggest other students read this book.
Note: Of course as this projects progresses adaptations may be made as I find out what is working and what is not. Scaffolding sheets will be developed to help the students organize their information. Guidance will be given when the students reach a writer’s block situation. And, throughout the year students will be encouraged to mold the future of the “newspaper”, for it is one of their paths of finding their place in their dual language world.
Great idea, Simone! Authentic writing at its best!! I hope you will share your experiences as the year progresses. Could you provide us with a link to your blog?