Hi everyone!!
I'm Molly from Lessons with Laughter. This fall I will start my third year teaching 4th grade and I couldn't be happier! I have used the Daily 5 in my classroom since I started teaching. I have learned so many new ideas from everyone during our book study so far and I can't wait to hear some more of your ideas! I hope that my ideas will be helpful for you as well!
We are splitting up chapter 6 into two sections: Work on Writing and Word Work. I am going to be talking about Work on Writing while the wonderful Dana from 3rd Grade Gridiron will be discussing Word Work!
Work on Writing
"In helping students tune their ears--and mouths and eyes, and even their fingertips, their nerve endings--to the glorious range of ways they can string words together, we need to encourage them to fool around, to experiment, to break rules even before they know all the rules. Who ever knows all the rules, anyways?
- Judith Rowe Michaels
By the time work on writing is introduced, students are pretty familiar with the gradual-release model for the Daily 5. Ideally, Work on Writing is not meant to be the sole writing time for students, it is meant to supplement writing instruction done at another time during the day. The difference in Work on Writing is that instead of writing a specific genre, it is writing of their choice.
Work on Writing is one of my students' favorite times during the Daily 5. Why? Because they have a choice on the writing that they want to do. Here are a couple favorite choices my students pick during Work on Writing.
Kidblog
I've blogged about Kidblog before, and it is wonderful way to integrate writing and technology! I set up an account at the beginning of the year for our class, and each student has their own blog. On their blog, students write reviews for books that they have finished. Then, they all show up on the homepage when students log in, so they can see the most recent book reviews. Students can use their Work on Writing time to write book reviews and to write comments on their classmates' posts. Throughout the year I will also write a post asking them to reflect on something we did, or discuss their favorite part of a field trip, so they can write a response to that as well.
Friendly Letter
Another choice during Work on Writing is writing a letter to me about a book they are reading. I did away with reading logs (thanks to The Book Whisperer!) and in their place students write me a friendly letter every week telling me about a book they are reading. Some of my students use Work on Writing to write me a letter (or several letters) telling me all about the books they are currently reading! You can read more about the letters here, and see some samples of my students' letters.
Power Writing
During our regular writing block we begin by doing power writing. That is when I give students a fun story starter or question and they have 2 minutes to write on that topic. When time is up, they put their pencils down and count how many words they wrote down. It focuses on getting your thoughts down on paper and not worrying about spelling as much. This is such great practice for my kiddos and it is amazing to see them go from just a sentence or two the first day to whole paragraphs after several weeks! My students always get so excited about the stories they start during power writing, so many of them like to come back to them and continue working on them during Work on Writing!
Story Folders
Story folders are another great choice for students during Work on Writing! I got this idea from Tara from 4th Grade Frolics and this is something that I plan on doing next year! To make story folders you can use book sleeves from picture books (or print out pictures of book covers) and glue them to the front of folders (one cover per folder). On the inside of the folder you can put pieces of looseleaf paper. Students can pick a folder and write a story that goes along with the cover and title!
These are just a few of the many choices you can offer students during Work on Writing. And of course, I have a spot in my classroom where I keep a bunch of looseleaf paper if they just want to get a piece a piece and write something else that comes to mind... a poem, letter to a family member, anything goes, as long as they are working on their writing!
Discussion Questions:
1. How do you use Work on Writing in your classroom? Are you able to set it up as a supplemental writing time?
2. What are some other ways you can expand students' choices for writing? Do you have any great choices to share?
I would LOVE to hear your comments on how you run (or plan to run) Work on Writing in your classroom!
Posts
34 comments:
I also use Kidblog for Work on Writing. My students would post their completed stories for classmates to comment. They were also given choice of topic when done. Their favorite though was to create a Wordle and then to paste it into their kidblog. I would choose some of the best pieces to go into our monthly class newsletter. I love your idea of writing a book review and a friendly letter. These would make great posts. Work on Writing is built into a 40min block of time I have dedicated to centers. I have three Writing centers, one of which students post on their blog, one where they confer with the ELL teacher on their writing piece, and the last where students create a powerpoint presentation on the iPad.
2. I love doing the Genius Paragraph with the kids. This is a WBT idea! This is where you give them a simple sentence and through collaboration they turn it into a Genius Paragraph within 20 minutes time. During centers they students take their created paragraphs and use the Keynote app to create a powerpoint presentation to showcase the steps their group took.
I am a fourth grade teacher in NC. This is my 6th year in 4th grade, and will be my 3rd year using Daily 5 as the structure for my Guided Reading. Basically, I think it is amazing! I had always had students who hated writing. No matter how interesting I thought they would think a topic was, they never seemed that excited. After I started Daily 5, it all changed. In the beginning we all wrote to the same topic. Other times throughout the year we had a common topic, especially when we had content area writing projects to do district-wide. However, in between, I would let them write in any style or topic they wanted to.
I have never seen so much interest or growth in writing. It was amazing. One student in particular, Jake, will always serve as my reminder that choice is the way to go. Almost everyday, he would choose writing first. He was a strong writer to begin with, but he truly developed his writing voice that year. Whenever I question it now, I remember Jake and how his love of writing flourished.
I like the use of technology though in writing. We didn't have very many opportunities to integrate technology that way, but I am at a new school this year with many more chances. I will have to look into those!
Mrs. Shepard,
Can you explain more about the Genius Paragraph? It sounds interesting. What is WBT?
Thanks!
I will be fully implementing Daily 5 this year after trying out the Read to Self in the last few months of this past school year. I am really trying hard to fit in all the components in the time I have, but it will be tricky and if I do Daily 5, there won't be much time for a separate writing time, soooo....I plan to use the Work on Writing as a time to practice the different writing traits we are focussing on while allowing students the choice of what that writing will be. I LOVE the KidBlog idea and am trying to figure out how to incorporate that into Work on Writing (we only have one class set of netbooks that has to be shared with the entire school (350+ kids).
I have a journal jar that has strips of paper with various topics that students can write about. Ie "What was your favourite toy when you were growing up? Describe it and tell why it was your favourite" I usually have one student pick a strip from the jar and students who 'don't know what to write' are then directed to the journal jar topic.
Classroom Capers
I am still trying to figure out how to fit all of the requirements into my 83 minute block of time. How do you teach writing techniques or 6 traits? Would that be in a minilesson?
I love these ideas for Work on Writing! I've used kidblog before as well, but I really the idea of using it for book reviews. I've been thinking of doing reading response letters as well. Work on Writing time would be a great time for kids to complete these.
Jessica, you would have to have a separate time for teaching writing where you would do your 6 traits lessons and techniques.
Work on writing is just for students to write about a topic of their choice.
Adventures in Room 5
For Monica,
Just as the children are trying out strategies taught for reading during read to self, they could also try out the writing strategies from the trait you are working on at the time and have previously taught, in whatever their writing choice may be. But I agree with Cassandra, I will be keeping my 6 traits lesson separate.
I have some pre-made literacy folder activities that I will not be using once I start using Daily 5/Cafe, but I could probably pull together the story starter cards and have that be one of the writing choices. Looking forward to hear some other choices that everyone is using. I'm still trying to get a handle on everything that I want to do and am wondering if I do a Daily 3, does anyone else have requirements/must do's throughout the week? For instance someone had said that writing the reading response letter could be done during this work on writing time, however since it's free choice they don't have to. Do you give them another time to work on it or is it homework? Just curious...
My kiddos were not too fond of work on writing time last year. This year I am adding "brain bubbles" (the capsules that were all over PT last year with writing prompts in them) a tablet device with links to a bunch of various sites that allow you to write about images, create comic strips, etc. I am also introducing whole class journals. I found them on pinterest and think it might be just the thing to engage some of my kiddos!
I would love to incorporate more poetry next year and I love the power writing and story folder ideas! :-)
I know that the intention of Work on Writing is free choice for students, but I'm thinking if they do Work on Writing every day, than spending part or all of one or two sessions wouldn't be too bad and would alleviate some of the time constraints for those of us who don't have as much time as we'd like to fit everything in the way we envision it. I'm thinking I will use one of the rounds of Daily 5 to teach a writing minilesson and the kids will have the option of using that strategy in their daily writing. I'm also thinking that getting the kids to do their weekly/biweekly reading letter during Work on Writing would be a good way to fit that in without taking reading time away. (I tend to lean toward reading rather than writing, LOL)
Really enjoying reading the comments, questions, & suggestions. Thanks Melissa for the feedback.:)
Classroom Capers
I am super excited about work on writing! Last year when I allowed my kids the freedom to choose what they could write about, I only heard moans and groans when I told them to stop! I also am wanting to do some blogging, and am interested in Quadblogging! I am going to be doing some research and a blog post about it soon!
Ms G In Grade 3
@Monica - I had my students (4th grade) do read to self, work on writing, word work, and guided reading with me every day. My goal was to be able to meet with every group every day. They got to choose when they did each choice, and they also had flexibility in their last round. (read to someone, listen to reading, or double one of the other choices) I use a chart for the students to keep track of where they are in the writing process.
Once a week, I would not meet with my highest reading group and we would have the whole round of time for a whole class writing process lesson. We did this more in the beginning of the year, than later. Also, during our content writing process, I would use one or two day cycles and have the students bring their writing to the guided reading table and we would focus on writing instead.
@Jessica - I havent done this since I started Daily 5, but I used to do it before and can incorporate it this year I think in Daily 5. We would focus on only one writing trait for an entire peice, and I envision using the time of mini-lessons or the round focused on writing to teach the trait. Anyway, then I would only grade the peice based on that trait. After completing all 6 traits, we would work on a peice and on the due date, I would roll a dice. Whatever number it landed on was the trait that I graded the peice by. They did better in all areas because they didn't know which trait I would be grading. I think I heard this at an L to J training with Lee Jenkins.
Also, 83 min is tough, but not impossible! How many students do you think you will have? can you get by with 4 groups instead of 5? You could do 4 15-minute rounds. Or 5 15 min rounds if you dont do the mini lessons in between. I did that last year because we had limited time too.
Great ides on how to use the Work on Writing time. My time was limited last year so I used mini lesson M-Th and then on Friday (test day) used the additional time to teach the meaty writing lessons as well as on the half days. During WOW my students would journal about their weekends, participate in a Writer's Workshop type rotation where they created, edited, illustrated and published a story they wrote, wrote letters, etc. I can't wait to see what other ideas are out there.
Thanks S. Webb for the suggestions! I am also a teacher who will not have a separate writing time so I appreciate the ideas.
Julie, you could definitely use mentor texts, excerpts or in their entirety, for writing minilessons. There are so many great models for each of the writing traits.
I hope everyone sticks around for the CAFE book too. I am enjoying gathering ideas but admit I've read ahead since I have both books on my kindle. Now I'm trying to piece it all together and wrap my brain around putting it into practice and this blog truly helps. I have already signed up for Kidblog and will have that as one of my writing choices.
Oh and besides these two books, I am inspired by THe Book Whisperer. Also, Notebook Connections: Strategies for the Reader's Notebook has some great ideas for reading as well as writing!
Great ideas...I haven't used D5 yet, so I will try to figure out how I will be able to fit it in my schedule. I will be teaching with "Write from the Beginning" as well as allowing them a choice in writing. In the past, my students began our time together writing in their journals and then a few sharing. As the year progressed, they wanted to write and share plays together, they wrote poetry, and even songs. I think I would like to continue this.
I will also ask my students to do a quick write after I share a read aloud. This will be in response to an overall idea or theme...some conflict for the character, etc...they write a response and after a few minutes, pass their writing to the person on their right. That person responds to their response. Then passes it once more. After that, it is returned to the owner to read and possibly share with the class.
My students love writing lyrics to songs. We use tunes they already know and create new lyrics for the holidays or for content to be learned. They love sharing.
Is there a site that you've used to create "Wordles" to be printed?
I like the "Brain Bubble" idea and will see if I can find it on Pinterest.
Molly--
You have great ideas. I love the friendly letter book response. I found another idea for response letters that give kids good prompts which helps them get started. Ex: tell me about the characters in your book...
Also the story folders, story rocks, and power writing. I hope to add all these ideas.
School starts in just over a month--so much to do!
Tagxedo is a word cloud creator site, Wendy. Also, wordle.net
Thanks for those sites, Melissa:)
WEndy I was practicing on Tagxedo and it's really neat. I loaded a picture of my dog, entered his name and got a beautiful word cloud! You can change shapes of the clouds, fonts, color schemes, lots to play around with!!
My head is spinning from all the wonderful ideas for Word Work and Writing! I have been on vacation and am trying to catch up on the last 2 blog entries.
I need to make a list of all the websites and ideas given here so I don't forget - I want to try it all!
I guess my concern is that Molly mentioned that Work on Writing is their choice and that students should have other writing instruction at another time of the day. It seems hard to find that time when trying to manage several mini-lessons and Daily 3/5 sessions. Students will have to switch classes for Math, Science/S Studies instruction and can't do LArts all day. Advice?
Cheryl, I did a mix of choice and required writing during work on writing time. We only have so much time! As for the mini- lessons, I moved away from the mini-lessons in between rounds because no matter how short they were, half of my students always tune out whole group! I felt like i could get more out of having a few more minutes at my guided reading table where I could have the mini-lesson at the beginning and differentiate the delivery to each group.
I just remembered something on I saw on Pinterest that I want to try this year. Open Mic Fridays! Students can sign up to read a poem or passage aloud, or I was thinking this would be a great way to showcase their writing if they could sign up to read their writing.
S. Webb, I love your idea of Open Mic Fridays! My district is a 4 day week with longer school days. Therefore, I really needed to be on task every day. I think I will use your idea and make it Open Mic Monday. They have to sign up to read a poem, passage or a writing from the previous week. I'm hoping this may be a good lead for other students to begin writing. Thanks for the idea.
This has been an excellent book study. I can't wait to begin CAFE. I'm so fortunate that I stumbled upon it. I think this will be a great thing to bring to my school for my colleagues to check out.
Tammy Hubbart, 5th grade
Writing Readers Theaters could be another "choice" for work on writing!!
I am very excited to begin D5 this year. I will be teaching reading to 6-8th grades and will be teaching one block of 6th grade language arts. I am going to implement the writing and word work blocks in this class. There are so many teachers with great ideas! My classes will only be 50 minutes long, so time is going to be an issue.
What great ideas,! I have only done D5 for one year, but the Work on Writing time at first it was one minute rimed practice writes to get my students just to write. It really help those writers that were reluctant. Then after them practicing to beat there own written words then we moved to different kinds of writing, journal writing, narrative stories, recipes, and they loved doing comics. I had an autistic boy who would not write not even his name, but he loved to draw, so during his WOW time he would draw comics and tell me about them,then I encourage him to bubble in what they said, and from there he just got better and better! By the end of the year he was coping his stories from dictation! The students then started choosing what they wanted to write. We did do mini lessons on writing and they would have to take their choice of writing through the writing process. Most of them bloomed very well in writing!
I think this is the part I am most excited about. I am really happy to think about reading and writing happening simultaneously. I am really beginning to understand how everything fits together. I cannot wait until September!
Thank you!
Molly, thank you SO much for the wonderful ideas. I am exploring Daily 5 for the first time, and I am anxious about implementing it into my classroom. I've been interested in student blogging, but I wasn't sure how to make it work. I think this will be a WONDERFUL way for my students to Work on Writing. I have already set up my account and am looking forward to seeing it in action. Do you have any trusted advice for talking to students about this technology?
Another option for Work on Writing is to use the platform STORYBIRD.COM. This allows students collaborate on stories with others as well as write their own stories. Really wonderful program! (AND IT IS FREE!)
Randifoster...
I found this link to be helpful. I got to it somehow from the Kidblog site that I registered my class for.
http://www.pernilleripp.com/2011/05/14-steps-to-meaningful-student-blogging.html
Thoughts:
If you do the Daily 5 and and Writer’s Workshop, when is there time for everything else? I have no idea how you would fit in both.
To see my summary, go to http://classroomcollective.tumblr.com/post/27328622107/daily5-chapter6
I'm thinking of having the daily 5 choices but they will only be able to do 2 or 3 per day of those choices. Also thinking of having some choice and some requirements. Writing workshop and/or instruction should fit in as well!!
I have really enjoyed reading all of your wonderful comments and ideas!!! Thank you so much for participating! Randi, I did a lot of demoing using Kidblog so that my students knew what was expected of them. I also found this wonderful video that a 3rd grade class made on writing quality comments: http://yollisclassblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/how-to-compose-quality-comment.html We discuss the video and online etiquette.
Also, like Melissa mentioned, in my classroom students don't get to do every Daily 5 choice every day. They switch it up throughout the week. I just don't have time to do all of it! And as for my writing block later in the day, I use Learning Headquarters, which is more structured in teaching narrative, informative, and opinion (based on the CC standards). I also like to infuse Social Studies and Science content into my writing block to make the best use of our time, so my students do a lot of writing on what we are learning about in social studies/science.
Post a Comment