Friday, January 29, 2010

What's the score?


Critiquing sample essays can be a great way to show what does and doesn't work in a piece of writing. However, I don't like to put my students on the spot with their peers, particularly when I'm trying to show the difference between strong and weak writing. That's why I'm glad there are so many sample essays online. At The Writing Site, which offers tips on how to score student work, I found this list of exemplars for fourth-grade narrative writing. You can select other grades and genres here.

I chose three of their sample essays about being invisible, which ranged in strength from weak to very strong. After starting class with a review of the Six Traits, my students and I read through the essays and then rated them using a very basic rubric. The kids got really into this exercise. By comparing the three essays, they were able to easily identify what was missing in the weaker ones and what made the strong piece so compelling. They also had plenty of advice for the writers!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Could you be more specific?


One of the most surefire ways to create vivid writing is to be highly specific. Don't say loud to describe a sound that is actually piercing or blaring. Don't say slow when what you mean is sluggish or creeping.

Finding just the right word when you need it can be a challenge for anyone, but for students who speak a language other than English at home, the pool of descriptive words from which to draw may not be nearly as deep as it could be. That's why it's so essential to provide enriching vocabulary in the classroom -- which actually benefits all students.

I recently ordered a set of word wall posters from the Teach Me Writing curriculum. (While my preference is to find free online resources whenever possible, I gladly paid for these and found them well worth the money.) The posters -- 43 in all -- offer alternatives to commonly used words of all kinds, including general verbs, adjectives that describe emotions, and so-called "over-used words." In all, they offer 263 enriching vocabulary words that can be posted in class.

Among the vivid verbs to replace look, move and take were glance, trudge and snatch. To describe precisely how things sound, look, smell, taste and touch, we have words like rustle, hazy, reek, tangy and crisp. I'm planning to rotate the posters on a word wall and have students copy the words in their binders to create personal dictionaries. These can later be used when they're stumped for just the right word in just the right spot.

Of course, you don't need posters to help expand your students' vocabulary. Try this lesson from About.com's ESL page. Create a worksheet with two columns. In the first, write a list of about 10 basic words such as walk, move, hold and drink. In the second, write a longer list that includes more specific words such as stagger, writhe, clutch and gulp. Have students match all of the specific words from the second column to the general ones listed in column one. I'm planning to use this with the help of a thesaurus.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Your best traits


My students and I have begun using the Six Traits of Writing model in class and are working to answer one basic question: "What is good writing?"

The Six Traits, shown at right, provide a common language and framework for describing the characteristics of good writing. Still, evaluating a piece of student work can be very subjective, which is why I've become a big fan of rubrics. A rubric is a scoring tool that lists specific criteria and objectives for an assignment. It explicitly states what is expected and how the quality of a student's work will be rated. For my class, I'm consulting a number of rubrics based on the Six Traits of Writing, but here is a particularly student-friendly one I like.

In addition to discussing the rubric with my students, I'll be posting descriptions of each trait on a bulletin board. Web sites that feature some basic posters can be found here and here.

I've written about the Writing Process before, and I should mention that the Six Traits model is not a replacement for it. Rather, the two work together. The Six Traits describe the components that make up a quality piece of writing, while the Writing Process offers a step-by-step path to creating it.

Friday, January 15, 2010

What Would J.K. Rowling Do?


Yesterday my students and I discussed why some writing is so compelling to read. Since they're in grades four to six, there are lots of Harry Potter fans, and they tried to articulate just what makes a Harry Potter book so hard to put down. One student put it this way: "When I'm reading it, I feel like I'm right there in it. And even though I know it's not true, I ask myself, 'How is this not true? How is this just fantasy?'"

We considered things like how the books were organized, the voice the author had developed, the research that must have gone into each book in the series, and how easily the language flowed.

Then we talked about how the author, J.K. Rowling, might have moved through the various stages of the writing process: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and finally publishing. How did she narrow down the topic? What helped her figure out what to say first and how the events should be sequenced and paced? How did she determine which types of revisions to make? And how much of the editing had she ultimately done herself?

This exercise helped to reinforce that whenever we're in the middle of a piece of writing, there is so much to sort, sift through, develop and change -- which is why we must all take things step by step. Even J.K. Rowling.

What a Process


The Writing Process describes five logical steps that writers follow in the creation of a quality piece of writing.

Step 1: Prewriting Also known as the brainstorming stage. Students think about their chosen topic and come up with ideas. Graphic organizers are often used to help map out some of the main points and details.

Step 2: Drafting The point at which students begin composing their work. Since the aim at this stage is to get thoughts down on paper, the focus is on ideas, not grammar or spelling.

Step 3: Revising A time to make major changes to improve the writing. This is a critical time to figure out what needs to be added, deleted, reorganized or developed in order to make the work more compelling. Students may get feedback from peers and teachers.

Step 4: Editing The step at which grammar, spelling and punctuation take center stage. Students may consult editing checklists and proofread their own and others' work.

Step 5: Publishing A time to share writing with others. This can take many forms, including Web publishing, displaying student work in the classroom, or even reading the work aloud to others.


Certainly, the Writing Process seems simple enough. But to be perfectly honest, those steps have often filled me with more questions than answers, particularly about how I can effectively explain, assign, and assess a piece of student work as it moves through the stages.

For one, how long should the process take--a few days, a week, two weeks? Does jotting down a few notes on a graphic organizer satisfy the prewriting requirement? More importantly, how do I help my students to move through the revision stage in a way that's truly productive?

These are some of the questions I'll be exploring in the upcoming weeks.

Is There Anything to Read?


At the beginning of the school year, my class focused on news stories. For homework, I often asked students to select and bring in an article they liked. The idea was to use the articles to find information, identify the elements of a news story, and practice summarizing.

The problem was that my students, who are in grades two to six, could rarely find articles geared to their age or reading level. Fortunately, there are some children's Web sites with content that children both comprehend and find interesting. I've compiled a list of my favorites below. I'd love to hear of any other good ones.

Time Magazine for Kids

National Geographic for Kids

Scholastic News

Sports Illustrated for Kids

Weekly Reader

PBS News Hour

National Wildlife Federation

It was the way you said it


In an effort to make their word choice more specific and their writing more vivid, students in my class have come up with a list of alternatives to the word "said."

mumbled
whispered
blurted out
blubbered
ranted
gasped
groaned
grumbled
protested
complained
recounted
asserted
remarked
uttered
mouthed
pronounced
yelled
announced

Homework is to list 20 alternatives to the word "nice."

Friday, January 8, 2010

Welcome to All Write Now!


Defining what "good writing" is can be a challenge, which makes writing a difficult skill to teach and assess. Many of us know an excellent piece of writing when we see it, yet find it difficult to explain what makes it so good. Similarly, student writers often struggle to figure out exactly what is expected of them and aren't sure of what they can do to improve their work.

Fortunately, there is a wealth of quality online material and information on the topic. What I find is that the more I look, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the less I seem to know! But by exploring the lessons, tips and tools of other educators, I feel inspired to try new things and share what I'm learning myself. It's quite an education.