Let's Talk About Writing...
Why It Matters
Three-quarters of both 12th and 8th graders lack proficiency in writing, according to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP, 2017). Writing is a critical skill for our students’ self-expression and self-actualization. We know from decades of research how students learn to write and what and how to teach so that the majority of our students can be successful.
Middle School: Please listen to this podcast. Then, respond to the prompt below.
Elementary: After watching Lessons 1-3 please respond to the following prompt:
Prompt: Writing has a heavy cognitive load, and keeping students motivated is difficult and critical. What are your ideas for giving students opportunities to explore their interests, choices and voices in writing while still developing the writing skills they need AND showing learning of content area? How do you balance these important factors?
Again, I know I’m getting predictable and boring…but gotta say Curipod! I feel that the safe sharing gives students opportunity to “Glow” with their own ideas and “Grow” from peer, teacher, and AI feedback. Doing a Curipod presentation is also an excellent way to transfer the responsibility from teacher (I do), group (we do), and individual (you do) while still attending to specific skills.
ReplyDeleteI agree that “safe” sharing is so important! When students feel safe to share their writings, the feedback they receive can help them grow. Sometimes it can be a struggle to encourage our shy and quieter students to share, so I think Curipod would be great to help these students not be so hesitant in sharing their thoughts.
DeleteGlow's & Grow's are my favorites! I think it helps direct us and our students into looking for the positive first before picking out things that need improvement!
DeleteI love using Curipod like this! It really does feel safe to say a wrong answer... b/c you get a generated name. It's a fun SEL activity in my class to have me pick out my fave of their names!
DeleteAlso anonymous is christie... I'm not sure why it's not letting me change to my google account.
DeleteI like to give students the opportunity to write in a low-stakes environment, such as answering prompts or questions, making predictions, and writing about something they wonder about in a journal or notebook, as many of us do. Writing in a daily or weekly journal can help them practice transferring their ideas onto paper, find their “voice” while writing their thoughts and opinions, and improve their writing conventions. It is also easy to include prompts or questions that tie into content areas. I also love giving students the opportunity to share their writing if they would like to, as it is a way for students to share their ideas, build confidence and pride in their writing, and also encourage them to receive and give feedback from their peers.
ReplyDeleteI think this is something I could incorporate in PE. I like the idea of low stacks. In PE we often make predictions and I usually just have them answer verbally. I am missing an opportunity I think.
DeleteI agree with writing in a low-stakes environment! Students don't feel the pressure of the mechanics of writing vs. initiating the love of writing!
DeleteI believe in breaking the writing process down into very small chunks using explicit modeling and think alouds for every step. Some students need assistance with simple senteces explicitly modeling the capitalization, phonetic spellings, and punctuation for that sentence. However, other students are ready to move to one or more paragraphs. I believe the sharing process is also important . When students share their writing they feel empowerd ,and other students begin to use a good idea that was shared. Curipod is a great way to share student writing and provides great feedback.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Breaking down the writing process helps the students not get so overwhelmed. As they complete the small steps, they feel accomplished and then are more willing to continue to write.
DeleteI agree that teaching in chunks is a great strategy! I like how you allow them to share to aslo inspire others to write!
DeleteChunking is so important! When I taught special education, I would turn almost every writing assignment into mini assignments where they would only write one or two sentences. By the time they finished it all, they had written an entire essay! This helped with their confidence too. Overall I think this is a great technique!
DeleteI have incorporated Book Creator into a middle school team sports unit this year. Students were given the opportunity to select a sport within category that most interested them.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have been shocked at some of the writing! haha When students turned in their draft I could tell that it was mostly cut and paste from their research or it was original thought that was expressed crudely.
I think in the future I will spend more time guiding their writing. I will add more prompts on the template and will spend more time on the drafting process. This will give me the opportunity to identify students that may struggle to express their thoughts in writing as opposed to students that struggle with the reading comprehension during research.
I think that is awesome how you are incorporating writing into PE. I don't think there are many PE teachers that would even consider it! What you are doing with your middle school students is similar to what I am doing with my students. I think the students produce better writing when they are the ones choosing to write about something that interests them. It also helps them develop more background knowledge which we know is critical.
DeleteI have seen the students working on these projects and I think it is a great way to allow choice and student interest in their work! I can see how, without some prompting, students will pick the "easy route" of copying and pasting information in. They don't necessarily see it as an assignment that is assessing their writing abilities! I think it is great that you are giving them opportunities to pick a topic of interest and use their research and writing skills.
DeleteYes, I too realize that many times I forget to review, prepare, give examples and prompts showing exactly what I am looking for in terms of writing. Because we do not have daily access to the literacy progress (by assessing them) of our students due to our subject area, often, after the fact I remember I should have been more specific or should have provided a different more detailed rubric that includes writing skills and not just the content I am looking for. Thank you for the reminder!
DeleteI love book creator sooo much. It's such a versatile tool. 3 years ago, I completely thought it was an elementary tool. Then I got it. Mind boggling. I am even doing 7th grade warm ups in it now, and I absolutely love it.
DeleteKindergarten and First grade are foundational years for writing. The students are learning the very basics of first learning to write words, then write sentences, and then multiple sentences on a topic. We are currently working on writing informational pieces. Before we began this unit, I asked the Kindergarten students what animals they wonder/are curious about. I let each student select an animal. In my plans, I added in videos and books about each child’s animal. After learning about that day’s animal, the students would write facts they have learned about it. In First grade, the students were asked to choose a woodland animal. The students have started a book in Book Creator. I have added topics (habitat, food, etc). Throughout this week, I will show them how to research their animal and add the information into their books. Then students when their book is complete they will have the opportunity to choose any animal they would like to research and write about in a new book.
ReplyDeleteI like how you ask the student ahead of time what their favorite animals are. they most be so excited to have "their animal" included in your planning! You are doing a fabulous job of teaching the littles!
DeleteMost times, the way a student speaks is how they write and that can bare a heavy cognitive load. Reading and writing are deeply interrelated processes that draw on a shared foundation of language skills. Reading and written expression have a reciprocal relationship. I try to teach students to move through the continuum of skills at their own pace. We use daily writing journals that cover a variety of topics: narrative, informational, and persuasive writing. Students are given a chance to express their ideas without the stress of grammatical errors constantly being reinforced. They also are allowed to read their writing to the class if they like! After we write, I always go through the writing process and have them place parts of their writing in the introduction, body, and conclusion. Some students may have all of the parts, and some students realize that they have to write more, because they are missing specific material. I also emphasize showing my students what a level 1, 2, 3, and 4 writing topic looks like and we go through them and point out information that a student has included, as well as finding details that a student left out. I then have my kiddos rewrite the idea using the same prompt.
ReplyDeleteI also like to integrate writing with Science and SS - background knowledge definitely helps with this, because students have more details to use in the body of their paragraph.
DeleteWriting is definitely a subject that students tend to struggle with. The instructing of writing can be a daunting task but if you model and instruct the steps and processes of writing then the students will be able to become better writers. The cognitive load is a lot for second graders. They are still learning basic writing and sentence structures as well as they are still learning phonics rules, grammer, and sentences structure. I think that laying a strong foundation for phonics and grammar will aid them in being able to focus on the actual writing within content specific tasks. I also ensure that I teach the writing process in steps and then model how all the steps come together for a concise writing piece.
ReplyDeleteI like how in Cox Campus the teachers demonstrated positive self talk and how to critique a classmates' writing in a way that is positive and constructive. I think my students will be able to tie in with the 7 Mindsets with in how they interact with each other during writing. This is something that I need to model more and teach students how to review not only their own work but others. I do give my students choices for their writing topics. I provide text sets for students to have a variety of choices within a specific content area or topic. If they can write about something they already have background knowledge in or are interested in, then they will be more motivated to write.
Motivation is the biggest challenge I face as a middle school teacher. It is SO hard to maintain fidelity to the content you are teaching while also keeping students engaged and motivated. Math is not an area of interest for a lot of students which really hinders that motivation and engagement. I find myself changing platforms and assignment types regularly to keep them engaged. Although most of the writing in math involves students supporting their answers with technical vocabulary, there are opportunities to engage students with writing in math. For example, if students are learning about ratios and proportions in math, they can write about how these concepts relate to their favorite sport or hobby.
ReplyDeleteWhen aiming to keep students motivated with writing I believe there are two important components: choice and collaboration. Allowing students to pick topics and writing styles (narrative, informative, poetry, etc) that are interesting and resonate with them is a key way to keep them engaged in the research and writing process. Another key to engagement is allowing for peer collaboration. Most middle schoolers love any chance they can get to work with a classmate. This could be collaborating on a writing prompt together, or it could be used for peer editing and revision. These two components help students balance the exploration of their interests and voices in writing with developing the necessary skills and content learning.
I love the thought of collaborating for peer review and revision. Its so easy to miss this step when we are in content classes that do not focus on writing as part of the content standards. Students learn best when they are teaching others or having meaningful academic discussions, so the opportunity to collaborate and revise would be amazing.
DeleteMotivation is a huge issue! I love how you pinpointed choice and collaboration as strategies to overcome motivation struggles. I think this is very helpful. Also sometimes the choice to collaborate or not. Some students prefer to work alone. I sometimes allow them to have that choice, but they understand that there are other times when collaboration is necessary.
DeleteBecause I teach Science, I often will break up writing into smaller constructed responses, being very specific about the ways to answer short answer and constructed responses. A lot of my writing tasks end up being summaries of videos or reading passages in which I use the IVC method. We identify the text, use a connecting verb, then give the main idea followed by 3 key details to help others understand the content. I also like the thought of giving choice. Students can use selected vocabulary to either write an informative explanation or use those terms to create a narrative piece. The freedom to explore the types of reading and writing that interests the student helps motivation.
ReplyDeleteI think we have unique opportunity to offer a safe way to build writing skills (with the individual interests in mind) with instant feedback from peers and teacher. Even the simple tool of the Google Meet CHAT BOX can aid in this safe practice. I can ask open ended questions by prompting with a statement. For example, "The song I listen to most often right now is________." I request ONE word answers in the chat box with or without peer feedback. Then during the next class I may ask, "What I like most about the song I listen to most right now is__________." I may request a full sentence using fancy musical vocabulary OR just one complete sentence without fancy musical vocabulary. We build on this and continue to discuss via CHAT BOX favorite songs, artists, genres, etc. Depending on grade level I can vary this practice and it is fairly easy to offer clear instructions, give and example and give feedback instantly.
ReplyDeleteI like using the chatbox also as a way to individually "conference" with a student about their writing.
DeleteI like to give the kids a writing prompt picture to get them engaged. Many of these pictures are unexpected topics or are silly. The kids love writing a story about the prompts and sharing them aloud. We then go through anediting checklist of different skills one by one and check to see if their papers show that paricular skill or if they need to add something. Book creator has a wonderful daily writing prompt journal I have been using as well. Our read aloud book correlates with our social studies standards. Many times I have them "write the next chapter" , predicting what will happen next in the book. This not only allows them to practice writing, but also draws in the social studies content as well.
ReplyDeleteI agree with so much that is already been said. I am such a fan of Curipod's AI generated feedback. I like to have the students take that feedback and place it on a google doc and reflect on it prior to writing their final. I have also incorporated writing more by using the blog of their portfolio. It was such an easy thing to do with 7th grade, b/c so many had already done it with elementary teachers previously! So thanks y'all! I am also using Kami to help them create collaborate writing docs for their podcasts. It has been a great way to get them to write on the topics we are currently studying!
ReplyDeleteYou are welcome! lol I agree that Curipod is one of the best ways for students to get feedback without waiting on the teacher. It gives the luxury of time to improve and learn further.
DeleteI think self reflection is great also! I would like to try the 3-2-1 strategy also with paragraph writing with 3rd graders.
ReplyDeleteI am a big advocate for student choice! Yes, you have to get down to the nuts and bolts of content, but if you relate it to a way they like to express themselves(song, poem, even jokes) they would be more adapt to share and care. I haven't done this idea at Empower, however, I remember I have had collaborative writing in where it the paper went "Around the Room" to make a story. Sometimes, I allowed funny. Sometimes, I was more specific in requiring different skills like had to use compound sentence, or 2 adjectives in their particular sentence all awhile the story had to make sense.
ReplyDeleteThere are several ways to allow students to explore their interests and choice and still keep them engaged in writing. First, I feel Curipod has done an amazing job with this, and I am so grateful for this tool. Second, through blogging and keeping digital portfolios, students have the freedom to write about literally anything and everything. Also, using Book Creator adds extra fun and engagement into writing as students can express themselves through their own designs. Finally, I think it is important for teachers to engage in discussions about things that the students are interested in and things that matter to them. Let them express themselves through writing by incorporating those topics into the writing instruction.
ReplyDelete