Question #2 Quickwrite March 14, 2017

I greatly agree with Gallagher in making room in your curriculum to give many many opportunities for students to write.  I believe students should write EVERY day. Quick writes, annotated notes, responses to literature, different structures and genres, spelling sentences, daily prompts, etc. Writing also needs to be taught in other content areas like science, social studies, math, and health.  I also believe that it’s most effective when students’ writing is monitored and you have an opportunity to talk to them about the WHAT and WHY they are writing. (Author’ purpose and audience)

Modeling is a MUST.  We cannot expect our students to write if we do not model how it is to  be done.  Collaborating on it as a class, having students invest in their ideas is so important.  I like to use different color markers to revise and edit and encourage my students to do this as well.  There is no erasing allowed.  Only crossing out.  This way students see that writing takes time, and we are never done on the first draft.  My famous quote is “you’re not done, you’ve only just begun!”  (Can you see the eyes rolling now?)

I remember a time I modeled how to answer a comprehension question. Processes that were discussed and shared were things like, restating the question, answering the question with evidence to prove your answer, and adding elaboration to support it. (I still had students answering questions with a lowercase b and the word because….)  After working on it together, and seeing the things I changed and the different colors of revision, and modeling how to go back and reread questions to determine all parts, students referred to the process like answering a math word problem.  They were able to connect the process through another content area.

One of my Tier III students who sees the reading specialist for ELA, came back one day after this lesson and told me the reading specialist asked him to read me his answer to the question he had that day. Long story short, he had answered the question by restating it, answering it, used evidence from the text, and elaborated on his answer.  The reading specialist was so impressed with his response, she pulled me aside to share her enthusiasm.  What was more important though, is that we both made a big deal about how well he wrote ,which made an impression on the student and his perception of how he was as a writer.  

In conclusion, even if it’s only 10 minutes, I try to get my students to write every day.  Modeling and creating anchor charts of models is key.  As Gallagher says, we can’t expect students to play in a basketball game, if they have never been taught to understand the game.