Living Life Twice

Here are five of the most popular Living Life Twice posts for 2022. Thank you for your continuing support and interest in teaching writing and all it entails. Donald Graves Address 2022: Reflecting Upon the Writing Revolution and the need for Rejuvenation I felt greatly honoured presenting this year’s Donald Graves Address. Given the names of those who had previously presented here, I found myself in rare air and quite privileged to be called upon to celebrate the life work of Donald Graves. I remain indebted to ALEA/AATE for this incredible opportunity to share Donald's immense legacy with you. https://livinglifetwice-alwrite.blogspot.com/2022/07/donald-graves-address-alan-j-wright.html Writing Conversations to Launch At The Start Of The School Year Writing conversations to launch a school year.  In the early weeks of a new school year, we would hopefully expect to hear conversations around writing raising matters with student writers, similar in intent to the types of matte...

  Adopting a Broader View Of Writing Assessment When teachers look closely at the writing students produce - using authentic writing assessment,  they begin to understand, more clearly, how writers operate. The teacher learns exactly what the developing writer knows and what they need to know next.  The sampled writing reveals what the writer has mastered, partially learned, and those aspects of writing not yet consistently controlled.  Peter Johnston (1997) described assessment as a 'disposition' and children as rich sources of information about themselves as writers. We need to become the kind of teacher who develops an assessment stance whenever we are in the company of student writers. The forward planning a teacher then undertakes endeavours to focus on the point of need for each writer. The instruction that grows from such evaluation occurs on several levels -whole group, small group and individual. Importantly, it doesn’t limit the young writer’s choice, ...

Teaching Kids To Write: Some Beliefs Across more than 50 years as an educator and writer, I have been fortunate to gather much invaluable experience regarding the growth and development of curious, confident writers. May I be so bold as to share a few of my considered thoughts regarding these matters in this post... These things I hold to be true: • Writers need to know their stories. They might have to tell them many times or engage in a lot of thinking before they arrive at the writing. Pre-writing, and rehearsal are therefore critical to improved writing outcomes. •The teaching of writing needs to be seen through a child’s eyes. Are students writing about their view of the world? Can we help them to talk and write richly about their lives and those things that matter? •Writing children do should let us know what it is like to see the world through their eyes and their perspective. •We won’t get honest writing and true voice from writers who are denied CHOICE in both topic and genre....

Reflecting upon our writing lives, is a form of metacognition. We look back in order to discover. We may uncover truths. We may discover we are unconsciously skilled. We may also discover the need to redirect our energies, unpacking important details or revelations to guide our writing lives forward. Reflecting reveals  signposts essential to writing development. As teachers of writing, it is vital that we encourage the growth of these same understandings with student writers. We must assist them to develop a level of awareness surrounding their own learning. By teaching mindfully, the inexperienced writer is encouraged to learn how to think and operate independently. In this way, they can be assisted to be more aware of their thought processes. Attaining such a level of awareness will help them immeasurably as learners and in that process they become better writers. If we, as teachers encourage student writers to use reflection as a thinking tool, as well as a writing tool, we emp...

Teaching the craft of writing requires teachers to be explicit in their work with students. Explicit and mindful teaching occurs when teachers are clear about what it is they want children to learn and when  a meaningful, focused program of instruction is provided.  This means conference notes and conversations, as well as writing samples are integral to the process of knowing what to teach.  The instruction provided by the teacher benefits from being informed by such insight.  Learning to look below the surface features and errors in the writing piece creates an opportunity to see the potential hidden beneath. Possibilities beyond grammar, punctuation and sentence structure emerge. When consideration is given to focused learning, student writers receive opportunities to make sense of the learning by creating purposeful connections between lesson purposes, tasks, texts, and lesson reflections. If these aspects of our lesson align, we increase our ...