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...

Teaching writing frequently involves a balancing act between teaching the conventions of grammar and spelling and addressing aspects of craft and meaning. Unfortunately for young writers, many teachers devote disproportionate attention to perfecting the secretarial aspects of writing, much to the detriment of capturing ideas, attention to important details, a sense of audience, risk taking and voice - things that matter when writing.  When spelling correctly is an over-arching consideration, young writers avoid ambitious vocabulary choices. They write –safely. They write less, and they write tentatively for fear of getting it wrong. The writer, perceived as a 'good' speller, may in fact be a 'safe' speller, such is their fear of getting it wrong.  Grainger et al. (2005) claimed teachers frequently send children off to write with the songs of how to fulfil technical aspects of writing ringing in their ears and anything else is sadly swept aside. Any tune the text may p...

In 2005, Professor Richard Andrews of York University conducted the largest systematic review of existing studies on the teaching of grammar and found there was no evidence that teaching grammar as a formal stand-alone exercise helped 5-16 year old write more fluently, or accurately. A most powerful and informative finding.  By way of contrast, contextualising the teaching of grammar assists students to understand the role grammar plays in the development of an effective writer. It teaches students to produce writing that is ‘reader friendly.’  What it doesn’t do is divorce grammar from the actual act of producing writing. However, what also needs to be present in our curriculum planning is the awareness of the need to teach students to be meta-cognitive with respect to the writing they produce. Grammar alone just won’t cut through.  We know that explicit teaching of grammatical rules is not necessarily matched by an ability to make corrections. There is no simple relati...

I continue to field questions concerning the structure, or architecture of the writer’s workshop. Graduate teachers, teachers from other jurisdictions, teachers returning from leave all seeking to know and understand the basics of structure around the workshop. So, let’s revisit this critical consideration: Component Purpose What Happens? Connection/tuning in/ To help students make connections to previous work and to activate their prior knowledge.   Talk about how this topic fits with the class’ previous learning and how it connects with the student’s as both readers and writers   (Remember yesterday when we were discussing...?’) Teaching/ Mini Lesson To clearly or explicitly show students how to do something we’d like them to practice as writers. To explicitly and mindfully communicate the focus of the lesson Demonstrate, explain to students a strategy to try. Retelling or rolepl...

We know inexperienced writers make errors. We also know experienced writers make mistakes. Learning cannot take place without some level of error occurring. The challenge is, how do we equip our student writers to identify errors so they can effect the changes necessary to improve the quality of their writing pieces? Children do not become better writers by writing less, and this is the possible negative outcome from an over emphasis on correction. Correction is beneficial when students see the need for it. When they have an authentic purpose for the writing they are doing, they engage in the process with purpose and a desire to make the writing they share, work for the reader. They begin to respect their readers and understand their needs. This awareness of audience is a vital consideration. The pen that makes the corrections must be in the hand of the writer, not the teacher. When the teacher assumes the total responsibility for correcting errors related to spelling, punctuat...

If parents don’t understand why you’re not marking up mistakes on a piece of writing or’ correcting’ writer’s notebook entries with relentless zeal, then consider this drastic action. Take a child’s painting and cover it in transparent plastic or laminate. Then, start marking all over it, crossing things out, redrawing other parts, putting notes and comments on it. Parents will most likely find such action discomforting. They might even gasp in horror. Then ask, why should we do this to a student’s writing? Afterall, both are artistic creations –works of art. Inexperienced writers make errors. So do experienced writers. Learning cannot take place without some level of error. One of the greatest issues a developing writer can face in the process of becoming a competent writer is to be inhibited from responding, for fear of being wrong. When a young writer tackles an unfamiliar word in their writing and spells it correctly they confirm their existing beliefs concerning ...

Lynne Dorfman and   Rose Capelli in their book ‘Mentor Texts –Teaching Writing Through Literature, K-6 refer to having students walk around in the shoes of another author; to use the syntax of that author. I like this approach... Using the style of another author enables one to teach aspects of grammar and mechanics in an authentic way. Using mentor texts we can embed the teaching of grammatical language. That way we allow students to view it in the same context experienced writers do. A way to teach these important messages about language structures is to have students copy exemplars from mentor authors in to their writer’s notebooks and then try it out for themselves. They are effectively trying to 'write in the style of the chosen mentor. Dorfmann and Capelli refer to this as having students walk around in the syntax. We start with the mentor text, imitate it ourselves, then have our students try it with us in a shared writing exercise. Then we challe...

Teaching young writers to embrace the idea of revision is not as difficult as it is often made out to be. If we approach the challenge from the view that a good piece of writing becomes even better with the application of a range of revision strategies, it is possible to change the pictures students hold in their heads. -the view that revision is either irksome, or unnecessary. I often find myself chanting the mantra – Revision is the magic behind great writing. To break down this resistance to revision, we need to teach student writers a range of revision strategies that allow them to witness the power of revision to almost instantly transform the writing, giving it greater clarity and reader connectedness. Today, I worked with a Grade 4 class with whom I had not previously spent class time. We began by looking at some of their writing samples. After a short discussion, we agreed that our goal for the lesson was to ‘polish’ them a little. I talked about verbs and how they provide the...

UPDATED 2021 In 2005, Professor Richard Andrews of York University conducted the largest systematic review of existing studies on the teaching of grammar and found there was no evidence that teaching grammar as a formal stand alone exercise helped 5-16 year old write more fluently, or accurately. A most powerful and informative finding.  It is therefore surprising when news reports variously call for reviving the practice of formal grammar. As a result, media headlines scream the tired old catch cry ‘back to basics’ and the conservatives among us salivate. Every time the headlines scream ‘Back to Basics’ an appalling lack of awareness of the reality of grammar teaching is  displayed.  It is insulting to suggest that re-inventing the past is the way to go. Educators are being asked to cast their collective gaze back to some mythical golden era with regards to the teaching of spelling, grammar and phonics.  Teaching the so called basics has never gone away. Teachers co...