Living Life Twice

   When students begin talking about their writing, they usually want to tell you what it is about, not how it is written. Sharing subject matter is important, but we want to encourage students to talk about their writing in more sophisticated ways. Over time student writers can be encouraged to talk about their purpose as writers, their audience for each piece of writing, and the techniques they use as writers in order to reach their audience. We also need to teach children to have similar conversations with each other about their respective writing pieces. In order to encourage this sort of “writing workshop conversation,” you can set up specific paired sharing times for students to share their writing in the way you have modeled in conferences.   You can pose specific questions or tasks for the sharing sessions, such as: ‘I want you to talk with your partner about why you are writing your story—what feelings do you want the reader to feel?’ or ‘Try to find as ...

‘Nobody but a reader ever became a writer.’ Richard Peck To strengthen those essential reading- writing connections for students I frequently share books I am currently reading with the various classes I visit. They may include books I am currently reading, or books I have recently purchased and intend to read next. I give them a ‘tasting’ of the book; explaining why I chose that particular book, what its mainly about and some of the things I’ve discovered or hope to discover during my reading. Recently I shared the following books: A Family of Readers by Roger Sutton and Martha Parravano -a book lover’s guide to sharing children and young adult literature. Land’s Edge by Tim Winton – A coastal memoir of rich childhood memories Write Starts by Hal Zine Bennett – wisdom and encouragement in the process of writing Hurricane by David Wiesner – a picture story book that tells the story of a hurricane’s progress It’s A Book by Lane Smith –a picture story book that celebrates...

 Student's comprehensive brainstorming sample This post is appearing  similtaneously on The Two Writing Teachers blog site where I am honoured to be this week's guest blogger. I hope you enjoy reading about brainstorming. I also hope you find strategies here that you can readily apply to your own writing workshops.                 Brainstorming is a strategy that has many learning applications. In this post, as guest blogger, I want to specifically look at brainstorming within the context of writing workshop and how we can assist developing writers to use it more effectively. It would be inaccurate to think of pre-writing as merely brainstorming. From my observations many teachers do, unfortunately. This is not to say that brainstorming is not a critical pre writing skill for young writers to acquire. In fact, it provides an excellent way to deepen student thinking around a new to...

NAPLAN has been spreading across the Australian educational landscape with alarming speed. It has begun to devour valuable teaching time in many schools as pressured educators fall under its hideous spell and indulge in highly questionable 'test prep' practices. Practices that do a disservice to what we know about effective teaching. With that in mind, I happened to read this article in the Melbourne Age... Professor Linda Darling Hammond has been visiting Australia and has spoken regarding the inherent dangers of high stakes testing and the effects such assessments can have on curriculum. I thought her words of wisdom and warning were well worth sharing. US education expert blasts 'narrow' national testing Anna Patty            The Age, Newspaper    May 2, 2011 NAPLAN-style testing and reporting have failed in the United States by narrowing the curriculum and corru...

Next week Australian students in the grades 3,5,7 and 9  undertake NAPLAN (National Assessment Program in Literacy and Numeracy). Before that time their is a need to examine the test writing genre and how it differs from writing as we know it. By conducting this close analysis of the differences in approach we allow students to more clearly see the artificiality of the test writing. It would be helpful to chart these differences, particularly for Grade three students who are having their first experience with the demands of writing to the clock on a given topic (prompt). A Grade three student told me last week that we should not call it a ‘writing test. Instead we should call it a ‘writing challenge’ I liked his attitude and so we began talking about the challenges this type of writing threw our way. We need to look at providing opportunities for students to experience timed writing’ as part of building further stamina for the task. I see the task in thr...

Saw this article on line and throught it was worth sharing. It challenges some misconcpetions about the volume of reading and writing students in which students are actually engaged. The challenge seems to be how we do maximize this literary interaction? 'Today's teens have grown up zooming among hyperlinks in cyberspace and conversing in an online world of Twitter and text messaging where acronyms, assorted shortcuts and creative punctuation have redefined everyday discourse. Experts figure that kids today read and write even more than previous generations. And they do so in a broader and more complex environment — though not always in academic ways. The fire hose of online content, plus evolving media platforms, present new challenges for students — and teachers rushing to keep up with technology — as 21st-century literacies blend with traditional skills. "I'm not going to say it's a good thing or a bad thing," says Elizabeth Kleinfeld, assistant profes...

This week I have had more time for reading (term holidays) and so I revisited an old writing friend. I picked up Nancie Atwell’s ‘ Lessons That Change Writers’ and began rereading. I like to go back to authors I trust. Atwell’s messages about writing are laden with timeless value. Nancie writes, ‘Writing is as much an act of reading over what we have written as it is drafting new writing.’ These words set me to thinking. A lot of student writers are not consciously skilled where the act of rereading is concerned. For this reason it needs to be drawn to their attention. We need to show them how and why rereading is an important skill to add to their writing armoury. They need to see it explicitly modelled and valued by a proficient writer. This way it is more likely to be adopted. A lack of consistent and conscious rereading is frequently the thing preventing the writing young writers produce rising above the ordinary. Learning the habit of rereading and applying it in a conscious ...

The latest edition of  ACER's Teacher Magazine (April Edition) contains an article titled 'The Write Stuff' in which I have tried to outline the essential ingredients for an effective classroom writing program.  EXTRACT: 'In any successful writing program, certain principles are at the heart of the teaching, and the impact of these principles is clearly visible in the day to day operation of that particular classroom. In such places one senses a special energy –a genuine spark!              A partnership exists. -A unique partnership where students and teachers share the common goal of becoming expert writers. Each participant assumes an increasing authority for personal writing outcomes. The gradual release of responsibility is at play in the teaching. Should we venture through the doorway and spend time in these learning environments, the following factors become self evident:' For the full article go to : http://r...

This morning I watched a bus go by and stop nearby as I walked Mornington’s main street. Schools are on a term break and I have time to amble. I like the notion of ambling. Remember, not all who wander are necessarily lost. I fixed my gaze on the bus for a brief moment.  I realized I have not travelled on a bus since returning from New York in 2007. I must be honest, I don’t miss the experience.   The longer I stayed in New York , the more my travel innocence eroded. I experienced things in New York , I had only ever read about. The comfort of my existence in a quiet, coastal town in far away Australia proved to be the antithesis of the life I came to know during my time in New York . I moved through a life wrapped in exciting, strange, challenging, scary-weird and wonderful moments, -often within the same hour. When I first came to live in Brooklyn , Friday mornings found me catching the No 69 bus out of Park Slope, knowing I was sure of getting a...