I am doing my practicum in a first grade classroom. During this practicum, I have been learning so many useful and effective techniques. One of them being how to incorporate writing workshop into the scheduled day. I know that all teachers do this differently but I thought I would share one that I found to be really helpful. The students are taught the five stages of the writing process and move throughout the five stages on a weekly basis at their own pace.
First, they all start out by prewriting. During this they are to draw a bubble map about one particular subject. The students are able to choose any subject that they want to add a little more creativity to their writing. Once they have made their bubble map they move onto drafting. When they have completed drafting, they move on to conference. The conference takes place with the teacher. The teacher and the student then sit together and discuss the student's writing. Once they both have gone over the story together the teacher gives the students 3 grades. One for genre, conventions, and composition. I found this technique of grading so useful because grading writing can be so hard especially at the primary grade levels. Once the teacher has given the child the grades they return to their seats to work on editing/revising and then they publish their work. Once they have published a story which includes drawing a picture to accompany their writing, they are able to share their stories with the class during sharing which happens right after lunch. The teacher as well as the students all know which stage of the writing process they are at because they are able to move a picture of themselves on a pocket chart located in the front of the classroom labeled Writing Workshop.
The students seem to really enjoy the way this system works. Especially when it is their turn to share. Once the students are finished sharing their story, they call on 3 students to tell them something they enjoyed about their story.
Like I mentioned, I have been learning so many useful techniques and feel as if I will never stop learning from others especially when I become a teacher.
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3 comments:
It sounds like your teacher is really organized and has a great working technique for her class writing process. It's a good idea to have them do parts at a time, so that they will be able to revise anything they may have done incorrectly before going too far off-track.
One thing that seems to work rather well with my second graders is having a formatted page to do their writing, either sectioned with cue words or bordered in the outline of whatever they are writing about (e.g. a turkey for Thanksgiving, a boat/airplane for traveling, etc.) Somehow the shape helps motivate them to get going faster.
I totally agree that this is a great way to implement the writing process. I actually have done this same type of procedure in my classroom druing the past two years. Not only is writing difficult for students to do but also difficult for teachers to assess and implement. I believe it is a great idea to have each student be well aware of how they are progressing in the writing process and to make connection in how learning the process will help them in the future.
In my classroom, we did Wrtier's Workshop three days a week. The brainstorming and prewriting activities are always the hardest to start. But once these two stages are completed students cannot wait to revise and publish their own work. In my school we actually had publishing kits we filled out and then sent to an actual publishing company. My students get a hardcover book for themselves, I get one for our class library and then also one goes into our school library. The only drawback is that we cannot publish all of the books so our class picks the best three. This seems to motivate my students into doing their very best work.
Response from Anila Hylviu
Your cooperating teacher must be absolutely admired for what she is doing. She must be a role model for you.I did my first practicum in a first grade classroom, but the teacher thought it was too hard for her students to understand the writing process.I wish she had tried to teach her students the writing stages one at a time, and realize how fluent her students would have become in their writings.
I personally think that your cooperating teacher is doing a wonderful job in teaching her first grade students how to use the five stages of the writing processs. In my opinion, it is very important to start teaching this skill at this grade level, because the earlier the students are exposed to the writing process, the more they get used to the habit of writing conventionaly, and the better will be their chances of refining their compositions and their writing styles.
I also liked the conference that the teacher held with her students in the mid of their writing process.It was a great opportunity
for her to monitor her students' writings,and make sure they were on the right track. The conference must have been beneficial to the students as well, because the teacher could have led them in the right direction,by providing feedback or scaffolding them when necessary.
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