June 11, 2008 Jennifer Wielinga

 Will including weekly mini-lessons about elaboration and supporting details improve student scores on district writing assessments in the sub-category of “Content and Ideas”?

 Mini-lessons, presented on a regular basis  Topics to include (but not be limited to): 1)Show, Don’t Tell 2)Adding Anecdotes 3)Adding Snapshots 4)Adding Thoughtshots

 Still no discernable trend in number of details in daily writing (because they are random?)  Increase in # proficient (5-7)  I also looked at ALL Q3 scores- 46/75 had proficient subscores  More MEANINGFUL practice  Different data collection- # of details was hard to measure and didn’t tell me much  Start RIGHT AWAY with mini-lessons and workshop structure  Incorporate Nancie Atwell mini-lessons also

One of the nine research-based strategies is “homework and practice”  Practice should have a clearly articulated purpose and desired outcome  Should be focused when students are practicing a complex process, like writing

Burke gives guidelines for effective mini-lessons:  Specific  Timely  Brief but adequate(10-25 minutes)  Not isolated: the idea or skill needs to be revisited and reinforced over time  Planned ahead  Structured  Scaffolded  Uses student writing whenever possible  Interactive  Modeled  Integrated with assessment

In the context of a writing workshop:  Mini-lessons allow flexibility  Include teacher modeling  Allow opportunity to showcase student work  Atwell has found them to be at least as effective as individual conferences