Taking it to Writing January 10, 2014 Weber School District Make sure you are sitting with your team from your school

 Be sure to sign the roll  Please turn off cell phones and keep them put away  Write down ideas to share during discussion times  There will be a 20 minute break at 9:50 Housekeeping

 Write down your strengths and weaknesses in teaching writing Warm-up Activity

“Writing today is not a frill for the few, but an essential skill for the many.” National Commission on Writing (2003)

 Writing is the most difficult of all language skills.  It is acquired the latest, mastered by the fewest, and learned with the most effort over the longest period of time. (D. Johnson & H. Myklebust, 1967) Writing is Difficult

Teaching Elementary School Students to be Effective Writers Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Dept. of Ed, and wwc/publications_reviews.aspx#pubsearch.

Write Traits in a Process Model

 Writing well involves more than simply documenting ideas as they come to mind. It is a process that requires that the writer think carefully about the purpose for writing, plan what to say, plan how to say it, and understand what the reader needs to know.  Teachers can help students become effective writers by teaching a variety of strategies for carrying out each component of the writing process and by supporting students in applying the strategies until they are able to do so independently. Writing Process

 Develop goals and generate ideas  Gather information from reading, prior knowledge, and discussions with others  Organize ideas for writing based on the purpose of the text  Write these goals and ideas down in order to refer and modify them throughout the writing process  6 Traits Connection: Ideas  Strategies:  POW (Pick ideas, Organize their notes, Write and say more)  Ordering Ideas/Outlining Generating Ideas

 Create a preliminary version of a text  Select words and construct sentences to accurately convey ideas  Skills such as spelling, handwriting, and capitalization and punctuation are important when drafting but should not be the focus of students’ effort at this stage  6 Traits Connection: all traits except conventions and presentation  Strategies:  Imitation (models of exemplary text)  Sentence Generation Drafting

 Make content changes to clarify or enhance meaning  Reorganize  Add or remove sections  Refine word choice and sentence structure  Word processing can make this easier for many students  6 Traits Connection: Organization, voice, sentence fluency  Strategies:  Peer revising (?, ^) Revision

 Make changes to conventions of written English  Make the text readable for audience and intended meaning clearer  Spelling  Grammar  6 Traits Connection: Word Choice, Conventions  Strategies:  COPS (Capitalize, Overall appearance, Punctuation, Spelling) Editing

 Occurs at the end of the writing process  Purpose is to share publicly in written form or oral form, or both  Not all student writing needs to be published but students should be given opportunities to publish their writing and celebrate their accomplishments  6 Trait Connection: Presentation  Strategies:  Peer Sharing (in pairs, listen and read along as the author reads aloud)  Authentic audience(s) Publishing

 Writing testing window: March 24 – April 12  90 minutes: two 45 minute sessions  Prompt – responding to a text  Informative/explanatory  Opinion  Students will be held accountable for any conventions from Language Standards 1 & 2  Spell check will be available Writing Sage Assessment

 Before a student can be expected to write formally, they must be able to speak formally.  Ways to support this:  Require students to use formal language to answer questions asked in lessons  Require students to restate part of question in responding  Use sentence framing to support writing formally Oral Language ListeningSpeakingReadingWriting

 Utah Core Standards (added components)  Manuscript Handwriting (K-2)  Cursive Writing (3-5)  Reading cursive writing (3-5)  Utah Core Standards

 Resources are included in Treasures!  Page 168 in your Teacher Resource Book Handwriting

Utah Core Standard (W4.1) Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons. a. Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose. b.Provide reasons that are support by facts and details. c.Link opinion and reasons using words and phrases (e.g., for instance, in order to, in addition). d.Provide a concluding statement or section related to the opinion presented. Concepts (nouns) Skills (verbs) Objective in student friendly language: Big Idea (what you want your students to understand) Essential Question(s): Unpacking Writing Standard 1

  What sea creature interests you the most? Think about why you like it. Share your opinion on that animal and tell why it is the best. (opinion)  Rewrite these prompts to be text-dependent! Text-Dependent Prompts

Organize Your Writing

Utah Core Standard (W4.2) Write informative/explanatory text to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. a. Introduce a topic clearly and group related information in paragraphs and sections; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension. b.Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic. c.Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases (e.g., another, for example, also, because). d.Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic. e.Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented. Concepts (nouns) Skills (Verbs) Objective in student friendly language: Big Idea (what you want your students to understand) Essential Question(s): Unpacking Writing Standard 2

 Comprehension Check page 529  Question 5: Read “Coral Reefs” on pages and page 514 of At Home in the Coral Reef. What did you learn about hard and soft coral from each selection? Explain. Text-Dependent Prompts

  Teaching kids about revising (writing workshop lesson) Building Excellence in Student Work Models, Critique, Descriptive Feedback

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