K-5 Writing January 20, 2014

Agenda ● Welcome ●CCSS and Smarter Balanced Assessment ●A Workshop Approach ●Resource Review ○Matt Glover ○Katie Wood Ray ○Lucy Calkins ●SDMA Priorities ●Grade Level Work

LOL :-)

Writing Significance “Writing is widely regarded as one of the basics, yet it is given short shrift. Writing has been chronically under taught, and it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe that attention to writing is long overdue.” Lucy Calkins

CCSS~Simplified Emphasis of Writing is equal to Reading Writing across all content areas for real purposes Reading will be assessed through writing Three types of Writing o Narrative (fiction, fantasy, memoir, literary nonfiction, historical fiction, biography) o Persuasive/Opinion (letters, reviews, petition, editorial, persuasive essay, op-ed column) o Informational (news article, feature article, blog, website, report, how- to book, directions, recipe, lab report)

Smarter Balanced Assessment Smarter Balanced Writing Assessment

A Workshop Approach SDMA will utilize a Writer’s Workshop approach for teaching writing. Writer’s Workshop is a predictable framework. Writer’s Workshop is organized into units of study throughout the year. The writing team has projected the units of study for each grade level.

Writing Workshop Defined Sustained, daily writing of mostly self-chosen topics Explicit teaching Writing for a purpose Conferring with students Publishing for real audiences

Writing Workshop is NOT Following a template or one size fits all program Writing to prompt after prompt Practicing skills in isolation Writing topic sentences with supporting details Assigning a topic without studying real authors Writing for an unknown purpose/audience

Mini-lessons Determine a list of lesson ideas by studying your stack of books and/or Lucy C. resource Adjust order and depth of the lessons based on your students’ needs Anticipate changes based on what your students know and/or discover each day

Conferring “What are you working on as a writer?” Compliment Pick one teaching point Keep your pen off the child’s paper! Set a goal Get child to believe...“Soon, I am going to write something like this.”

Sharing Pick a student(s) that you conferred with that day Celebrate a success Have child tell what he/she tried today “Read your best line.” Teaching time for the whole class

“There isn’t any more time. You have what you have.”

What can be trimmed?

Matt Glover Big Ideas: Honoring Approximations Nudging vs. Pushing Vision- Importance of Making Books Reading Like a Writer Image of Self as a Writer Handout Handout

Essential Entry Points Meaning- Why is this book or piece of text meaningful for a child? Choice- What choices did the child make? o Topic-Almost always o Genre-Sometimes (4K-K Lots) Purpose- What is the child’s purpose for writing? Who is the audience?

Stack of Books Collect real world mentor texts Texts need to resemble what you are asking kids to write: If you can gather it, you can study it! Caution

The World is Full of Writing Newspapers- USA Today, Detroit Free Press, New York’s Newsday-Kidsday... Magazines- Ranger Rick, Natl’ Geographic, Time for kids, Spider, Stone Soup, Cricket, American Girl, Family Fun, Highlights, Jack & Jill… Picture Books The Internet- tons of articles, reviews, etc. Your writing Children’s writing

Paper Choice Children need to be taught to independently obtain more/less paper Young children may need pre-made books that are ready to go The paper on which a writer writes “how-to” needs to be different than when writing a story or a poem

Katie Wood Ray Texts should be used to mentor students to write real things-how real writers write Writing is studied not taught Teachers need to be writers and gathers of mentor texts Immerse in a vision: “What have you read that is like what you’re trying to write?”

Things that matter about writing instruction ~via Katie Wood Ray Show students what we want them to produce Have students think like writers when reading a text Confer with students

Workshops need to be literal Don’t ask students to do what you haven’t done yourself Illustrations matter

Illustrations “Teachers must not look at illustrations simply as a means to another, more important end.” The act of illustrating mimics the world we live in... Infographics, advertisements, emoticons, coding, graphic novels, creativity

Formula Writing Writing can be simplified Provide a graphic organizer and a few simple guidelines (formula) May get a more polished looking product Example Example 2

...but Writing has fundamentally changed Writing doesn’t exist like that outside of school Try looking for a five paragraph theme in published materials--you will never find a single one

Back-up Work Instead of Writing in Journals ( often containers for writing that have no genre & no audience, never revised/published), students can write a… Choose your own adventure novel Play Short chapter books about a girl who… Fashion magazine Comic book Cookbook of family recipes Historical novel based on an uncle’s… Poetry anthology ABC book about trains to give to cousin… Lyrics for original songs Words for cheers

Lucy Calkins Kits

CCSS Link

Priorities for SDMA Writing Workshop at least 4 days/week Pick one unit of study to do this year Work together to plan and carry out your unit of study Will revisit at an Early Release Day Grade Level MapMap

Q&A