1. LITERACY-BASED DISTRICT-WIDE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Aiken County Public School District January 15, 2016 LEADERS IN LITERACY CONFERENCE

2. Response to Literature Through Interactive Writing Dawn Farmer Reading Interventionist dfarmer@acpsd.net LEADERS IN LITERACY CONFERENCE

3. How Can We Use Interactive Writing to Guide Students in the Writing Process? Learn the Key Features of Interactive Writing and how they facilitate learning through the writing process. How to develop oral language responses to a classroom read-aloud with your students, and use their response to collaboratively write an interactive story.

4. What is Interactive Writing? Interactive writing is an instructional context in which a teacher “shares a pen” with a group of children as they collaboratively compose and construct a written message. McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2000). Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

5. Interactive Writing Interactive writing is a method we can use to support children in using what they know to get to what they do not yet know. Interactive writing is a way to guide students through the writing process. Experience: Providing background and engaging children's interest. Talking: Determining a text’s purpose. Composing: Helping children decide what to write. Constructing: Engaging children in writing the message. Rereading: Teaching children to check their writing. Summarizing: Focusing on what was learned. Revisiting: Noticing the details of the text. Extending: Helping children understand the uses of writing.

6. Key Features of Interactive Writing Group children based on learning goals. Write for authentic purposes. Share the task of writing. Use conversation to support the process. Create a common text. Use the conventions of written language. Make letter-sound connections. Connect reading and writing. Teach explicitly McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2000). Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

7. Group children based on Learning Goals Whole group or small group may be used based on concepts needing to be demonstrated.

8. Writing for Authentic Purposes Used at any time that you feel sharing the writing task will help students learn more.

9. Sharing the Writing Task Selectively involve the student in contributing to the composition and the construction of the message. “Share the pen” is based on the instructional needs of the children. Students attend to examples that can enable them to learn something about the writing process that they can then incorporate into their own writing.

10. Supporting the Process through Conversation Based on oral language and using language to learn. Students have to compose a message and then remember it during the writing process. Students with the same ideas can say them in a different way. Speakers and writers have choices.

11. Creating a Common Text In interactive writing the teacher and students will be sharing the composition and construction of a common text.

12. Using the Conventions of Written Language Texts created through interactive writing are meant to be read independently by the children, so they must be spelled and punctuated in a standard way. Students are supported as they engage in the thinking processes they would use if writing independently.

13. Making Letter-Sound Connections Interactive writing supports children in becoming sensitive to the phonemes (sounds) and their position in words so that they can develop phonemic awareness (hear component sounds) and connect those sounds to the letters and letter clusters of written language.

14. Connecting the Reading and Writing Process Interactive writing engages children in the creation of texts similar to those they read. They learn what you say can be written down and that what you write can be read. During the writing of a message, you and your students need to reread it many times so that students can learn to Monitor the message they are creating to be sure it says what they want it to say. Anticipate what the next words will be Keep the meaning of the whole text in mind.

15. Teaching Explicitly Through conversation before, during, and after writing, point out the specific issues you want the students to learn during that session. Engage students in a summary conversation restating key points in the lesson so that students carry over what they have done as a group to what the teacher expects them to do on their own.

16. Demonstration Short demonstration of how to implement an interactive writing response to a read-aloud. What is a “practice page?” What are the other children doing when you “share the pen?”

17. Examples of When You Can Use Interactive Writing Morning Message Summarize or extend a read aloud Survey question Summarize or extend a guided reading session Labels for art or classroom items Letters Recording information gained through inquiry. McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2000). Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

18. Examples of Focus Areas When Sharing the Writing Task Beginning group focus Using space Writing left to right Representing several consonant sounds More advanced group focus Sounds of words Look at different letter patterns that represent the same sound.

19. Examples of Conversations to Support Interactive Writing About the topic Purpose of writing To compose and reach an agreement on the particular language to use. The conventions of written language – how to write what they want to say. Comment on interesting features of words. Make connections between the text and other texts. Make personal connections between text and experiences. McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2000). Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

20. Linguistic Demands Learned Students have to compose a message and then remember it during the writing process. The same ideas can be said in different ways Speakers and writers have choices

21. Focus When Making Letter – Sound Connections in Interactive Writing Ask Students to say words slowly and think about what they hear. Focus on easy – to – hear initial and final sounds with one consonant before addressing consonant clusters and other dominant sounds within words. Use references and examples how letters look

22. Things Learned When Connecting the Reading and Writing Process Forming letters carefully and accurately will make it easier to read Conventions such as starting on the left and using space makes a text more readable. A word is written the same way every time The value of clustering similar ideas and using precise descriptions so that readers have a better understanding of the message.

23. Questions to Ask About Writing Samples 1.How do they use spaces? 2.Do they write left to right? 3.What is their knowledge of punctuation? 4.Do they use capitals in appropriate places? 5.Are they using both upper- and lowercase letters? 6.What letter-sound relationships are evident

24. Questions to Ask About Writing Samples Continued 7.Are they attending to initial, final, or medial sounds? 8.What words do they spell correctly? Almost correctly? 9.How many high-frequency words can they write? 10.Do they make attempts at spelling words that are new, and how complete are their attempts? 11.Do they represent parts of words like endings? Vowels? 12.How do they organize the sentences on the page?

25. Making Teaching Decisions in Interactive Writing 1.Select clear examples to bring to children’s attention. If you are going to show a particular principle, show it in a clear example instead of a distorted one. 2.Think about level of difficulty in sequence. Focus on easier concepts before harder concepts. Work on shorter sentences before harder ones. Attend to the regular sound patterns before irregular sound patterns. 3.Base teaching points on information about children’s strengths and needs. 4.Be highly selective in making decisions about children’s coming up to the chart to “share the pen.”

26. Making Teaching Decisions in Interactive Writing Cont. 5.Don’t try to teach too much or have children do all of the writing on most texts. 6.Decide whether to work with the whole group or a small group. 7.Attend as much to the composition as to the construction. The arrangement of the ideas in language is often a neglected aspect of interactive writing McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G. S., & Fountas, I. C. (2000). Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2. Portsmouth: Heinemann.

27. Making Teaching Decisions in Interactive Writing Continued 8.In general, although some individual teaching will occur, select teaching points in relation to the overall patterns of learning evidenced by most of the group. 9.Select points that have potential for children’s application of principles in their own writing. 10.Above all, have several good reasons, related to research or theory about children’s learning, for the decisions you make.

28. Response To Literature Through Interactive Writing The information for this presentation was adapted from Interactive Writing How Language & Literacy Come Together, K-2 by Andrea McCarrier, Gay Su Pinnell & Irene C. Fountas Dawn Farmer Reading Interventionist North Augusta Elementary Dfarmer@acpsd.net