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 Writingo 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 GloverBig Ideas:Honoring Approximations

Nudging vs. Pushing

Vision- Importance of Making Books

Reading Like a Writer

Image of Self as a WriterHandout

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 alwayso 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 WorkInstead 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 Map

Q&A