Writer’s Workshop seems to be integrated into many of today’s classrooms during literacy periods. In Kindergarten, we start our mornings off with Writer’s Workshop, each and every day. We are using the Lucy Culkins’ Writer’s Rainbow model to help our young writers. We know, and believe, that all students are writers.
Throughout the year, we will be using Lucy Culkins’s books to help teach our young students about different types of writing, and allowing them the opportunity to write as well. First, we have started off with Non-Fiction Writing, and have been focusing on “small moments”, where students are to write about something that happened to them yesterday, last night, or even this morning. The writers in our room vary from those whom only draw pictures, to those who add much detail in both their pictures and their words.
We are now moving toward Fiction writing, where my students are now authors and are creating their own Gingerbread stories. Because we have been completing a unit on the Gingerbread Man (and how he ran away from our oven here at school), students created their own versions of the Gingerbread Man. Some students chose to write about a Gingerbread Princess, A Gingerbread Alien and even a Gingerbread Superman. The pictures and details they have come up with are just fantastic!
In all of our Kindergarten classrooms, we have Lucy Culkins’s Writer’s Rainbow posted (see picture). Each different colour of the rainbow shows a different stage at which students are at with their writing. It is a great way not only for us as teachers to see where our students fit in, but also for students to self-assess their work.
If you have not heard of or read about Lucy Culkins’s work, you should. She gives simple and practical ways to set up and use Writer’s Workshop in your classroom! Happy Writing!
I am pleased with how our third grade writing-program is evolving this year. Students are at the point in the term where they are working independently. They know when they need to meet with their writing partner. They know when they need their laptops. They are learning how to publish their personal narratives using Microsoft Word, and use tools such as grammar and spelling to edit their work.
Our writing workshop is a simple process. First, all writing begins in the Writer’s Notebook. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I began the year introducing students to the narrative genre with “small moments.” Small moments are short pieces of writing that use action, dialogue and thought/feeling sentences. I provided writers with a number of strategies for generating ideas for writing, providing time for writers to practice each strategy. After several weeks of practice, I then introduced longer personal narrative writing. Students have a strong understanding of the success criteria for personal narrative writing.
Success Criteria:
You have written an effective personal narrative when:
your story has a beginning, middle and end;
the main character tells the story using the personal pronoun “I”;
you have included action, dialogue and thought/feeling sentences;
your story is a “seed” story, not a “watermelon” story;
you have correct spelling and punctuation.
Those familiar with the Lucy Calkin’s Units of Study resource will recognize the idea of small moments, seed stories and action, dialogue and thought sentences.
When writers feel they have finished a piece of writing, the next stage in our writer’s workshop is for writers to meet with their assigned writing partner. I decided to match writers who are writing at the same stage of development rather than pairing stronger writers with more dependent writers. This way each partner will benefit from the feedback they receive. Writing partners refer to our success criteria when giving feedback to their writing partner. I expect writing partners to provide two “glow” comments and one “grow” comment to their partner when they meet.
Following their meeting with their writing partner, the writer begins their first revision. Most students choose to type their narratives on Microsoft Word. As they begin to publish their narratives, they make revisions to their first draft, keeping in mind the feedback they just received.
In addition to meeting with their writing partner, I call writers for writing conferences each day. I usually wait until writers have completed their first revision on their laptops. I decide on a teaching focus, for example, using correct punctuation when using quotation marks, for our conference. A writer will walk away from our conference with a skill to practice as they continue to revise a piece of writing or when they begin a new piece of writing in their Writer’s Notebook.
For many, the most exciting step in writing workshop comes next. After writers have revised their personal narratives, they log in to Edmodo.com and post their narrative in their assigned writing group. I have created five separate writing groups on Edmodo.com. There are four to five students in each writing group. These groups are more heterogeneous. When writers post their narratives in the writing groups on Edmodo.com, they ask members of their writing group as well as their teachers for descriptive feedback. It is the responsibility of each writer to read their colleagues’ personal narratives and provide them with descriptive feedback in the form of glow and grow comments. Students’ writing partners are not assigned to the same writing group. Therefore, each writer in our class receives descriptive feedback from five to six of their peers as well as their teachers!
We are now at the stage where writers are reading their feedback on line and returning to their posted piece for a second or third revision. They then repost their narrative to share with their group members. Ideally, I would like my third graders to learn how to leave a piece of writing. They can start a new piece in their Writer’s Notebook and perhaps return to earlier published pieces later in the year.
Edmodo screen capture
Integrating Edmodo.com into our writing program revealed additional benefits I didn’t anticipate. Edmodo is basically acting as our class’ private server. Students can access their stories from any computer at school or at home. This eliminates the need for flash drives. If students want to work on a piece of writing at home, they simply log into Edmodo.com. I also have easy access to student writing. I can provide feedback to students at my convenience without having to carry writing folders. Parents can also see what their child is writing at school. When parents log in using their assigned parent access code, they only have access to their child’s posts.
Writing Workshop Flowchart
I promise that not all my posts will be about Edmodo.com, but it is really exciting to see students engaged in the writing process. It is amazing how this technology enriches our writing workshop. However, our writing program is not dependent on technology. If the technology were to disappear, our writing workshop would continue, just less efficiently.
I recently blogged about an excellent new resource created by ETFO entitled “Social Justice Begins With Me.” In my post I described how we implemented one of the lessons in the classroom and then extended our learning by taking it out into the community. It was such a meaningful experience that I decided to share it with the entire staff as well as the teacher candidate working with me. As a result, staff members have now begun to try the lessons in their classrooms and the faculty supervisor overseeing my teacher candidate’s progress has also shared it with the faculty students. The feedback has been phenomenal which is why I have decided to give you all a quick overview of the resource.
Social Justice Begins With Me targets Primary, Junior, and Intermediate grades with literacy focused lessons that are linked to picture books and short novels that target social justice issues. The lessons guide teachers through various activities that embed both social justice issues and character education. One of my favourite aspects of this resource are the ideas that support community involvement, thus taking the learning out of the classroom into a real-life context. The lessons are also supplemented with graphic organizers, assessment tools and strategies, along with well organized lists of texts that include each synopsis. The reproducibles are very helpful and applicable to a variety of activities.
My students have enjoyed the experience so much that they suggested we find a way to share our learning with the community in some way or another on a monthly basis. We have just finished our fictional narratives by writing short stories which the class suggested we share with the folks at a nearby nursing home. “We can take some scones or biscuits and sit with the elderly to share our stories,” they suggested a few weeks ago when we started the process. “A lot of times old people are not treated very nicely or their families forget them. This is one way we can tell them about what we’re learning,” one student commented. Brilliant idea. And it all started with a lesson on thanking those in our community with unappreciated jobs.
If you want to integrate social justice into your classroom, this is one of the best resources available. Try it and please share your experiences with us. I would very much enjoy to know how the lessons came alive in your classrooms!
Below I have included the direct link for those who want to take a closer look at the resource.
As some of you already know, when going for an interview, some type of comprehensive literacy question typically comes up. I have thought long and hard about my answer and I have got wonderful feedback based on my answers (I got got my current LTO simply because of my comprehensive literacy answer). One thing that I think is so very important is to show that you, as a teacher, enjoy cross-curriculum, and bring literacy into all of the other subject areas.
One way I have done this is by having a cross curricular word wall. I have created a legend that is on top of my word wall that explains to its readers what each colour of paper means. For example, Grey is the regular, everyday use words, pink is math words, green is social studies words, blue is science words, and orange is language words. I have yellow post-it notes as the students’ names. As we are still building up our word wall, there are not too many words, however, you start to see how the different colours add to the word wall and you can really see how to bring literacy into all the subject areas.
“A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
-Margaret Mead
As we ease into another school year our class has begun to live the truth of this quote by Margaret Mead. We started by becoming involved in learning a dance for a flashmob that we performed to fundraise for the Scarborough Hospital’s campaign to purchase a new MRI machine. The students felt the opportunity was very meaningful and powerful. It prompted read-alouds, class discussions, and journal entries on the topics of giving back to our community through simple acts of kindness and the power of believing that we can all make a difference in the world we live in.
This experience was a perfect segway to our Me to We Day. The group of students who had the privilege of attending the celebration at the Air Canada Centre came back to school in awe and full of motivation to continue learning about how we can create a life where we are aware of how each decision, belief, and act impacts not only those around us but potentially people around the world.
Feeling that the students were ready to embark on a year dedicated to social justice issues, I decided to use the resource “Social Justice Begins With Me! created by ETFO. Our first activity centred around reading the picture book “Yanni Rubbish” by Shulamith Levey Oppenheim. The activity proved to be one of the students’ favourites so far. We discussed how certain jobs and professions are viewed as more prestigious or important than others and why that is. Amazingly, the students needed absolutely no guidance with respect to understanding that all professions and jobs are important and necessary in their own way. As a cumulative task, each student created a Thank You card for someone in the community that had an important but unappreciated job. This Thanksgiving weekend, they gave their cards and took pictures with the recipients.
I cannot begin to express how satisfying it was to see the pictures of my students bringing such positivity to their community!
This email I received from a student says it all:
Hi Mrs. Oliveira!I gave the thank you card to the librarian(s)!!!! They were so thankful and grateful. The librarian that I gave the card to said she will make sure that she shows the other librarians!! When I left, I felt so good and so helpful! I couldnt bring a camera because they were all not available. I feel so happy!
Students create their Thank You cards
Thank You card coverInside a Thank You cardA student gives her card to a TTC driver
I am a big fan of Lucy Calkin’s Writers’ Workshop. I have seen it in action in many classrooms and I couldn’t wait to implement it in my own program. I started using writer’s notebooks last year with some success, but I wasn’t satisfied with my writing program. I decided to give it another go with this year’s group of grade 3s and we are off to fantastic start!
Students love having their own journals for writing. During the first few days of school, we covered their notebooks with colorful paper and I allowed students to decorate their covers. I loved seeing messages such as PRIVATE KEEP OUT and PROFESSIONAL WRITER’S NOTEBOOK written in big letters on the cover. In Calkin’s resources, she recommends that you begin the school year writing personal narratives through “small moments.” Small moments are short narratives where students write about something they did with a special person or in a special place. I have not had one student unable to think of something to write about! Students know they are to write for 15-20 minutes each day without interruption. They understand that we must be quiet so we can think about our writing. They love sharing their writing in Writers’ Circle and with their peer editor. Almost daily, I will photocopy (with permission from the author) a student’s small moment. As a group we identify strengths in the writing. I then use the student’s writing to teach a specific craft in writing such as adding dialogue or words we could use instead of “said.”
We are now focusing on “zooming in” when writing our small moment. Students are encouraged to use three types of sentences in their writing: action sentences, dialogue sentences and thinking sentences. They are starting to get the hang of it. Here is one grade three student’s small moment:
I opened the square box and smelled. “Mmmmm,” I thought to myself. “You better grab a slice before I eat all the pizza Tatiana!” I warned.
By S.B.
It seems so simple, but it does take students a while to get the hang of it. Three sentences that capture what Lucy Calkins refers to as “seed” ideas rather than watermelon ideas. Once students get the hang of writing these short personal narratives, they can start to write longer personal narratives. Our goal for the first week of October is for students to take one of the small moments they wrote in September and develop it into a longer personal narrative.
These personal narratives complement the reading resource I use in my classroom. The first unit in Nelson Literacy grade 3 is personal narrative or My Story. Reading as Writers, Writing as Readers…it doesn’t get better than that!
