In the interdisciplinary program in which I work, the one subject I enjoy teaching the most is writing. I am fortunate, for writing can be a part of just about every activity that I plan regardless of the subject matter. My seventh graders, involved in Future Studies, write about what they expect to happen in the future. My sixth graders write about their concerns for our environment as part of their Environmental Studies. We also write just for the sake of writing and that is the focus of this paper. This unit for teaching students to write is a way of individually assessing students’ writing skills, and working with them at their ability level in order to improve the students’ skills. The best way to improve students’ syntax, spelling, grammar, and use of mechanics is to allow them the opportunity to write frequently in a setting in which they are at ease.
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This unit specifically includes writing autobiography because, as I will explain in more detail later in this paper, students do their best writing when they are familiar with their topics. It is my goal that my students will incorporate their new writing skills into all of their writing—in the Talented and Gifted Program and in their regular classrooms for the skills they learn in creative writing are the same skills needed for expository writing.
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Besides enjoying teaching writing, I am enjoying writing on my own much more. I have begun to keep a journal and use letter writing to friends and family as an easy way to put my ideas down on paper and to chronicle some of my family’s history. I also take courses which require me to write. While I am aware that a good way to motivate students to write is to write with them (E., p. 6), it is not always possible to do so because of the way I structure my students’ writing classes. What I do, however, is talk to my students about my own writing experiences, my own frustrations, blocks, and feeling of inadequacy in getting my ideas down on Paper. I also share my reading on the subject of writing with my students. Posters listing the steps in our writing process and posters defining important writing words are hung about the room. We are all learning a lot.
The students for whom I am writing this unit are in my sixth and seventh grade Talented and Gifted classes. However, the ideas for encouraging writing and improving writing skills in this unit can be used for practically all grades. They are all the approaches that I use for my own writing. What will determine the grade level with which to use this unit is the bibliography of autobiographical works. This bibliography has been chosen for sixth and seventh grade students with good reading abilities.
The writing process in my classroom consists of the following steps:
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Brainstorming a list of possible writing topics
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Ten minute sessions of directed writing for students having difficulty beginning their writing
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Writing of first draft
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Revision of first drafts through peer conferences
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Editing of revised work through teacher conferences
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Sharing of final drafts
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The first step in the writing process for my students is deciding what to write. Here is where autobiography comes into play. After years of thinking that I was helping my students’ creativity, flexible thinking, and writing skills by asking them to “be a pencil and describe your life” or write about “the class from the Point of view of the class gerbil” I realize that my students’ best writing is always done when they are writing about themselves and their own experiences. They “must have a real experience for the words to have the Power”’ (E. p. 357) In
One Writer’s Beginnings
, Eudora Welty describes how she did her best writing when it was based on real life events and the things she knew about best. “[O]ther sorts of vision, dream, illusion, hallucination, obsession, and that most wonderful interior vision, which is memory, have all done to make up my stories, to form and project them, to impel them”
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While my students would almost all sit down and willingly dash off some reasonably clever piece of prose, it was clear that there was no real involvement in their writing. They had completed the assignment, but they made it clear I should not ask for revision, revamping, or editing. In short, there was no commitment to their writing. I had motivated students to write but not gotten them personally involved with their writing. (C. p. 5)
I was finally able to see that when Melissa wrote about the trip to DisneyWorld that she took with her family that her writing began to develop organization, her syntax improved, and she made many less errors. She was willing to revise this piece, have it edited, and share it with her peers. She and her mother translated the story into Spanish to send to her grandparents in Puerto Rico. She was involved with this piece of writing, committed to improving it, and willing to do whatever was necessary to make it her best work. While Melissa’s writing in and of itself was not great, it was definitely her best work up to that point. This is what we are striving for all of our students. In addition, Eudora Welty also writes that “Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer’s own life.” (W. p. 90) Do we not, as teachers, also want to provide this same kind of opportunity for our students: the opportunity to examine their lives and make some kind of order and sense out of them? Melissa had accomplished all of this.
Melissa’s topic came from the first step that I have my students go through in their writing process. Students are asked to brainstorm a list of twenty to twenty-five topics about themselves or their lives, from which to write. This is not an easy process. Lucy Calkins, in
Lessons From a Child
, states that the role of the teacher in this part of the writing process is to help students know that their lives are worth writing about and to help them focus their topics, and keep them from being too large. One student, typical of most of the others, listed “‘Countries” as one subject on which she wanted to write. After a lengthy questioning process, I was finally able to discover that she really wanted to write about “My Relatives Who Live in Sudan” Once we narrowed her topic down, she was able to write an interesting story about a part of her family that fascinated her and about which she knew a great deal.
I ask my students to think of pouring their topics into a funnel when thinking of topics to write about. Obviously, “Countries” would only fit at the top of the funnel. We want our topics to be able, figuratively, to come out of the funnel. Therefore, topics must be very narrow in focus. Once my student was able to be more specific about this particular writing topic, she was able to begin writing a much more detailed story about this very interesting part of her family.
I also need to add here that not every topic my students write about has to be about real people or events. Their dreams and fantasies are just as much a part of them, and therefore just as autobiographical, as their roles in real life. One student listed “Playing Drums With Motley Crue” as one of his topics. While we both knew he had never been a member of this band and very likely never would be, this was a fantasy that was very real to him. He wrote a lengthy, detailed description of his imaginary life as a member of that band, and because he cared about the topic, he put much more effort into this work.
This list of writing topics, once completed, is the basis of our daily writing. Students refer to it as they complete pieces of writing. They are encouraged to revise the lists as often as they choose and to use the list to spark new ideas.
Having a concrete list of ideas for students to use in their writing will be of little use, however, if students cannot get ideas down on paper. At the beginning of the year we engage in ten minute periods of directed writing in which students are encouraged to write nonstop for the ten minutes. Because this is a new experience for many of my students, the writing is directed by topics that I suggest. Whether or not to use directed writing topics will depend on your knowledge of your students’ writing abilities. More skillful students will not need this beginning step. If I do use directed topics, it is clearly understood that any student can use his or her own topic lists or anything else that enters his mind at that time instead of my suggestion. The writing topics that I suggest are usually topical in nature—something of interest to students taken from the news. Often I ask them to write letters—to the superintendent of schools, the President, or their parents in which they write on a given topic and state their opinion, pro or con. Letter writing appeals to my students and is often successful in helping them get words and ideas down on paper. Letter writing is also autobiographical writing when students state their ideas and opinions. They often describe their families, their activities, as well as their personal feelings. These letters provide them with a way of placing themselves in history by asking them to state their ideas or opinions about current topics of interest or controversy.
The question arises of whether or not to correct these papers. Many of us have been led to believe that correcting students’ papers inhibits their writing. That returned paper, full of corrections in red, green, or whatever color, is demoralizing for many students, especially younger students or students whose skills are lagging. However, this question can be resolved by explaining to students that there are two kinds of writing. The first is free and intuitive, the second part is controlled and critical (E. p. 7) and writing must be separated into these two separate processes because they cannot be done at one time. (E. p. 9) Since these first ten minute writing topics are meant to get ideas down on paper, I do not correct these papers in the beginning. What can be done, toward the end of this process, is to announce in advance that a set of papers will be corrected and then copied over. For some students, this may be the first time the concept of a rough draft is presented and it will take a long time for them to realize that the first writing will not be the end result. This is the stage at which I begin to help my students learn that what is written in the first draft is not necessarily what will be written in the final draft. What I find helpful to do at this stage in the writing process is simply to check the line upon which a spelling or grammatical error occurs. Two checks indicates two errors, and so on. Students can then go back on their own and make corrections. Portions that need to be reworked because they are awkward, vague, disorganized, etc., are bracketed and commented upon. Once the students have corrected as many errors as possible independently, they then meet with me to go over the rest of the paper.
When I feel confident that my students are able to get some ideas down on paper, and are beginning to understand the concept of reworking a piece of writing, I then move into the main part of my writing program. The catch phrase in my classroom is that “writing is an on-going process.”’ This sentence is spoken often and is on a poster prominently displayed. It is written on the board when students need to be reminded of our goals. It is also a reminder to me that each student will be at a different point in the writing process at any given time.
Each of my students is given a large manilla envelope in which to keep all of his or her work, and I remind them frequently to keep everything that he or she writes. Many of my students are in the habit of starting a piece of writing and, not finding it satisfactory, wadding it up and throwing it away. I ask students to keep all of these beginnings. They are all drafts of what will eventually be their final product. In fact, I ask them not to use new paper and just to cross out what they don’t like and start again on the same sheet. This is difficult for many of my students who clearly are members of what Caulkins refers to as a “first-draft only society.” (L. p. 30)
At this point my students are completely in charge of their choice of writing topics. Their topics lists are kept in their writing envelopes and as stated earlier, revised often. Once a piece of writing is considered a completed first draft, the student is asked first to reread what she or he has been writing by reading it to herself or himself aloud. The next step is to ask a friend to read the paper (or the author can read his work aloud to the other student) and to offer suggestions to improve the writing. This step, in the past, has not been a particularly successful one for when I asked what sort of comments or suggestions were given in these peer conferences, the comments are usually along the lines of “He said it was very good.”’ or, “He said he enjoyed it.” To remedy this, I have developed a Conference Sheet. This worksheet, which is included in this unit, is to be used whenever students confer with each other. The student who is reading the piece of writing will give this to the writer to use in making revisions. While this conference will benefit the writer, the student reading the story will also benefit from this procedure. In examining his peer’s writing to look for strong and weak areas, he will be able to get ideas to improve his own writing as well as to see ways to avoid the same kinds of problems. He will begin to develop his own revision process. He will also be called on to evaluate his peer’s writing and in doing so will continue to use and develop his own skills of evaluation.
Students need to be taught what revision means and then taught how to revise. It is easiest to explain revision to students by explaining what it is not. Revision is not proofreading or editing for spelling, grammatical, or mechanical mistakes. It is looking at a piece of writing to see if it is in logical order with the thoughts about one idea grouped together. It is looking to see if there is a beginning, middle, and end to the writing. Revision looks to see if the writer has said what he started out to say. It involves adding, subtracting, and replacing words and ideas.
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This is a difficult process for many students (and writers in general) for it is difficult to throw away or change what they have written. (E. p. 123)
In order to revise effectively, students need to be shown how to bracket a sentence out of sequence and draw a line with an arrow to its proper place in the text. They can be shown how to cut their texts into sentences or sections that can be rearranged and glued onto another sheet of paper. I strongly urge my students to write their first drafts double-spaced. This is somewhat of a losing battle, but the first time a student sees how much easier it makes the revision process, he or she will remember this tip in subsequent writing. In short, students need to be shown how to develop their own procedures that can be used over and over again for revision in all of their writing.
The next step in our on-going process, once a story has been revised, is the editing process. It is important for students to know the difference between revision and editing and to know that both are absolutely necessary. Alan Ziegler, in
The Writing Workshop
, sums up the need to revise and edit clearly when he states that “Getting everything the way you want it on one draft is akin to driving from one end of a city to another without hitting any red lights; it’s possible, but happens only slightly more often than when the moon is tinted blue and business picks up at the Hades ice skate concession.” (Z. p. 79) Having defined revision, the students can then be taught that editing is the correcting of all the mechanical, spelling, or grammatical errors. This part in the process can be done by both peer conferences and by teacher student conferences. If at any time during peer conferences a student notices an obvious error, this can be noted for the student even though the main purpose of the peer conference is for revision purposes. Once the student meets with the teacher with a revised draft, the teacher can help the student with the mechanical errors, noting errors by checks or by using a set of symbols to indicate the specific errors. Once again, it is important to stress that students will be able to write with more ease if there is a set procedure for him or her to follow that is always in place.
If, during teacher student conferences, I find that a student is in need of a quick less to teach a specific skill, such as the proper use of quotation marks, I will teach a mini lesson to that student on a one-to-one basis. Also, if mechanics are taught in conjunction with students’ own writing, they will be more meaningful (L. p. 35) and internalized more rapidly. If, however, I notice when looking through work in progress, that many students are making the same kinds of mistakes I will hold a mini lesson for the class at the beginning of the writing session. No more than ten minutes this is a quick lesson that teaches one specific skill such as the use of “there” ”their” and “they’re,” or when to use a semi-colon.
The ultimate goal of writing is sharing, either through oral reading of final drafts, or through publication. Lucy Caulkins refers to this as the “celebration” of the completion of a piece of writing (L. p. 111), and she points out that just as we need to write, we need to be heard. (C. p. 10) Students also learn from hearing what is good that has been written by others. (E. p. 23) While this is probably the most important part of this whole writing process, it is probably the one that is most difficult to accomplish. There never seems to be enough time for either of these two luxuries, but it is important to allow time for students to share their work by reading them aloud. This can be done at any time during the writing session and should be done with reasonable frequency, especially after the writing process is well under way. I have also found that an effective means of sharing work in a less formal way is to mount completed writing on sheets of construction paper and bind them into booklets. Prominently displayed in the classroom, these booklets are available for students to read in their leisure time, and for classroom visitors to enjoy. It is also interesting to ask students to put all of the drafts for one piece of writing together. Students can learn a great deal more about their own writing by examining how their work changed from first to final draft. Having gone through the writing process, the goal is for the student to internalize the questions asked during both peer and teacher conferences so that they can ask them of themselves. We ant them to become critics of their own writing. (C. p. 121) This is another step toward that goal.
Throughout this paper I have discussed the writing of prose. Everything that is included here, however, pertains to the writing of poetry. The hardest part, I have found, in getting my students to write poetry, is to convince them that poetry does not have to be the sing-song rhythm of “Roses are red, violets are blue”’ The best way to counteract this is to expose students to lots of poetry, by reading poems aloud and making sure that students are aware of how poems look, as well as how they sound. Caulkins points out that poetry is the great equalizer. A student does not have to be the best prose writer or the best reader to be the best poetry writer (C. p. 306), and many students who have difficulty writing about personal experiences or feelings in prose, find poetry much easier to write. There is a wide range of autobiographical poetry appropriate to this age group also recommend for use with students a wonderful anthology of poetry for children entitled
Talking to the Sun
, which introduces children to a wide range of poets, and is illustrated with pictures, hangings, photography, sculpture, jewelry, and pottery from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. While not all of the poetry in this book is autobiographical, it clearly shows the many forms poetry can take.
While writing about the process I want my students to go through in their own writing, I have indicated the part autobiography plays in this unit. A major complaint of teachers considering using autobiography as the basis of a writing unit is that students tend to think of writing their autobiographies by beginning with writing “I was born on.” and continuing from there. One way to counteract this is to expose students to as many different kinds of autobiographical readings as possible. As students read journals, memoirs, diaries, portraiture, and fiction based on autobiography, they will become aware of the many forms this genre can take. A brief bibliography of autobiographical works for sixth and seventh grade students follows.
Whether the writing is prose or poetry, however, the goal is the same. Our job as teachers is to make students comfortable with writing, to make them competent writers, and to help them find a place for writing in their lives. (Z. p. 103)