A collective group of sighs can be heard from my 4th grade students throughout the classroom. This comes as a direct response to asking them to take out their writing journals. I think if you asked some of the students, they would say they don't mind writing, but a lot of them would say it is their least favorite subject. Why is there such a stigma attached to writing? How do we get students excited to put their thoughts and ideas down on paper? I think before we can answer these questions, we have to figure out what it is that they dislike so much.
All of my students love to talk. They talk during partner work, they talk during group work, they even talk when they are not supposed to. They love to be heard, they want their ideas out there, they want their thoughts shared with whoever will listen. One would assume with all these ideas and thoughts begging to be shared that these students would love to write and get those thoughts and ideas down on paper. I find in many situations, however, this is not the case. My goal through this curriculum unit is to create a way for my students to enjoy the writing process, for them to take the ideas that they want to share so much orally and express themselves in written form.
I believe that one of the problems that many of my students face in their writing is they don't have the stamina to write enough content. They have all these wonderful ideas in their minds, but when they are asked to translate these ideas to the paper, they want to get it over with as fast as possible. They say their hands hurt from writing so much, or they are tired of rewriting the same thing over and over. I want them to feel excited when they write, and I need to find a way to actually get them excited to write and to write a lot when they do.
