Inspired Writing

Today we had one of those class moments that I just have to share with you.  It was a moment in which I saw clearly for the first time how strong our classroom community is and my role in it.  It was a moment in which the whole room buzzed deep in their writing work and everyone felt inspired to achieve.

Truthfully, my class and I have had a very rough year.  We've battled behaviors and constant change.  The year for the most part has been overwhelming.  It's been impossible to keep a routine with the constant assessments, changes, and days off.  Here we are with less than 2 months left in school and I am still struggling to set my students in a routine for writers' workshop.  I am seeking a balance of small group instruction and one-on-one conferences.

Today however, we had only ten minutes before the bell was going to ring for the end of the day.  We were fifteen minutes behind our schedule.  I decided not to do any group work or conferencing.  I stepped back and watched as each student busily tried to get their ideas down.  It's as if their pencils were an orchestra.  The work was smooth and uninterrupted.  As I passed by one student, he commented, "why don't you write anymore?"  It's true, we have become so pressured and rushed that I rarely sit to model writing on paper.  I always do a quick model on the whiteboard, but it clearly was not making the same connections as actually watching me write with pen and paper.

With great enthusiasm and energy, I made an expression like I had just had a great idea for a new piece of writing.  I quickly went to the writing center to get paper and pencil and sat in an empty seat.  Without much delay, I began writing as fast as I could.  One student called out, "Are you ok?"  I must have looked crazy, so intent on my writing.  In seconds, the entire class was circled around me.  They watched with expressions of awe as I wrote and sketched my piece.  One Kindergartener said, "I've never seen a real lady do that!"  Watching me write seemed like such a novel thing to them.  Another student said, "Look!  She's sketching words and pictures."  And yet another, "She's doing the dots" (periods).  I smiled proudly and kept at my work.  Before too much longer, another student said, "Let's go write!"  And another confirmed, "She needs space to write."  Their tone communicated that they had been inspired and after just a minute or two since the moment began, they were all back in their seats scratching away on their own papers their own stories.  It was amazing to see and hear them be inspired and work so diligently without teacher intervention.

For all the struggles, its the moments like these that make me so proud of my class.  They truly love learning and being together.

Trusting Lucy

We had our first writing celebration on Friday.  My students have worked so hard on getting their first pieces written.  Our focus was generating ideas and moving through the writing process.  I had been seeing small signs that we were reaching our goal throughout the unit.  Scribblers became letter writers.  Reluctant writers became prolific writers.  My students love writing time.  They steal time to write throughout the day and are extremely reluctant to stop writing, even when it's time to go home!  At our celebration, each author shared his/her writing and received three compliments/questions.  Each student had a moment to shine and each student learned a little something about how writing can be improved so that readers understand it.

To be honest, I didn't really know what I was doing or where the unit was leading.  I felt like I was blindly following Lucy Calkins, hoping that my students would be able to produce writing by the end of it all.  Lucy leads at a good pace, but more importantly she is encouraging.  Too often I would look over my students' writing and think of all the things they need to work on.  My focus kept coming back to conventions.  I would even make remarks to students about what they could improve.  I noticed that this caused those students to have a writing lull.  When I jumped back on board with Lucy and saw and praised all the ideas students were generating and the effort students were giving, my students responded with putting forth even more effort and producing even better writing.  I must trust that as I follow along with Lucy, the conventions will come.

A teacher down the hall had her students publish their first work this past week as well.  When I walked in to see their work, it all looked the same: one page beautifully printed with great conventions, each a picture with one sentence.  I walked back into my room at the end of the week and saw my student's work displayed.  It looked a lot less refined, but I saw each author in his/her writing.  I remembered the strides each student had made during the unit.  Booklets, one page, one word, many sentences.  My students' work varied but each piece reflected the author and showed the author's purpose.  My students will never know just how proud I am of their work.

I hope you had a great week!

-Olivia

Leaps of Learning

What a great week!  My youngest students are working hard on learning their letters.  My week was made when they started writing strings of letters during writing workshop this week!  They are learning that letters are what make up words and that the words hold the meaning in books.  I'm even seeing progress in their understanding of beginning sounds.  I attribute this progress to daily letter work and a few successful writing lessons.

In writing this week, we learned about different purposes for writing.  Writing lists and letters really encouraged my young students to try words (letter strings) instead of only drawings.  Desharae in Second on TpT made prep for these lessons a breeze!  Check out this amazing pack of writing papers I used:

 

My letter friends also enjoyed their first picture sort.  They really loved the poem that went with the sort from Words Their Way.  I think this really encouraged their interest in words as well.

 

I have made leaps in learning how to stay organized.  I am using colored file folders and stackable trays.  Blue for math, yellow for reading, and red for writing.  Each tray has the papers I need for each part of the day conveniently located in a brightly colored folder.  I also have two extra trays for papers to grade and need to file/copy.  So far this system is working for me.

 

What are your tips/tricks for staying organized?

 

-Olivia



Encourage A Young Writer

Today is Encourage a Young Writer Day! I love teaching writing, especially using the workshop method. Honoring students' ideas and interests as valid topics for writing validates their ability to be real writers.

Here is the cover of a book I wrote in second grade!  I was so proud to have my work "published."  I have kept this book all these years because it exemplifies to me the power of a teacher who encourages students by valuing their work.  This is no great writing sample, but empowering me as a writer by binding my work has stuck with me and encouraged me to continue writing.

How do you teach writing?
Please comment or link up!

April is Poetry Month!

To celebrate Poetry month, I like to kick off my poetry unit with this WebQuest.  A WebQuest is simply a step by step of web links for students to go to.  In this Poetry WebQuest, students first watch a video of a young girl interviewing a real poet!  They then go to a few websites to read poems and research poets.  Student choose a poet to write about.  (Great for practicing biographical writing and including details!)  The WebQuest then leads students to websites and online games to help them brainstorm and prepare for writing their own poetry.  Students culminate the lesson by writing their own poems which they can then publish online (on a kid friendly poetry website).  I have even included the rubric I use with my students.  You can grab this fun WebQuest for $2.50 at my TpT store!  Click on the photo!

 

 

You can win this and other poetry resources at Rebecca Reid's Poetry Month Giveaway! 

 

How will you celebrate poetry month?

Shared Storytelling

My family and I played a fun shared storytelling game the other night. We went around the circle adding anywhere from one word to a full sentence to the story. It was a great way to practice storytelling. I wish we would have recorded the story! Shared verbal storytelling is a great way for students to practice storytelling and get their creative juices flowing. They can think more deeply about the story elements because they do not have to consider spelling, neat handwriting, and all the other things they need to focus on when writing. Shared storytelling is also great for getting ideas from others. The story never turns out how you think it will!

Having just completed a 16 page character study unit (available in my TpT store), my mind was focused on the characters in our story. It was fun to see the variety of characters especially as we drew from other stories. The possibilities are endless when your main characters are a frog prince, bugs bunny, and frosty the snowman! The laughter really helped the creative juices to flow! It was a challenge to make one cohesive story, but the twists and turns were exciting. The teacher in me kept thinking how great it would be to have students illustrating this story. Every time someone else added to the story I was thinking of how the details changed my perspective of the characters.

Have you tried shared storytelling in your classroom?