83: Learning Fairs

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Learning Fairs:
  • Students present work to community in poster session like environment (think science fair)
  • Uses:
    • Students study topics in depth
    • Students present to wide audience
    • Student learn field research techniques
    • Opportunity to integrate subjects – ELA, Science, Math, etc
  • Play by play:
    • Topic Search
      • Identity primary sources
        • Students brainstorm people they can interview
        • Students brainstorm scientific questions they can investigate
      • Communicate expectations – product formats & criteria
    • Identify the audience
      • Recruit varied panel consisting of teachers of different courses, students, family members, other community members
    • Gathering information
      • Provide thinking sheets to guide research
        • Help students design interviews
        • Help students design investigations
      • Provide in-class research time so that parents don’t help too much
      • Expose students to models and discuss common features and identify strategies
      • Allow time for multiple investigations or interviews – can learn from first iteration and apply lessons to later iterations
    • Drafting, revising, & editing:
    • Sharing the writing:
      • Create speeches and visual aides based on papers
      • Allow rehearsal time prior to Learning Fair
    • Possible Grading Criteria:
      • Engaging beginning
      • Clear controlling theme
      • Thorough, clear supporting evidence
      • Good organization of anecdotes and arguments
      • Free of grammar and spelling errors
      • Creative, school appropriate
    • Troubleshooting
      • Students make early errors that affect end products
        • Give feedback throughout the duration of project – don’t wait till the end
    • Grading tips:
      • Recruit external panel – alumni, teachers from other courses, community members, experts
      • Design easy-to-use assessment tools for panels – rubrics or checklists or criteria with room to assign Likert scale scores

 

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Learning fairs provide opportunities for the school and local communities to gather and celebrate student work.  Grade level teams can coordinate to create complementary learning fair products.  Real broad audiences can inspire students to product their best work.  To prevent student learning fairs from become parent fairs, provide a lot of in class feedback and work time.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Decide if you want to coordinate with grade-level teachers (or cross grade-level teams) and meet regularly to plan logistics (common themes, fair dates, variety of complimentary products, etc)
  • Recruit panelists
  • Set a learning fair date, secure space and publicize fair date, location, and theme to the community
  • Decide on target content and target genres and prepare scaffolding and assessment – see above for ideas
  • Design a project calendar that includes:
    • ample time for writing phases above
    • ample time for in class work time and feedback from various sources and revision time
    • rehearsal time
    • milestone deadlines for different stages of products
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement project plan – see activities planned in preparation phase.
  • Use formative feedback to fine tune scaffolding and assessment as needed.
  • Use formative feedback to teach students how to revise work during in class work time
  • Facilitate lessons during all writing stages
  • Facilitate time for rehearsals and final round of feedback
  • Organize panel and panel resources (evaluation materials, assignments to teams, etc)
  • Facilitate Learning Fair and Enjoy (takes lots of pictures)
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Could tie Learning Fair to real contests – if so, be sure to scaffold and assess content criteria
  • Make Learning Fairs a regular event (2x per year per grade level?) at school in order to build community moral and relationships

 

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81: Multigenre Projects

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Multigenre Project

  • Instead of one long research paper, students compose several shorter pieces focused on a single topic
  • Recommended related reading:
  • Uses:
  • Play by play
    • Getting started
      • Use preliminary research to help students pick a topic that genuinely interests them
      • Inspire and inform students by showing them models
      • Scaffold research processes
        • how to select valid sources
        • how to gather notes on researched information
    • Working the room
      • Have students choose from a LARGE menu of writing genres,  Putz has them pick 7.
      • Possible genres
        • Check out the book , too many to list here.  Plus the book has some pretty compelling examples of student work.
        • Would be neat if someone would take a large genre list and classify it by the 6 facets of understanding .  Then you could require students to pick 1 genre form each facet.  If such a chart exists or if you create one, please share.
      • Facilitate mini-lessons and distribute thinking sheets and show models that go with each genre
      • Allow students to select appropriate tools (apps, paper, fonts, etc) to represent their chosen genres
      • Require students to connect all 7 pieces into a coherent whole – logically sequence them and create transitions between them.
      • Students select a package to hold writing pieces that goes with topic.  (Note: These remind me of items from a McSweeney’s subscription)
    • Leverage the work
      • Individual students form teams and create a piece of reader’s theater than incorporates excerpts from all their pieces.
      • Self – assessments on the work –
        • How did you choose your genres?
        • What did you learn?
        • How did you connect your pieces into a cohesive whole?
        • Are you happy with your topic choice? why?
    • Challenges
      • Complicated project calendar
      • Need to prep resources for many writing genres
        • Could have students gather 3 examples from a new genre and find common features and use those for criteria to create writing piece
        • Could limit menu of genres to ones you already have prepped resources for

 

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Multi-genre products actively engage students to explore multiple types of understanding by having them write in multiple genres.  Each genre has different thinking and writing demands.  This type of project could be good for advanced PBL teachers and advanced students who need a different type of project to break up the monotony of commonly assigned products.  This can be used to explore and appreciate BIG IDEAS that have lots of layers.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Conduct more research than is in this article – see related reading above and the source book
  • Gather resources (mini-lessons, models, thinking sheets) for all the genres in the menu students will be allowed to pick from
  • Design resources to help students choose their topics:
    • Design an essential question that aligns to targeted standards and that students can unpack to choose a topic that interests them
    • If course standards permit, design a preliminary research / topic selection activity that will allow students to choose topic that interests them
  • Design project calendar that has:
    • Adequate research time (near start of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for genre types (middle of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for coherent whole (end of project)
    • Milestone deadlines for team product – reading theater piece (end of project)
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate project using resources designed above
  • Provide A LOT of in class work time and in class feedback – see these articles for ideas – Critique / Feedback lessons and Writing Workshops
  • Facilitate self reflections and self assessments that help students become aware of how their writing and understanding are developing throughout the project and to help students set and achieve academic goals
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use  6 facets of understanding to create a genre menu that enables students to select one genre per facet of understanding.

 

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80: Shorter Writing Projects (3 of 3)

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Newspaper Front Page:
  • Team creates short list of interesting articles that leave audience wanting more
  • Uses:
    • summarize material
    • practice different formats – news article, editorial, feature, advice column
    • show how subjectivity plays into non-fiction pieces
  • Play by play
    • Topic search:
      • teacher-assigned
      • assign major role players and students brainstorm lesser characters
      • choose from menus of topics and formats
    • Identifying the audience:
      • How will I need to title and write the article to catch the interest of _______?
      • Brainstorm audience types that go with topics
      • Select audience of let the WheelDecide
      • Brainstorm newspaper title that will appeal to audience
    • Gathering information:
      • Use information in students notes and textbook
      • Research information from valid internet sources
    • Prewriting:
      • Use templates to set word counts, image quantities and sizes per article
      • Restrict to 1st page to make every word count
      • Brainstorm content of specialty boxes – example: “Inside this issue”
    • Drafting:
      • Since articles are short, draft in class and provide students with in-progress feedback
    • Revision:
      • Meet in writer’s group and look for: (Also, see RAFT notes)
        • Inclusion of descriptive helpful information
        • Audience appeal
        • Wording
      • Writers take turns slowly reading aloud team members’ papers to listen for elements to polish and taking notes on feedback from team members
    • Editting:
      • Type up and use spell and grammar check
      • Check article word count to ensure they match templates
      • Write in word processing software (simple) and then copy/paste into template software
    • Sharing the Writing:
      • Share in gallery style presentations
      • Post high quality work on class bulletin board
    • Other tips:
      • Tech tip:  Use same template software to create entry document to familiarize yourself with software
    • Grading criteria:
      • Catchy titles
      • Accurate header information
      • Consistent fonts (and other newspaper formatting details)
      • Evidence of use of notes and research
      • Cover who, what, when, where, why
      • Lead sentences grab audience attention
      • Information aligns to intended to topics
      • Free of grammar and spelling errors
Web Page
  • Writing piece(s) published on the internet
  • Uses:
    • Uses of sub-pages and hyperlinks can add layers to information
    • Develops understanding by having student impose structure on information
    • Breaks up writing into small, connected chunks
    • Practice 21st century literacy skills
    • Motivate students with real, wide audiences
  • Play by play:
    • Getting started
      • Internet research from valid sources
      • Teach norm: If information is already in website, link it – don’t include it in writing to avoid plagiarism
      • Select easy to use or familiar web-creation tool – poll students to say what they’ve already used, can place a few students in expert role to assist students with using website tool
    • Working the room
      • If possible, divide up class time between workshops (and other learning activities) and website work time
      • Set milestone deadlines for key elements/decision  – choosing a focus, completing research, creating graphic, drafting scripts, and publishing
      • Provide feedback at all milestones
    • Variations:
      • Use thinking sheets to guide research and writing processes
      • Can combine web question with website creation

 

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Knowing a wide variety of possible writing projects can prevent writing products from feeling stale and repetitive.

 

The Newspaper front page can teach students how to represent a lot of essential information using a concise style that appeals to a specific audience.  This exercise can show students how subjectivity affects non-fiction writing.

 

Creating websites can teach students how to represent information in short pieces connected by hyperlinks.  The act of creating these layered, connected writing pieces can help students develop understanding by imposing structure on information.  These products can motivate students to produce high quality work because of their access to wide audiences.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Decide what writing assignments best align to current and future learning targets.
  • Research and develop scaffolding and assessment activities and resources that go with selected writing assignment.  See above and Writing articles for ideas.
  • Research how to use tech tools that go with written products
  • If possible, model use of software by creating launch materials using selected software
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement project that features selected writing activity.
  • Have students reflect on how the steps in the writing process are affecting their content understandings and their writing skills.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Re-use some of the positively tested strategies in previous projects to reinforce skills in current and future projects.
  • Maintain a class blog or class magazine that features high quality student work.
  • Have students gather feedback from audience members outside school to revise and refine work

 

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79: Shorter Writing Projects (2 of 3)

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RAFT Papers
  • What is RAFT?
    • Role of writer
    • Audience of writer
    • Format of writing piece
    • Topic
  • Uses:
    • See content from different perspectives.
    • Creative representation of researched facts
  • Play by Play:
    • Topic search:
      • Give a menu of topics to choose from
      • Start with broad topic that has many possible subtopics that students can choose
    • Identifying Audience, Role, & Format
      • Possible roles: professions, historical figures, real related roles, etc
      • Possible audiences: related orgs/interest groups, historical figures/orgs, friend/foe of role, etc
        • Try to select audiences far removed from classroom that emotionally or logically relate to role
      • Possible formats: speech, letter, conversation, essay, argument, editorial, pamphlet, etc
      • Trinilicious twist:
        • Each team gets to pick topic (same for all team members)
        • Use WheelDecide to select Role and Audience for each individual on team
        • Select Format that goes with plausible interactions between writer role and audience
      • after RAF selections, brainstorm implications in groups of 3 or 4
    • Gathering information:
      • Gather information from valid internet sources
      • Take factual notes from research
      • Make notes that describe how role and audience and format affect factual information
    • Pre-writing:
      • Give out tip sheets, checklists, or thinking sheets that scaffold different writing formats
      • Use mini-lessons, models, and thinking sheets (or similar) to scaffold writing formats
    • Drafting:
    • Revision:
      • Work in writing teams to identify:
        • What lines fit role (and not)?
        • What details reflect time period, audience, actor, setting, etc.?
        • Is intended effect on audience obvious?  How to enhance this?
      • Silent rereads after team discussions
      • Underline hard facts in writing piece
      • Conduct more research to fill in parts with missing factual details
      • Use new research and team feedback to revise draft
      • Print new copy
    • Revising:
      • Pick a couple of watch-fors to focus feedback
      • Try to select watch-fors that are common elements to writing formats – example: use of quotes in letters
    • Sharing the writing:
      • Read aloud in presentations
      • Publish high quality works in school blog or magazine
    • Possible grading criteria:
      • Role is clear – fits audience and format
      • Follows format conventions
      • Extensive use of research notes
      • Original, interesting, school appropriate
Brochure:
  • Students convey information with interesting graphics and concise writing that conveys essential and interesting facts
  • Uses:
    • Review material
    • Connect writing and learning with visuals
    • Summarize researched information
  • Play by play:
    • Topic search:
      • For review: assign topics
      • For research:
        • Provide menu of topics to choose from, or
        • General topic that inspire sub-topics – facilitate brainstorming activity to generate possibilities
    • Identifying the Audience:
      • Select audience that will inspire students to write in clear and interesting ways – example: middle school students for high school students prepping a review brochure
    •  Drafting: 
      • Hand write or type drafts
      • Use brochure templates in word processing software or create brochures by hand (collage-style)
    • Revision & Editting:
      • Work with a feedback partner:
      • Revision Look-Fors:
        • Is all essential information present?
        • Writing style?  Dry? Plagiarized? Enthusiastic?
        • Does writing style fit audience?
      • Partner slowly reads aloud brochure text –  Listen for errors in wording, spelling, and grammar that can be fixed to polish the brochure.
      • Read piece backwards slowly to check for correct spellings and wording
      • Assemble final brochure after revising and editing are done
    • Sharing the Writing
      • Students share brochures and note how same information is represented among brochures
      • Use brochures to study for assessments
      • Could share with real intended audiences
    • Other tips:
      • Require original graphics to avoid plagiarism
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Knowing a wide variety of possible writing projects can prevent writing products from feeling stale and repetitive.

 

The RAFT paper shows students how different perspectives and intentions modify how information is written. This paper could be good for courses or good for projects that aim to teach students how perspectives affect understandings.  Completing different RAFT papers within teams that address the same topic with different RAF selections could teach students how to collaborate to represent the same information in different ways.

 

Brochures can engage visual learners and artistic students to engage in writing assignments.  They teach students how to present essential information using concise writing and interesting graphics.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Decide what writing assignments best align to current and future learning targets.
  • Research and develop scaffolding and assessment activities and resources that go with selected writing assignment.  See above and Writing articles for ideas.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement project that features selected writing activity.
  • Have students reflect on how the steps in the writing process are affecting their content understandings and their writing skills.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Re-use some of the positively tested strategies in previous projects to reinforce skills in current and future projects.
  • Maintain a class blog or class magazine that features high quality student work.

 

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78: Shorter Writing Projects (1 of 3)

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People Research:
  • Uses / purposes:
    • Easier than research abstract topics
    • Stepping stone for building research and writing skills that build up to attract topics
  • Questionnaires & Surveys
    • Play-by-play:
      • Investigate sample surveys and extract examples and key features.  For modeling lessons, go here.
      • Learn about different survey questions and different scoring systems.
      • Design and implement own surveys.
      • Workshop how to cluster and summarize data using various graphs
      • Students write about conclusions that are backed by evidence in the summary graphs
  • Interviews
    • Play-by-play:
      • Help students select and contact people they can interview
      • Help students design interview questions
      • Students interview subjects using questionnaire and use writing and recording devices to record interview
      • Flesh out interview information with information researched from valid internet sources
      • Develop writing pieces using researched information aimed at a specific audience
      • Use teacher conferences and peer response sessions for
        • revisions – substantial changes in writing structure
        • revising – after revisions, polish word choice, spelling, and grammar
        • proofreading – correct tiny errors that spell check and grammar check miss
        • For critique lesson formats, go here.
        • Use checklists to help with giving descriptive feedback.
Faction
  • writing genre that marries factual research with imagination (facts + fiction)
  • students research facts and write stories involving these
  • Uses:
    • students can personalize learning – connect to their lives, prior knowledge, experiences
    • serve as additional alternative summative assessment in addition to traditional test
    • short guided research project
  • Example:
    • write a journal entry for character using researched historical details
  • Play-by-play:
    • Topic search: Depends on goals
      • Develop research skills – start with assigned set of resources
      • Independent research:
        • start with set of teacher generated list topics
        • guide students to find interesting topics:
          • scan textbook and pay attention to bold text and picture captions
          • assign 3 general website, study these, and list intriguing topics
    • Identifying the Audiences:
      • 3 audiences: teacher, writer, and someone else
      • identify other audience that connects to writing topic and writing genre
    • Gathering Information:
      • 2-3 valid sources
      • use a checklist for identifying valid internet sources
      • give students starter list of 5-10 sources
      • teach students how to search databases and how to frame data queries into Google and similar tools
      • collaborate with media specialist / librarian if your school has one or more
    • Prewriting:
      • record key research information
      • react to researched information in character
      • develop character details – age, social status, occupation, education, gender, background, goals, hopes, dreams
    • Drafting:
      • Work the room – scan writing as it evolves
      • After 30 min of drafting, students read aloud to a partner – listen for revision opportunities
      • Double-spaced drafts create room for written comments
    • Revisions:
      • Revise for 2 reasons;
        • increase evidence of sufficient research
          • underline key facts in piece
          • model use of parenthetical citations
          • students add citations to their papers
          • identify areas that have little factual content and research more info to fill these gaps
        • enhance characterization with examples, details
          • read papers aloud in writing groups and discuss:
            • words that created action and imagery
            • favorite parts
            • parts missing details and information
            • when did you care most about character
      • Split revisions into 2 phases (see 2 above) with space in between each to let work rest
    • Editting:
      • Chart common student errors and use chart to identify top 3 errors in individual’s work
      • Teach students how to find and correct common errors
      • Check in with ELA class to see if you can emphasize key grammar elements being featured in that course
      • Have writing partners only provide editing feedback on 1st page of writing and have individual students find similar errors in remaining pages
      • Create individual responsibilities sheets that list writing goals and individual’s top 3 errors – use these lists to improve writing
      • Have writing partner read the paper aloud – more likely to read mistakes as written so they are easier to hear
      • Check for spelling errors by reading slowly with finger tracing each word
      • Ask students to get 2 other adults (besides teacher) to proofread paper
    • Sharing the writing:
      • Read papers aloud at presentations
      • Seek out audiences beyond the classroom
      • Hold unto to writing samples and polish and
      • submit best sample within a semester to a class magazine
    • Other Tips
      • Facilitate each stage and explain its purpose so that students learn to appreciate writing as a process
      • Provide feedback at each phase so students can gradually improve over time
    • Possible grading criteria:
      • Realization of character through details
      • Replicates genre fully
      • Use of research and notes is evident
      • Uses citations and reference page correctly
      • Original, creative, but school appropriate

 

3-sowhatThe two writing projects described above are research projects that build up to  more difficult genres that involve research of abstract topics.  The people research project helps students write about topics that are very personal and tangible and teaches them how to design and research questions.  The faction paper teaches students how to blend fact and fiction.  It helps them to connect factual research with their own lives and experiences.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Decide what writing assignments develop skills that are good pre-cursors to more formal genres that are key to the course.
  • Early in the year scaffold and assess writing projects that feature genres that develop skills related to more complex genres.
  • Research and develop strategies and tools that relate to these writing genres.  Think about how the skills taught in these projects can be leveraged later in the year.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Implement project that features writing product from a preparing genre.  See above for examples and here and here.
  • Have students reflect on how they are developing skills that you know will be used later in the year.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Re-use some of the strategies in preparation projects in order to reinforce skills that will be used in later writing projects.
  • Maintain a class blog or class magazine that features high quality student work.
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77: Writing Assessments

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These are examples of activities that assess student writing in order to improve it before it appears before a public audience.  To see the difference between public writing pieces and write-to-learn pieces, go here.  To see an overview of all the steps that go into creating a piece of public writing go here or here.

 

Individual goal setting:
  • students write down 3-4 things they can most improve in their writing
  • go over goals in conferences and add 1-2 more goals that relate to student goals and/or work
  • store goals in writing folders
Marking papers:
  • don’t need to mark all errors
  • notice a common type of error and mark up a couple instances and ask student to find similar instances and correct them
Rubrics:
  • communicates clear expectations for writing
  • can be used as a tool to identify strengths and gaps in writing pieces
Long-range reflection:
  • students compare writing pieces, reflect and write out how their writing is improving
  • can brainstorm next steps in writing growth
Using models: go there.

 

Using critique lessons: go here.

 

One Thing At a Time!
  • start small
  • go after writing skills and stages 1 at a time
  • support goals with helpful related writing activities

 

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Writing assessment activities can help students become aware of goals and strategies that can improve their writing.  Integrating goal setting conversations into writing conferences can help teachers individualize student goals and related support.  Using efficient strategies (see above) to mark papers can save time and give students opportunities to practice recognizing and fixing their own errors.  Long range reflections can help students appreciate how their writing is evolving and use knowledge of that growth to set incremental writing goals.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Create a complete list of writing skills / stages needed to master key writing genres in the course.
  • Develop a yearlong sequence that includes times to incrementally learn strategies related to key phases of genre-specific writing.
  • Research and develop learning activities that connect to upcoming writing learning targets.  See above and Writing articles for ideas.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Incrementally facilitate activities in each project that gradually build up proficiency of students’ skills to demonstrate features of course-specific genre(s).
  • Have students maintain writing folders that contain writing artifacts gathered over time.
  • Have students periodically use writing folder samples to reflect on how their writing is progressing and to set upcoming writing goals.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use student feedback and observations to identify writing activities that students like and find effective.  Incorporate these into a repertoire of writing routines that scaffold writing in multiple projects.

 

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76: Drafting Writing

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These are examples of activities that guide students to create writing drafts for public writing.  To see the difference between public writing pieces and write-to-learn pieces, go here.  To see an overview of all the steps that go into creating a piece of public writing go here or here.

 

Four-Card Stud
  • Uses:
    • helps students get started with writing
    • helps students identify logical sequences for writing
    • helps students learn how much explanation to include with each part
  • Play by play:
    • Hand out 4” x 6″ note cards to each student (or letter size paper cut into 4 equal parts)
    • On top of first card, jot down phrase or title describing topic
    • Quick brainstorm of related topics on 1st card
    • Circle one phrase on 1st card that student can tell more about
    • Transfer topic to 2nd card
    • Brainstorm related ideas and topics for 3-4 minutes on 2nd card
    • Circle another phrase from 1st or 2nd card that can be expanded upon
    • Write phrase/topic on 3rd card.
    • Brainstorm related ideas  and topics for 3-4 minutes on 3rd card
    • Circle another phrase from 1st, 2nd or 3rd cards that can be expanded upon
    • Write phrase/topic on 4th card.
    • Brainstorm related ideas  and topics for 3-4 minutes on 4th card
    • Order cards in sequence that makes sense for writing piece
Letting It Rest
  • Uses/Purposes:
    • Real understanding takes time
    • See work with fresh eyes
  • Tips:
    • Have students put away first draft for a couple days
    • Collect student work if students might lose it
    • Explain to students the reason for the letting the writing rest and how it relates to developing understanding

 

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The four card stud activity can help students develop quick rough outlines that contain main arguments and related evidence.  This activity can help students get started with writing.  It can be run more than 4 times to generate more ideas.

 

Letting work rest will help students revise and polish their work with fresh eyes.  This strategy can also be used to teach students how developing understanding takes time.

 

4-nowwhat
Preparation Steps
  • Facilitate pre-writing activities aimed at building student interest and knowledge of writing topics.
  • Set aside time in project calendar for drafting activities (see 4 card stud) and for letting work rest.
  • If running 4 card stud – gather index cards or cut letter size paper into quarters.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate 4-card stud activity.
  • Work the room to make sure students use entire set times to brainstorm.
  • Work the room after activity to see if students are able to successfully use the sequenced 4 cards to develop their first drafts.
  • Have students reflect on 4-card stud activity and describe whether or not it helped them draft their writing and how.
  • Ask students to reflect upon new ideas and insights they got while letting their first draft rest.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • If students like the 4-card stud activity and are able to use it effectively, integrate it into a routine repertoire of writing activities used in multiple projects to scaffold writing.

 

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75: Public Writing Conditions & Stages

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These are examples of activities one can run to prepare students to create public writing pieces.  To see the difference between public writing pieces and write-to-learn pieces, go here.

 

Elements that Promote Good Public Writing:
  • student choice of topic – enhances student ownership
  • time to write in class – provide in-class support that helps students write, talk, and think in specific academic genres
  • response – formative feedback that is provided to students as they write, not when they are finished
  • good models –  uses concrete examples to demonstrate key features of high quality work
  • process approach – approach writing as a craft-like series of steps and stages that can be mastered over time
  • supportive environment – positive learning environment that promote learning as a process, that value risks and mistakes
  • real audience – real people (ideally outside school) who will read the writing.  possible audiences include:
    • your own class
    • adult panels
    • other students in other classes or schools
    • special interest groups and orgs
    • targets for advocacy
    • experts in particular fields
    • contest judges
Writing Process Stages: For another look at writing stages, go here.
  • Before writing activities – Writing Activities – raises student interest, builds student knowledge
  • Gathering information – researching and learning information related to writing topic
  • Organizing – organizing information, steps, arguments so reader can follow writer’s lines of thinking
  • Getting ideas down on paper
  • Letting early drafts rest – permits writer to come back with fresh eyes
  • Review the work – clear, concise, organized, communicates what’s intended, prune out extraneous information
  • Revising – refine ideas and explanations
  • Polishing – grammar, spelling, tone check
  • Publishing – get student writing in front of a real audience where results matter

 

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The elements and writing stages that support good public writing can be used to analyze, reflect upon, and refine projects that scaffold writing.  The writing process stages can be used to organize project calendars that have public writing pieces as products.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Analyze past projects that scaffold writing using stages and conditions listed above.
  • Research and develop tools and strategies that enhance discovered strengths.
  • Research and develop tools and strategies that bridge discovered gaps.
  • Create project calendar that contains enough time to accommodate activities from writing stages students need to be successful at creating writing products.
  • Gather resources to organize and store student writing and feedback.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate writing activities that cover writing stages needed for student success.  See above.
  • Have students regularly set, achieve, and reflect upon goals that relate to writing products.
  • Gather feedback from students to identify effective writing activities and to fine-tune activities.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Use student feedback to identify most effective writing activities.  Incorporate these activities into routines that appear in several projects to support student writing.
  • Use observations and data to Identify common areas of writing need and design activities to bridge these gaps.
  • Recruit authentic audiences to raise the stakes of writing pieces.
  • Use technology to publish student writing in meaningful settings.

 

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74 : Pre-Writing Activities

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These are examples of activities one can run to prepare students to create public writing pieces.  To see the difference between public writing pieces and write-to-learn pieces, go here. To see an overview of all the steps that go into creating a piece of public writing go here or here.

 

Anticipation Guide
  • thinking activity that helps build a sense of purpose for upcoming research and writing
  • provide a couple questions (controversial or open ended)
  • have students just down answers with justifications
  • in small groups, students compare and discuss their answers
  • report small group observations to whole class
  • then begin research on related lessons
Four Corners
  • uses controversy and multiple perspectives to generate interest in a topic
  • pose a question with four possible choices – 4 points of view, Likert scale, etc.
  • students move to corners of the room that represent 4 possibilities
  • talk with students in same corner about why they picked that corner
  • spokespeople summarize discussion
  • let students from different corners meet to share their perpsectives
Gathering Information & Ideas
  • Advance preparation
    • prepare resources students can use to research topics in advance
  • Jigsaw reading
    • students read different articles and meet in small groups to discuss their articles
    • can exchange articles to gain more information on chosen topics
  • Using the internet
    • use evaluation form to help students select valid internet and helpful internet sources
  • Organizing:
    • some students find outlines helpful, some not
    • can provide thinking sheets and templates that outline key features of major sections of specialized reports
  • Looking at samples:
    • Discuss pros and cons of past writing samples
    • Snip apart writing sample into parts and have students order snippets in logical order and explain order
    • Use prompts to help students notice key features in writing samples and how they work

 

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Pre-writing activities help students build engagement and knowledge needed to create writing pieces.  These activities fall into the build the field phase of scaffolding academic writing.   The anticipation guides and 4 corner activity can be used to make students aware of their assumptions and perspectives and to build interest in controversial topics.  The gathering and organizing information strategies can be used by teachers and students to gather and organize information from valid sources.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Research and gather valid resources that can help students research project topics
  • Decide which strategy will be used to generate sense of purpose and interest.
  • Develop controversial prompts or questions for 4 corners activity and/or anticipation guide.
  • Research and prepare lessons and tools aimed at guiding students in the research process. See above for some ideas.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Facilitate activities to generate interest.  See 4 corners and anticipation guide above.
  • Facilitate activities that teach students how to gather and organize information.  See above and here for ideas.
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Follow by other phases in writing process
  • Build pre-writing routines that incorporate activities that students enjoy and that stimulate deeper student thinking.
  • Have students reflect on how pre-writing activities impact how they achieve content and writing goals

 

73: Writing Workshops

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Main components of writing workshops
  • students write during workshops that occur during class
  • teachers observe and give individual feedback
  • teach writing skills in a step-by-step manner
 
Reasons to Run Writing Workshops
  • ensures that students get writing done
  • diagnostic – learn what students are succeeding at and not
  • individualize instruction
  • can be more efficient than whole group instruction
  • model discipline specific thinking patterns and writing styles
Play by Play:
  • Building engagement, choice & individual goal setting:
    • students list possible writing topics they’d like to explore
    • teachers assign topics based on their interests and to ensure class-wide variety in topics
    • students conduct preliminary research to narrow down writing topic
    • student complete individual goal setting sheets that list specific content and writing goals they’d like to achieve in the project
  • Students working independently:
    • students conduct more research on color-coded notecards that categorize types of information and that record summaries and resources
    • students create outlines and draft pieces while waiting for conferences
    • set norms for independent work so that conferences can occur simultanously
      • write need-to-knows on sticky notes and place them on designated board
      • if you finish writing early, work on editing and revising
      • use low voices and sit close to thought partners
      • go to writing resource area for more ideas if you get stuck
  • Brief, Focused Teaching & Modeling:
    • assign a thinking sheet that outlines how to think / draft a small section of writing piece
    • conduct a mini-lesson on contents of thinking sheet
    • also support mini-lesson with modeling
    • can assign thinking sheets, teach mini-lessons, and model other key features of the writing pieces
    • could use tree diagrams and other graphic organizers to represent and outline arguments
  • Teacher Student Conferences and observations:
    • doesn’t instruct on right and wrong – instead asks questions that get students to make connections, justify arguments, etc.
    • can be short – 2-3 minutes and focused
      • commit to a learning target (writing or content) and focus feedback and inquiries on that focus to keep meetings targeted and short
    • could address any idea that students need help
    • possible prompts –
      • what are you working on?
      • how is it going?
      • what help do you need to move forward?
      • tell me more about why you …
      • what else do you know about …
      • how are you achieving your goals?
    • incorporate individual goal sheets – lists skills students want to master in current project
    • incorporate rubric
      • highlight rubric together or go over student highlighted rubric
      • give feedback specific to the rubric
      • use a rubric reflection sheet with columns: rubric criteria, successful or not, evidence, next steps
    • another way to share feedback
      • take notes on post-its while working the room
      • place on student work during work time or during conference times
    • storing conference notes
      • write on sticky notes that start on clipboard
      • move to student work
      • after it is used by student, move to a notebook that has pages for each student
  • Writing Folders:
    • keep work organized in writing folders – contain note cards, drafts, outlines, brainstorm ideas, individual goal sheets, peer review sheets, etc 
  • Share the Results:
    • conclude with oral presentations to share findings
Making time:
  • focus writing assignments on topics that involve big subtle ideas that are need to be taught over time
  • use writing workshop format for other types of problem solving – e.g. solving real world math problems, writing lab reports, etc

 

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See Reasons for running writing workshops above.

 

Teaching students how to write within discipline-specific genres is tricky.  The elements of the writing workshop can be used to scaffold key features of writing pieces, guide students during work time and give specific formative feedback on work.  Incorporating student goals and student choice into the work builds student engagement, agency, and ownership of the work.

 

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Preparation Steps
  • Develop thinking sheets and mini lessons and gather models to scaffold key features of the writing piece
  • Develop overarching topic or essential question that can be used to stimulate and focus student-geneterated topics and questions
  • Develop assessment sheets – could have columns for rubric criteria, successful or not?, related evidence, next steps
  • Plan logistics and gather resources – writing folders (physical or online), sticky notes
    • Tech Note: Google keep might be a good substitute for conference sticky notes because they can be shared with students and organized by tags and students can check off items in the list as they complete them.  Google keep may be good for storing student goals for similar reasons.
Early Implementation Steps
  • Run writing workshop that focuses on 1 to 2 elements of writing piece.  See elements listed above for details:
    • build engagement though some student choice
    • conduct mini-lessons, provide thinking sheets and model each feature (1 at a time)
    • facilitate independent work time – focus work time goals and communicate norms
    • meet with students in conferences and record feedback
    • organize work in writing folders
Advanced Implementation Steps
  • Make writing workshops part of work time routine in multiple projects
  • Track writing samples over several projects and use these to help students reflect and set progressive writing goals

 

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