| THE WRITING PROCESS
WRITER's WORKSHOP
Descriptors of "Real" Writing
--a sense of classroom community
--enthusiastic attitudes towards writing
--Loads of time for writing
--Tons of positive feedback
--unlimited opportunities to choose topics
--periodic writing conferences with peers
--writing conferences with the teacher
--perfect spelling ONLY on final drafts
--skills taught IN CONTEXT not ISOLATION
--focus on content first, THEN conventions
--skill practice through WRITING-not worksheets
--writing on a DAILY basis
--kids working at their own pace
--whole-group/small group mini-lessons
--lots of individual attention
--mini-lessons based on students' needs
--writing for real purposes
--lots of TEACHER MODELING
--kids taking RISKS in writing
--kids reading with a "writer´s eye"
--kids writing with a "reader´s eye"
Spelling strategies during editing and proofreading (final stage before
publishing):
These activities will help a writer master a word (versus memorizing it for
a test) by putting it into long term memory!
Use the spelling words in sentences
Combine 2 or 3 words together in one sentence
Write a story or paragraph using the new words
Make a word search
Make a crossword puzzle
Create a list of synonyms (same meaning)
Create a list of antonyms (opposite meaning)
Know the different definitions of the word. Bank has several:
a place of business where money is kept, loaned, or exchanged
a small container in which to store coins & bills
a long mound or heap
the ground along a river
Beware of homophones (same pronounciation- different spelling)
meat vs. meet
know vs. no
Beware of homographs (same spelling, different meanings, and sometimes
different pronounciation)
"bow" might mean to lean forward
"bow" might mean a weapon used with an arrow
Writing Strategies for our Writer's Notebook:
History of a name
Writing from a list
Questioning
T-Charts
Webs
This is a great example of a student in fourth grade's ability to make up
topics and fill a great writer's notebook!
The following IDEAS were taken from Jessie A’s Real Writing Notebook when
she
was a fourth grader, the first full year we kept real writing notebooks.
1 “My Instrument” about an instrument she
made in music class
2 “Making Bookmarks” about how much she
loves bookmarks and likes to design her
own
3 “Songs, Singers, and Music”
4 “Flowers”
5 “Sleep overs”
6 “My Collection of Poems” (Collection #1)
7 “Scary? Funny? On the Bus”
Topic Sentence: “One day when I was on
the bus a weird thing happened.”
8 “Smiles” Topic Sentence: “I truly love to
smile. Why don’t other people smile?”
9 “Why Don’t teachers Make a Lot of
Money?”
10 “I Cry Easily” “There’s a few things I
cry easily about and I cry easily writing
about when I do certain things.” sad
movies/animals who die/etc.
11 “Books and Me” about her love of books
and reading
12 “I Love Pigs” collecting pig figurines and
toys
13 “Thumbs Getting Stuck” A memory story
14 “My Daily Routine”
15 “How Can We Make NE a Better School?”
Topic Sentence: “I think NE would be a
better school if all the students put
effort into it.”
16 “My Turtle”
17 “Gymnastics”
18 “If I Had $15,000.00”
19 “ A Funny Story” about a baby
picture of herself with food all over her
face because she fell asleep while
eating
20 “My Backpack”
21 “Blankets”
22 “When I Grow Up”
23 “Pretzels”
24 “Kids in My Class”
25 “A Bird at Our House” about a bird’s
nest in a tree
26 “Food I Like and Food I Dislike”
27 “Please Say Gosh” about using the word
“gosh” when frustrated instead of
cussing
28 “Colors!” wrote each paragraph in a
different color while telling her thoughts
about each one
29 “Lost!” Topic Sentence: “I’ve been lost
many times, but there are two times I
REALLY remember!”
30 “Who?” Topic Sentence: “Well,
something happened and I keep
wondering who did it?”
31 “What’s Today Like?” about her first
thoughts in the morning when she first
got up
32 “Poke’mon” Topic Sentence: “There’s
some things in life that bother me and
Poke’mon is one of them.”
33 “Midget” writes about how using this
word is rude
34 “Foozle” a word she made up to describe
stupid mistakes
35 “Zig and Zag” Topic Sentence:“ZigZag,
what you do. Yes, yes. Zig is a
movement and so is Zag. Zig is what
you do before you zag and zag is what
you do after you zig.....You see, zig is a
zig zaggy letter....”
36 “Zesty Things”
37 “Trick Oreo Treat Sundaes”
38 “On the Wall”
39 “The Weirdest Mail”
40 “Red Ribbon Week”
41 “Places to Go Do Things” Jessi cut
pictures out of travel magazines and
wrote about what she thought it would
be like to go to those places
42 “What Was He Thinking?”
43 “Yucky Yucky Medicine”
Topic Sentence: “EEWW! Despicable!”
44 “Step” about cute puppies she saw at
Girl Scouts
45 “Dirt Devil” about a dust storm out on
the playground
46 “The Truth” confesses to eating cake
47 “My Poems” Collection #2
48 “Super Receipt” about the longest receipt
she had ever seen from King Soopers
49 “Not a Very Good Night” about getting
a flat tire last night
50 “Running Before Walking” a baby
memory told to her by her Mom
51 “Aunt!” ponders about what it would be
like to be an underage Aunt
52 “AH-H-H!” Dad cuts sister’s hair too
short
53 “Always and Forever” about
her Real Writing notebook being her
very favorite inanimate possession
54 “I Just Love to Write!”
Jessi’s List of Writings contained well over a hundred entries. The above
list only describes a few of her entries. One thing that made Jessi’s
entries
stick out from other student’s writings is that she was able to think about
and
write about topics other people did not think up. Instead of stealing ideas
all the time, she created topics that were uniquely hers and special. Many
of
Jessi’s ideas were so much fun to hear about that many of her topics were
borrowed by classmates to write about and include in their own real writing
notebooks.
Stay tuned! We'll be learning many new things to help our writing skills!
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