What about Writing?Anne SullivanFeb. 2013

Goals for today:

• Learning Goal: I can examine best practices in teaching writing and determine ways to use this information in my classroom.

• Language Goal: I can develop a plan for using mentor texts in my classroom and share my plan with others in writing.

Free Fall Writing• Write without pausing or stopping to erase.

• Write about anything!

• Clear your minds and write about anything!

Writing Video

Helping to Ensure Excellent WritersRegie Routman believes that these five things will help to ensure that students become excellent writers:

1) Demonstrate that you are a writer who always writes with a reader in mind.

2) Connect writing to reading through literature; notice what authors do.

3) Guide students to chose topics they care about by giving them choice in structure and give them time to talk and write about them.

4) Teach students the strategies they need to draft, revise, edit, polish, and publish.

5) Rely primarily on regular conferences with students to access and evaluate; note strengths, give feedback, teach and set mutual goals.

Mentor Texts• Pieces of literature that you can return to and reread for many purposes. This allows you to dissect the book for it’s craft. They can be used to teach a skill or to motivate the students to write in a similar fashion.

Table Top Twitter• Each person at your table should take one of the pictures books in your

basket.

• Determine ways to use the book as a mentor text- think about writing traits, genre, text structure, standards, etc.

• “Tweet” your idea on your table top Tweet sheet. Remember to use the hash tag (book title) so that we can determine which ideas go with each book.

• Share your ideas with small group. Decide upon one idea to share with the whole group.

• Kristin will type up the “Tweets”

Writing Resources• Six Traits of Writing

• Writing samples- website

• Scoring Guides- website

• Online scoring practice- website

• Lesson ideas - website

Planning for Writing• Prepare for the 4th quarter

• Essentials

• Common Core

• Writing in the content areas

How do you identify a learning objective/outcome for your writing time?

When you sit down to plan for writing each week, how do you decide what to teach?

What drives your instruction?

Goals for today:

• Learning Goal: I can examine best practices in teaching writing and determine ways to use this information in my classroom.

• Language Goal: I can develop a plan for using mentor texts in my classroom and share my plan with others in writing.

3-2-1 Blast off to Break- Reflection Exit Card

3- things you learned or remembered

2- things you would like to try

1- question you still have