Facilitators: Karen Bennett and Kerry Hoffman
Recorder: Susan Carr
Solutions & Actions -download in print-friendly format
Based on what we currently know about effective writing instruction…
- What should we be doing?
- Who should be doing this?
- How should this be accomplished?
Discussion notes
Significant Issues From Morning Discussions
- Daily literature-based and/or content-centered, authentic writing experiences during which the craft of writing is analyzed, modeled, practiced and applied – (as in Writer’s Workshop.)
- On-going, on-site professional development.
- Effective writing instruction is dependent on an informed, collaborative community of learners (including teachers, students, administrators, parents and community members).
- All teachers will work together to support writers as communicators and thinkers.
Transcript
- What should we be doing?
- The clearer the writing assignment in teacher’s head and on the page, the better the writing….the writing is as good as the teacher.
- Need more of a step by step approach.
- The narrower the prompt the richer the response.
- Prompts should be better and set the stage to make kids think.
- Give kids options and CHOICE.
- Recognize that when you feed your head so it comes out in the writing
- When you do this it starts to make patterns
- Focused mini-lessons
- On short story writing.
- Dialogue is a really important tool of a fiction writer.
- The story tells you what it wants to be, like a painting tells you what it wants to be.
- Brainstorm what we want you want our kids to know about. (e.g., Voice, Genre, Audience)
- Topics should be something they care about.
- Write a story that happens in a scene that uses flashback.
- Where are the transitions?
- How does the author use setting to move from one time to another?
- How do you feel, where do you feel? What in these words, length of sentence, vocabulary, etc. makes you feel this way?
- Modeling
- The opportunity to have students talk to writers.
- You can make some pretty interesting observations about writing and how it works.
- Emulation
- We can learn from other writers.
- It works because of the way they did it.
- What is plagiarism and what is not? You can model the rhythms, etc. without plagiarizing.
- Teach kids to write like writers read.
- Ask them to do something they know how to do! Help them know how to do it.
- Wherever discipline we are engaged in teaching, something that promotes critical thinking!
- More directly connect the writing and reading.
- You are not going to get it in one reading. Read a story 6 times and write and track a different element each time. Setting, character development, etc.
- With every reading in a good story, something is revealed.
- We need to encourage kids to read at higher thinking levels. A new Bloom’s taxonomy for reading and writing.
- Visualization and connection.
- Clarity is everything. In life. If you don’t hear words the way we mean them understanding is lost.
- We have to somehow get across to the general public that writing isn’t always for a finished essay.
- There are different kinds of writing.
- Do more writing. Fluency is important.
- Writing is always summative.
- Must do more revisions and critique.
- Philosophy for critique, if you believe the translation theory.
- Tells you what’s there.
- Teachers, critiques and editors helps narrow the gap.
- Tuning protocol
- Read what you wrote
- Peers ask clarifying questions.
- Who says it’s not good?
- Help students understand that there is always going to be a gap between what is in your head and in your heart.
- Commentary
- Everybody cares about something. Everybody who survives his childhood has enough material to last a lifetime.
- We are finally shifting from the teachers trained years ago in the old ways.
- How can we reach the teachers of Indiana to help them incorporate effective strategies?
- There is a huge disconnect between the university and the classroom teacher.
- There must be a connection between University and classroom teachers for Professional Development P-16.
- How can we make writing more real for students?
- There are so many applications for writing in the world.
- We need to have a common language.
- Why can’t teachers do their own in-service?
- We need to work to understand the corporate vs. education models
- Under-prepared teachers
- Better college material
- The belief that you can create literacy.
- Must recognize changing family structures.
- Roe vs. Wade may have been cause of these problems.
- Help all teachers manage the writing process
- Help teachers in the content areas value the writing process
- Help all teachers take on some responsibility for writing?
- What must we tell the schools and citizens in Indiana?
- Communication is the focus
- Thinking doesn’t happen unless you have something to think about.
- Writing isn’t important unless you have something to say.
- Model practices for students
- We will make it easier to learn about standards and practices.
- There are resources/support available (and where!)
- Content that students should be writing about
- Give students choice within assignment.
- We value all content areas.
- Must create support staff (curriculum coordinators) to help writing happen in the schools.
- Writing infusion team for the schools.
- We need funding for the DOE and the schools to do their jobs
SOLUTIONS AND ACTIONS - PRESENTED
- What?
- Help all teachers value & manage writing & writing process.
- Help all teachers provide all student with opportunities to do all types of writing
- By whom?
- All teachers are involved with writing.
- All administrators support the writing efforts in school
- How?
- More resources $ / online resources (clearing house) for teachers to share ideas
- Build a community in which all teachers are valued & have a voice in the school community where writing is an important tool for learning
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