Writing at School and Home

Writing is an important part of our daily lives so share the times when you write with students! Here are some ideas for encouraging students to write at school and at home.

• Post-it notes: Students are social. We all are. Sometimes at school a student will need to share an important moment with a friend. I have put post-it note pads at each group. The student can jot down a reminder of what they wanted to tell their friend for when they have free time during lunch or at recess. In the same way, post-it notes are a great thing to use at home to pass notes between you and your child. You can have a note center on the refrigerator where you keep all the notes, or you may choose to use sticky notes to write encouraging words to your children to put in their lunch boxes or on their pillows.
• Grocery-store lists: Ask children to help write the list of items needed at the grocery store before you head out the next time.
• A golden-line: A golden-line is a line out of a work of literature that the child especially likes the sound of. They can make a note of this line inside their writing folder as a reminder for the next time they are writing.
• Letters or e-mails: Pen pals are now going electronic. Children love to get letters from their loved ones. Maybe a family member or friend can be a pen pal for the student.

Writing Center and Writing Workshop

Sometimes it's really difficult for students to get started. All writers have experienced writer's block like the two characters in the picture to the left. The Writing Center in the classroom is to encourage students to conquer any blocks they may have. Students will find all the materials they need to be writers in the writing center: pens, pencils, and markers; papers of all colors, shapes and sizes; a topic box for writing ideas; and a dictionary and thesaurus. Students can write down topic ideas at any time and place them in the topic box. When a child is struggling to choose a topic, they have the opportunity to choose three papers from the idea box and select one of these for their writing topic. Supplies for publishing such as computers, construction paper, and scissors can also be found in the writing center.

Writer's workshop is the time each week students will have for writing. By the end of the year, writer's workshop will last for 30 to 40 minutes everyday. During this time everyone in the classroom, including myself, will be writing. The three parts to writer's workshop in our classroom are a minilesson, writing time, and sharing time. The minilesson will last for 5 - 10 minutes. The teacher will teach one of the skills of writing to the students. The majority of the writer's workshop time is spent writing. During writing time, students may choose what they want to write about. Students will be at many different stages in the writing process during this time. Some may be just beginning the prewriting stage while others are choosing what piece they will be publishing. The final part of writing workshop is the sharing time. This is the most important time because it is when students can share their message -- their reason for writing. Students will be invited to come to the author's chair where they will read what they have written and receive feedback from their classmates. The students choose whether or not they want to participate in the author's chair.

The Six Areas of Language Arts

There are six areas of language arts that we will focus on in the classroom: reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing, and visual representation. Reading, listening, and viewing deal with getting information. Writing, speaking, and visual representation are ways of sharing information.

Reading is getting information from printed texts. Students will have opportunities to read silently during the day as well as reading stories aloud together as a class.

Writing is sharing information with someone through printed text. Students will write in their journals every morning and will publish a work once every nine weeks.

Listening is gaining information from oral language, the spoken word. For 10 minutes after lunch each day, I will read aloud to students from a chapter book. Students also will need to have good listening skills to follow directions given throughout the day.

Speaking is giving information to others through the spoken word. Students will give book talks where they will discuss with their classmates a book they are reading, and they will take on roles to be performed during reader's theatre.

Viewing means looking at a nonprint form where meaning must be created. Students are practicing viewing when they watch a movie about the life cycle of a butterfly or when they look at a site on the Internet.

Visual representation is presenting a message through a nonprint source. Students will make a bulletin board about friendship where they will display symbols of friendship to share with their peers. Also, students will make posters for a report in social studies.

The 5 Text Types

There are five text types that will be taught in class this year: poetry, narrative, expository, technical, and persuasive. Knowledge of all these text types except poetry are tested on the standardized tests.

Poetry: a short text that tells about an experience, place, person, or item. Poetry uses creative, colorful language. It can rhyme but it does not have to rhyme. Our national anthem and Jack Prelutsky's Something Big Has Been Here are examples of poetry.

Narrative: a story. Narratives are the bedtime stories we most often read to children. A narrative has a setting (where the story is taking place), characters, and a plot (the events in the story). "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," "Make Way for Ducklings," "Shiloh," and the books in the Babysitter's Club Seriers are examples of narratives.

Expository: a true text that gives information. Expository texts tell about a topic. Students will use expository texts when they research a subject to write a report about an event in history. "S is for Sunflower" is a mixture of poetry and expository texts. "Henry's Freedom Box" and a biography about the Jonas Brothers are examples of expository texts.

Technical: a text that describes how to do something. Technical text is written in steps with short, concise sentences. Technical texts usually have diagrams or pictures that show each of the steps. A book that describes how to draw pictures of cars or how to make friendship bracelets is a technical text.

Persuasive: a text that tries to convince the reader to believe or do something. Persuasive texts use facts to support a particular point of view. The writer is trying to convince the reader to take an action or to hold a certain belief. Letters to the editor in newspapers or speeches given by politicians are examples of persuasive texts.

Stages of the Writing Process

The writing process has five stages: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Students will move through each of these stages as they write. The stages will not always happen in this order and sometimes we will return to a stage we have already moved past.

Prewriting: Students spend most of their time in the prewriting stage. This is when they are choosing what they want to write about (topic), why they are writing (purpose), to whom they are writing (audience), and if they want to write a poem, a report, a letter, or a song (form). Once students make these decisions, then they collect and organize the information they want to use in their writing. Sometimes this stage is also referred to as brainstorming.

Drafting: Students get their message down on paper. In this stage, students do not stop to worry about spelling, grammar, punctuation, word choice, or organization. They simply get the thoughts that are in their head onto the paper. Nothing is wrong in the drafting stage. I have a stamp that says "DRAFT!" We will use the stamp on the top of our drafts so when students bring work home you will know the student is in the drafting stage. Please, read their work and talk with them about what they are writing. Focus your discussion on the ideas they have written down.

Revising: Students take a second look at their writing after being away from it for awhile. We will try to wait three days before returning to a draft to take a fresh look at what was written. At this stage, students look at the big picture. They ask themselves, "Does this make sense?" They also look at the flow of the ideas and check to see if they have a beginning, middle, and end. The process we use in class is students reread their draft, share it with others, and make revisions. The three types of revisions students make at this stage are to take out, to move, or to add. We still are not looking at spelling or grammar mistakes at this stage. Revising is the most difficult stage for students because they think their paper is perfect the first way they wrote it!

Editing*: This stage is taking a look at the little things to prepare the writing for an audience. Now, students look at spelling, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, and handwriting. Students will learn to edit their own paper. The writing belongs to them, even in the editing stage. I will not take the pen from their hands and do it for them or mark up their paper with my red pen. Their writing means it is their responsibility. Students get their papers ready for someone else to read when they edit.
*Referred to as proofreading in the graphic above.

Publishing: Students get the opportunity to share their work. Publishing is the main goal of any writer. It is when they present their finished work to the world. We will publish one or two writing pieces each nine weeks. When publishing, students may write their piece on the computer or on paper using pen. We will bind our writings either using construction paper or a cover we will make in class. What works are published will be the choice of the student.

Welcome!

Welcome, parents! I hope this blog will help you learn more about the writing program we will be using in third grade this year. People have a story to tell, a message to communicate. We will give our students the chance to tell their stories through writing.