What Good Writer’s Write?
Show-Not Tell
The most important rule of writing is to show-not tell. We’ve learned that to do this, we need to have actions that we can act out. We stay away from telling how things are to showing things- much like a movie. Students then read their writing to conferencing partners who see if they can “act out” the writing. If so, it’s show. If not, it’s back to the writing board. Below is an example of how this works.
Examples:
Telling: The girls were excited.
Showing: Giggles and screams filled the arena. The soft curls were now damp with perspiration and the anticipation of the event. They held tight to each other in a mock effort to contain themselves. Arms flailed upward, and voices echoed in varying tones. The moment was here.
Telling: The room was vacant.
Showing: The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cob webs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well worn floor. The light gave notice to the peeling paint on the walls and to the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.
Check out our students examples! (Coming soon)
A Writer’s Growth is Like…..
Students created simile posters to describe the 6 levels of writing growth. These levels were used to measure their first writing pieces and will help to guide us this year in what yet needs to be taught. In the end of the year, we will again measure a final writing piece to hopefully see noticeable growth in their writing. Check out our posters in the hallway just outside of the library!
From the Beginning: Learning the Writing Process
We have started the year writing our first piece as we learn the writing process. This is the process we will do throughout the year for each of our developed writing pieces.
STEP 1 IGNITING
This is the starter-something that gets ideas flowing. It can be something you see, hear, remember, feel or something you have experienced-anything that interests you and gets you thinking.
STEP 2 COLLECTING
Write down everything you can think of that has anything to do with the topic…words or phrases or ideas or sentences or thoughts.
STEP 3 ORGANIZING
Take the ideas and star seeing which ones go together. Use a diagram or lines or boxes or clusters or a web.
STEP 4 DRAFTING
Start writing. Use your groups of ideas to create lines or sentences to say what you think you want to say. Remember to write in pencil and write every other line for future revising.
STEP 5 REVIEWING
Read your piece aloud to yourself to make sure no words or ideas are left out, no sentences are unfinished and to see if it says what you intended it to say. If you find any problems or stumble when reading anywhere, highlight that area with a highlighter for conferencing help.
STEP 6 CONFERENCING
Ask someone to listen to your piece as you read it aloud to them. Ask them to listen for specific Focus Areas that you have concerns about. Have them fill out a Conferencing sheet to tell you good points of your piece, ask any questions, or make suggestions for improvement.
STEP 7 REVISING
Use your own ideas and reponses from others to change, add, rearrange, remove, write more or otherwise revise anything you think needs to be improved or changed.
STEP 8 Checking/Editing
COPS-Check for correct use of Capitals, Organization of sentences, Punctuation, & Spelling.
STEP 9 POLISHING
Recopy carefully or type a clean, accurate copy after you’ve decided on changes & corrections.
STEP 10 SHOWING OFF/PUBLISHING
Now find a way to share your piece. Create a book,anthology, newspaper; read it aloud to a group; act it out; read it to someone younger; present it on a literary radio show; send it out to be published in a magazine, etc…
Story Map form: story-map
Daily Oral Language:
Every day, we review a sentence and discuss the why our English language is put together how it is. This helps to prepare for us to use mature language and sentence structure in our own writing. We’ve studied interrupted dialogue, 4 types of dialogue, compound sentences, subject and verb agreement, subjects, objects, tenses-including perfect past tense, 3 ways to fix a run on sentence, and more!
The thing I tell the students is that we know, for the most part, how to work our language works because we know what “sounds right”. However, we are trying to learn WHY it is as it is which will help us to handle any writing that comes up.
D.O.L. practice Pages: Click on the below links to print of clean practice sheets for tests and quizzes. Then, compare your work to your notes.