{"id":4880,"date":"2016-11-21T09:53:34","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:53:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/?p=4880"},"modified":"2016-11-21T10:13:42","modified_gmt":"2016-11-21T15:13:42","slug":"writing-in-the-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/writing-in-the-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing in the Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"img_7513\"<\/a>A new teacher friend of mine recently asked for some practical steps to increase writing in her classroom. She said she was experienced with teaching essays of the \u201cacademic\u201d sort, but her students weren\u2019t naturally engaged, and the curriculum didn\u2019t provide much room for creative writing. She also wasn\u2019t confident about how to begin.<\/p>\n

It’s my belief that students need to do far more writing than their teachers can ever read, and we\u2019re cheating them out of some real fun and growth if we don\u2019t provide them with chances to explore where their minds can take them on paper.<\/p>\n

\"Folder<\/a>

Folder Writing Rubric<\/p><\/div>\n

So I adopted an easy way to encourage low-stakes, frequent writing. \u00a0(I’m pretty sure I originally picked up the idea from reading Nancie Atwell<\/a>.) It’s self-evident from the rubric posted here<\/a>, but basically, over several weeks, students do 10 writing pieces for 10 minutes each (I often let them go longer, or add a minute per session until we’re up to 15 minutes), list them on the sheet, and collect them in a folder as we go.\u00a0 Then, after 10 pieces, I ask students to pick their favorite 2 pieces to star and staple on top of the set of ten, complete the self-assessment, and turn in the folders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also providing a list of topics<\/a> that can get students going, especially if they\u2019ve been trained to write from prompts and haven\u2019t developed the skill of coming up with ideas. (Disturbing thought.)<\/p>\n

\"Creative<\/a>

Creative Writing Starting Points<\/p><\/div>\n

Obviously, teachers should feel free to adapt. \u00a0Some students might want to expand their experiments into longer stories. Just remember to write with your students so they can see you modeling how valuable this writing time is.<\/p>\n

In case you’re wondering if this can have any legitimate connection to real school, check out this standard from the Common Core:<\/p>\n

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.3<\/a><\/em>
\n Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.<\/em><\/p>\n

That’s the closest standard I can find to recognize writing as an art form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new teacher friend of mine recently asked for some practical steps to increase writing in her classroom. She said she was experienced with teaching essays of the \u201cacademic\u201d sort, but her students weren\u2019t naturally engaged, and the curriculum didn\u2019t provide much room for creative writing. She also wasn\u2019t confident about how to begin. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[356,37],"class_list":["post-4880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-teaching","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4880"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4880\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4889,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4880\/revisions\/4889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}