INDEPENDENT WRITINGAndrew Richardson&Taylor West

WHAT IS IT?

The majority of time of Writing Workshop is devoted to independent writing. 

During this time, students are prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their pieces. 

Depending on the age and abilities of your students, independent writing can be as short as 15 minutes or as long as 45-60 minutes. 

It helps to build stamina with your class, beginning with a short amount of time and building that time until they can work for up 30 minutes or more.

TEACHER’S ROLE

The teacher’s role is that of listener, coach, and model. Students must experience a multitude of preparatory

classroom lessons to be productive independent writers. The teacher provides the necessary skills by first presenting direct craft and editing mini-lessons that involve modeled writing. Next, the teacher presents opportunities for students to write together in shared writing exercises. The teacher builds the abilities of whole groups through these initial phases and then looks for the specific skills that emerge in independent pieces of student work.

TEACHER’S ROLE CONT.

During independent writing, the teacher meets with small groups of students or individual students to clarify, extend, and refine writing skills. After meeting, each student is invited to share his writing. While the student is sharing, the teacher takes anecdotal notes that he will refer to in later discussions. The teacher must pay close attention to each student’s individual needs as a developing writer.

STUDENT’S ROLE

The student must first attend to the strategy work that is modeled and apply it to his own writing. Next, he must be prepared to share his thinking as a writer during individual writing conferences or during informal chats with the teacher and his peers. The student then has the job of revising and editing his work. At every step of the process, the student is aware that the teacher is available for conferences. As the student becomes comfortable with this procedure, he will access the teacher and others more frequently.

WOULD YOU RATHER?

ACTIVITIES

writing in their schema notebooks journal writing writing exercises to experiment with language and style conducting peer-conferences reading to support writing Keeping a Reader’s Notebook or a journal Writing story questions

ACTIVITIES CONT.

Writing a joint review of a story with a peer Creating ABC Word Lists Writing original stories, poems, and song lyrics Making drawings with labels or captions Creating mini-books Using a new story word to write new sentences and

rhymes

SHARING /WRITING CONFERENCES A writing conference is a discussion between an

individual student or a group of students and the teacher. The general focus of the discussion is independent writing. However, a conference may focus on a specific aspect of writing, such as planning, craft, editing, or next steps.

INSTRUCTIONAL FORMS OF CONFRENCES Direct Instruction: The teacher asks the student to

discuss the application of a particular writing strategy or his personal writing strategy goal.

Indirect Instruction: The student talks about his writing and determines an area in which improvement is warranted. The strategy focus in this conference may not be on a strategy that has been modeled in class.

Assessment: The teacher asks questions and/or reflects on a writing piece with the student to determine the strategy focus for the conference.

TEACHER’S ROLES IN CONFERENCING

Research: The teacher must determine each student’s writing needs. For example, a student might state that he is having trouble with leads. Specifically, he confesses that he is struggling with how to start his writing when working with an expository text structure.

Decide: To assist the struggling student writer, the teacher must choose a writing strategy to model.

Teach: In 3–5 minutes, the teacher must model how to use the targeted writing strategy. He should show the student how to skim and find examples of leads in five expository texts, and then discuss the differences among the leads. When conferring, it is the teacher’s job to prompt and coach students.

WHAT WOULD BE GOOD TEACHER PROMPTS?

EXTENDING THE WRITER’S NOTEBOOK A Writer’s Notebook holds ongoing pieces of a student’s

work and serves as a portfolio of his development over time. As a student continues to experiment with genres, craft lessons, and purposes for writing, he develops as a writer.

Teachers enjoy seeing their students grow academically and want to continue to push students to the next level. This “push” may require additions to the original format of the Notebook. The chart below provides an example of a new section that could be added mid-year.

CONSIDER: STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS PREWRITING What topics do I know well? What is my purpose for writing this piece? What is the best writing genre to use? What do I want my reader to feel, learn, and know? What ideas do I want to include?

CONSIDER: STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS PREWRITING Drafting

What are the details I want to include? How can I organize these details? Do I want to share everything directly or leave room for inferring?

-Response Did my audience understand my message? Have I gotten enough response, or do I need additional feedback

from new listeners? Were my characters clear to my audience? Have I described the setting enough to support my audience? Are there enough details and facts?

CONSIDER: STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS PREWRITING Revise

After reflecting on my response questions, what do I want to add or delete to make my story better or clearer?

Do I want to use literary language? Is the story in the right tense?

Editing Who is this piece for? Do I need to totally edit or partially edit? Did I address all the steps on my editing sheet? What else do I need to edit to make this story clear to my audience?

CONSIDER: STAGES OF THE WRITING PROCESS PREWRITING Other sections that could be added to the Writer’s

Notebook throughout the year are: Personal Observations Memories Worth Noting Significant Facts Learned in Different Content Areas Favorite Graphic Organizers

READ/ DISCUSS INSPIRING INDEPENDENT WRITING

RESOURCES

http://busyteacherscafe.com/literacy/writing_workshop.html

http://www.scholastic.com/content/collateral_resources/pdf/a/activities_writing.pdf

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-2-Would-You-Rather-Question-Response-Templates-198696

http://www.benchmarkeducation.com/writing/independent-writing.html

  http://twowritingteachers.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/inspiri

ngindepwri/