As you may have noticed from reading the announcements, I have added essay homework for a writing homework grade each week. Our class often discusses why it is important to "raise the rigor" as the year progresses. With that said, it is important for students to increase the volume of writing. Studies show that, of the many practices out there, the volume of writing a student produces is the largest predictor of the quality of their writing. As we continue working on Expository writing in class, we will maintain and increase our strengths with Narratives at home. In this post, I've included several steps of the writing process, as well as student examples of great writing. Like always, please let me know if you have any questions!
Step 1: Brainstorming
In this stage, students are to make a list of potential paper ideas. Then, students make a bubble map of all the details that come to mind about each of those topics. This student has made a bubble map for each of possible ideas: going to Great Wolf Lodge, When her uncle took her to Washington DC to hear the President speak, and when her uncle gave her 20 dollars.
Step 1 Continued: Brainstorming
After choosing a topic, student should create a Five Senses Map, BME outline, and timeline of all the details from the paper topic. Below is an example of student who has decided to brainstorm about going to Great Wolf Lodge.
STEP 2: Rough Draft
After brainstorming, students are to use their brainstorming maps to help form 3 body paragraphs--beginning (or intro), middle, and end (conclusion). The purpose of the rough draft is to get the ideas on paper, and to have a BME structure that is identifiable by indentions at the beginning of each of the three paragraphs. Below is a student's rough draft about a time when they were thankful.
Steps 3&4: Revising and Editing
After writing a rough draft, students are to meet with a partner for Revising and Editing. Revising should be completed first, which is simply going through to see how students can make the paper better--combining sentences, using bigger and better words, adding details to support the paper's main idea, etc. After revising, students are to help one another Edit, which basically looking through the paper for mistakes--misspelled words, punctuation errors, capitalization errors, etc. Students are used to having a friend to help them with this process, but it is VERY IMPORTANT that students learn to both revise and edit for themselves. On STAAR, I highly recommend students taking a break between stages in the writing process. Their papers should look fairly sloppy. See Below.
Step 5: Publishing
After meeting with a partner, students should take all feedback from the meeting and create a FINAL draft. This is when students take their take with spelling, writing legibly, and coming up with last minute additions to their papers. Below is an example of a STAAR paper that scored a 3 out of 4. Notice how it focuses on one setting AND one activity. It also has good details and answers the prompt, which was: Write about a time when someone told you that you did a good job.
In order for students to write at the level they need to be, going through each of the five steps of the writing process is critically important. Because what ends up happening on STAAR is students see the publishing paper and just start writing, which is nothing like what we do in class. They need to practice the entire process in order to be successful.
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