The Art of Writing and Revision

Teaching Strategies

Student Conferencing

Student conferencing involves one-on-one meetings with students to check progress, offer support, answer questions, and provide feedback and next steps. When students are working independently, the teacher should be rotating around and conferencing with students as they are writing. Reed points out that “Conferencing can be helpful as early as topic selection…for those struggling to find a topic that will work, meeting with them briefly after they composted a list of their activities can help them assess potential topics.”⁶⁰ Conferencing is not just for those who need help. Culham offers three different types of conferences based on where people are in the writing process. 

• The Quick Stop: The quick stop is for students who are engaged and working well independently. The teacher should still stop by that student’s desk to check in, ask how they are doing, and offer praise. Make sure to tell that student to ask for help if questions arise. This should take no more than one minute.
• The Stop and Chat: This is for students who have a specific question or issue. If the teacher notices that a student looks stuck or needs your support, spend 2-3 minutes with this student. Address their concern and make sure they can move on independently. You can point them in the direction of a helpful resource, leave a sticky note with next steps, or point them to a student who might be able to help with a specific issue.
• The Stop and Stay: This conference is for the student who needs a lot of support, the student who is completely lost and stuck in the writing process. Plan to sit down and work with this student for 4-5 minutes. Ask questions, refer to what they have already written, or help them brainstorm. Sometimes asking them to verbally communicate their ideas rather than writing them down can help them get started.⁶¹

Metacognition

Metacognition is thinking about your thinking. This will be a thread that runs through this unit. Students will reflect on their own writing processes and the roadblocks they face. Madeleine Meijia from California State University Fullerton writes about studies which “found that when students learn how to (1) reflect upon to describe the skills and strategies they use to write texts; (2) explain the process they use to complete a draft, and (3) evaluate their final written product, it results in an increase in their knowledge of writing.”⁶². Metacognition will happen throughout the unit. Students will answer Do Now and Exit Tickets including questions such as, what makes writing difficult for you? What helps you when you are feeling stuck? How does writing help you make sense of the world and yourself? Think of a time when writing felt difficult. Where did you get stuck in today’s lesson? What helped? Students will also reflect on quotes about writing, such as the opening quotes from Klinkenborg and Lamott. They will answer questions such as - What does this quote mean? Do you relate? Why or why not? 

At the end of the unit, students will compare their first draft with their multiple drafts and reflect on each part of the process. They will answer questions such as, “How did learning this writing technique help my writing?” or “What mentor text helped inspire your writing whether it is through content or writing style? How did it help?” They will also reflect on what was difficult for them. “What trait did you have the most difficulty implementing? What trait confuses you?” My hope is that this reflection will carry with them throughout the school year and other content areas, give them confidence in their writing, and help them better understand the writing process. 

Annotation

Annotation is a process of “talking to the text” as you read. Actively reading the text. When students annotate as they read, they are processing and thinking about the information more deeply. This aids in their comprehension and helps them refer back to the text. Annotating is more than highlighting the text. It is about being in dialogue with the text, jotting down questions, reactions, summaries, and ideas. When students read the mentor texts they will be annotating for our guiding questions: What event did the author choose to include? What is the purpose of the event? What is the author’s experience of the event? What did the author do to engage the reader?

Rubrics

Throughout this unit, students will use rubrics to evaluate mentor texts, peers’ writing, and their own writing. According to Mejia from the Journal of Pedagogical Research “Teaching students how to self-assess their writing has also been found to positively impact students’ self-efficacy in writing performance.”⁶³ There are several ways to structure rubrics. Culham offers separate rubrics for each writing trait: ideas⁶⁴, organization⁶⁵, voice⁶⁶, word choice⁶⁷, and sentence fluency⁶⁸. These rubrics are further broken down. For example, the organization rubric evaluates for creating the lead, using sequence and transition words, structuring the body, and sending with a sense of resolution. This specificity allows students to clearly understand what they are working towards and what areas of their writing they need to improve. This helps them to self-assess and helps the teacher provide concrete feedback.

Rubrics can be overwhelming for students, especially if they are only interacting with them once or twice. Oftentimes we assess students on rubrics but spend little time using the rubric with students. In this unit, rubrics will be used for each separate writing technique. For example, when I introduce word organization, we will evaluate a mentor text based on the organization rubric. After students are done revising their own writing for organization, they will use that rubric to assess themselves, as well as peers’ writing for those who have finished early.