"Seeing" Writing

For my whole life, the written word has been like breathing to me. Reading and writing are something I could just do -- they made sense. 

This probably had something to do with my parents, who love to tell how they had to hide my books from my toddler self, who would insist that they read all six of them -- in order -- and who would get really, really grumpy if pages were skipped. (Yes, I am the oldest and a little spoiled.)

With this natural affinity, it's been one of my biggest challenges as a teacher to help my kids write. For a lot of people -- particularly those who are visual/spatial thinkers -- there is a huge disconnect between the stories they tell, the stories they experience, and then turning around and putting those stories on paper. 

With 80% of my students qualifying for the gifted program nonverbally, I needed to step up my game. 

So this summer, I started reading an amazing book by Betty Maxwell and Crystal Punch called Picture It! Teaching Visual-Spatial Learners. They have an abundance of tips and tricks to help visual learners connect in every subject.

I've also turned my hand to co-teaching.

Last year, I wrote about breaking through one of my student's writer's block . This led to some great conversations with our fourth-grade team (the year of the...duh duh DUH...writing test!). And as a result, we've created "Writing Workshop Wednesdays," where I'm coming in and teaching writing in a more visual/spatial way.

Our first lesson (inspired by the Maxwell/Punch book), had kids visualize an expository composition as a tree. The central idea -- like the trunk of the tree -- had to be nice and strong. The main ideas are the branches, and they come from the central idea. The details are the leaves and birds' nests and acorns that make the tree interesting. 

They drew their writing tree into their journals, then created a field of "idea flowers" -- topics that they may want to write about someday. Then they "picked" an "idea flower" and did a quick write -- trying to incorporate their central idea, at least one main idea and some great details.

It went great. EVERY student, no matter their ability level or learning style, wrote successfully.

As this year of writing continues, I'll keep sharing what we've done -- and if you have any great visual/spatial writing ideas, feel free to shoot them my way. I could use them!

Growing Storytellers

"I wrote a chapter book!"

This pronouncement, unexpected from the lips of a first-grader, made me smile. She had taken to our latest project with gusto, and had been writing on Storybird for hours.

This fantastic website was shared by a friend last year, but has really taken off with my storytelling group this semester. (For more great tech ideas, check out Cristina Popescu's blog "Think Appy Thoughts!")

Basically, the website provides the artwork, and your students pick the picture that inspires them. They can write poems, chapter books or picture books, and can even "publish" their stories to share.

The basic level of the website is free, and teachers can sign up 30 students (after that they have to pay for subscriptions). It's also safe: Teachers can moderate all stories and comments that their students make, and any stories published in the public realm are moderated by the website's team for family-friendliness.

I shared Storybird with the teachers on our campus, and the first grade teachers decided to sign their classes up. One of their students enjoyed writing so much, she authored the picture book "How to Write a Book on Storybird."

Although I'm using it in class with younger elementary students, I can see this working with kids through high school -- or even adults. 

I'm personally working on a children's chapter book right now -- it's pretty rough, but I promised my students that if they're writing, then I would, too. They love being able to see my writing take shape, and giving me suggestions on it.

Enjoy!

Curing Done-itis

For the past few months, I've been working with small groups of first and second graders, helping them to learn the ancient art of storytelling.

I call it storytelling, and not simply writing, because writing, at least in school, has been reduced all too often into a boring, drill and kill skill. Being able to turn that skill into a story, however, is an art (plus, kids are much more excited to learn "storytelling" than plain old "writing.")

I started with Mensa for Kids' storytelling packet. I turned their introduction article into a video, then played Robert Munch reading his Paper Bag Princess.

The kids were hooked.

We practiced our voices and movements, then learned about the story mountain (and I mentioned they would learn later it's called the "plot diagram.")

Finally, time for the writing. I found "Yolanda the Yarnspinner" in the Primary Education Thinking Skills books. She talks of using "colorful language" to tell a good story, encouraging kids to use words like "billowing" and "sparkles."

I turned them loose with sentence starters: "The baby cried" and "The dog barked."  

Then came what I had been afraid of.

"I'm done!" one munchkin announced, about 5 minutes into her writing. "Me, too!" another exclaimed.

I had to act fast.

"Oh, my friends," I announced in a dramatic voice. "I think you have that disease. That terrible disease."

I shook my head.

"What disease?" one asked, completely hooked.

"Done-itis," I pronounced. "You think you can rush and rush and yell 'I'm done!'"

I hammed it up. "I'm done! I'm done!" I yelled in silly voices.

They giggled.

"Do you think Robert Munch -- the guy who wrote the Paper Bag Princess -- rushed through his story and yelled 'I'm done!'"

"Noooooo," they chorused.

"Nope," I agreed. "Or do you think he wrote, and he thought about it, then wrote some more, then thought some more, then wrote again -- and finally, finally, after lots and lots of work, he leaned back, smiled and nodded, and announced, 'Yes, I am done.'"

They nodded. Yup, that's exactly what he must have done, they concluded.

"So, my friends," I asked. "Are you really done? Or do you still have more thinking to do?"

They smiled and turned back to their writing, and for another ten minutes (an eternity in a 6-year-old's world), my room was silent as eight little hands put pencil to paper. I got stories of alien mothers and snowman babies, robbers and werewolves.  Stories they were proud of. Stories they were excited to share. Stories that they knew they had put some hard thought into -- and stories that, when they were done, were really, truly done.

Breaking Writer's Block

The week before Spring Break, I was in tears. So was one of my fourth-graders.

“Just write it! It doesn’t have to be perfect – it just has to be there,” I said, trying again – unsuccessfully – to break through his block.

“I CAN’T,” he said back. “I CAN’T put that sentence in my story. It’s BORING.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “It doesn’t matter if it’s boring, it’d be done – and you can move on.”

“I CAN’T,” he insisted, tears leaking down his cheeks.

Frustrated, tired, heartbroken for this kid, I let it go. At least I could tell his teacher he tried, that he wanted to write – he just couldn’t get out of his own head long enough to get it on the paper.

I went home that day feeling like a failure. I had tried every trick I knew – thinking maps, foldables, graphic organizers – and they hadn’t worked.  Oh, they’d worked a bit – he had a paper, but it wasn’t finished. And it wouldn’t be. And the state test in writing was in a week.

Over dinner, I asked my husband – a high-school English teacher – for advice.

First, he called me stupid – “Not you,” he insisted. “Your approach. Don’t you think every other teacher has already told him that?”

“Ok, dear,” I said, my teeth a little gritted. “What would you do?”

He talked about sculpting, and about appreciating writing – even state-test-practice-so-boring-I-want-to-poke-my-eyes-out-with-a-spork writing – as art.

“You have to appreciate that to him, he’s making art. So you talk about art. A sculptor doesn’t make a statue right away – he has to work with the clay. Pinch it, scrape it, carve it, until it’s finally a beautiful sculpture. Writing is the same – he has to understand that he will never get the story out of his head perfectly. He has to get clay on the page, take the words out, then work with them until it’s right. But he can’t work with them until they’re on the paper – he has to put clay on the page.”

I nodded, but was skeptical. This made sense to me, but would the analogy click with a 9-year-old?

I figured I’d try, so last week – three days before the big test – I talked to my student. I talked about sculpting, and working with clay.

It was classic.

His eyes widened, his eyebrows went up. “Oooooooooh,” he said. “You’re talking about my writing.”

“What connection did you just make?” I asked (it’s best to check with GT kids – they can make some extremely…interesting…connections).

“You mean, I have to plan, then write my rough draft, then my final draft. And I can keep working on it – that it doesn’t have to be perfect right away.”

I nodded. “You’re putting clay on the page,” I said.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Clay on the page.”

Then a day later he wrote – a full page – on his own. In one sitting.

“This,” he said, after proudly marching down to my room to share, “is just my ROUGH draft.”

Finding Patterns in Poetry

"A pumpkin got bitten by a werewolf at night, and a cat with a rat found meat to bite." 

Perhaps not award-winning poetry, but not bad for a first-grader still exploring word and rhythm patterns.

That's what we've been doing in first grade this year -- patterns. They have found repeating patterns, sorting patterns, increasing and decreasing patterns, and patterns all over the school when we went on a scavenger hunt.  They have kept records of all their patterns in a digital journal, using the "BookCreator" app.

Last week, I read the fabulous poem, The Witch by Jack Prelutsky, to them. We identified all the rhyming word pairs, then found the patterns in the writing -- that the end word of every second and fourth line, for example, rhymes.

Then we used a tree map to come up with our own Halloween word rhymes -- even pulling in a rhyming dictionary to find rhymes for "pumpkin." This was definitely a challenging project -- but a lot of fun, too.

You've Been Sentenced...to Practice Grammar

The fun, jazzy class drew my rainy Ohio feet.

The smelly girl, Cameron, jumped into the lake.

Suzy sneezed under the snake.

Odd sentences? Absolutely. Grammatically correct? Yes! This is the fun of "You've Been Sentenced," a great game for vocabulary building and sentence writing.

A group of fourth graders came to visit me recently to work on their grammar and writing skills. I pulled this game off the shelf, handed them some whiteboards, and the giggling commenced. 

The basic premise of the game is to draw cards and make sentences using as many of the cards as you can -- which leads to great use of clauses and adjectives. By mixing in the whiteboards, I forced the students to practice their punctuating skills -- something they were more than willing to do to prove how "correct" their sentences were. 

They were quick to point out when clauses were under- or over-punctuated, or when basic sentence components (like verbs!) were missing. The players quickly corrected these problems -- I only saw sentence fragments twice, as the kids made sure to include verbs from then on, so they could earn points!

I also really love the silly thinking involved in the game -- for example, Suzy's snake allergy problem.  Players can challenge each other as to the validity of their sentences -- both content-wise as well as grammatically. In this case, the writer of Suzy's sentence had to come up with a scenario in which Suzy would find herself sneezing under a snake.  She said the snake was in a cage in a classroom, and the cage was on top of the table. Suzy was under the table, and started sneezing.

Fun, divergent thinking, while still practicing and improving basic grammar skills.