Book: Writing Essentials: Raising Expectations and Results while simplifying teaching

Routman, R. (2005). Writing essentials : raising expectations and results while simplifying teaching. Heinemann.

The Essential Writing Life

Chapter 1: Simplify the Teaching of Writing

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I want students to write with passion and ease. I want them to become motivated, confident writers who are writing as an everyday, useful, even enjoyable tool.

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Examine Your Beliefs

Until we recognize our beliefs, question them, challenge them in the light of new information, research, and experiences, nothing much happens. … Effective teachers are always examining, evaluating, and refining what they believe as a first step to improving and refining instructional practices.

Top Five Things I Do To Ensure Students Become Excellent Writers

• Demonstrate that I am a writer who always writes with a reader in mind (sometimes that reader is myself) and make my writing and thinking process visible.
• Connect writing to reading through literature; notice what authors (including student authors) do.
• Guide students to choose topics they care about (by offering them choices within structure) and give students time to talk and write about them.
• Teach students the strategies they need to draft, revise, edit, polish, and publish.
• Rely primarily on regular conferences with students to assess and evaluate: note strengths, give feedback, teach, and set mutual goals.

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…the skills and strategies that writers use are the same across the grade levels; their depth and sophistication are what increase.

12 Writing Essentials for All Grade Levels

• Write for a specific reader and a meaningful purpose. Write with a particular audience in mind (this may be the author herself or himself) and define the writing task.
• Determine an appropriate topic. Plan the writing, do the necessary research, narrow the focus, decide what’s most important to include.
• Present ideas clearly, with a logical, well-organized flow. Structure the writing in an easy-to-follow style and format using words, sentences, and paragraphs; put like information together; stay on the topic; know when and what to add or delete; incorporate transitions.
• Elaborate on ideas. Include details and facts appropriate to stated main ideas; explain key concepts; support judgements; create descriptions that evoke model, time, and place; and develop characters.
• Embrace language. “Fool with words” – experiment with nouns, verbs adjectives, literacy language, sensory details, dialogue, rhythm, sentence length, paragraphs 0- to craft specific, lively writing for the reader.
• Creating engaging leads. Attract the reader’s interest right from the start.
• Compose satisfying endings. Develop original endings that bring a sense of closure.
• Craft authentic voice. Write in a style that illuminates the writer’s personality – this may include dialogue, humor, point of view, a unique form.
• Reread, rethink, and revise while composing. Assess, analyze, reflect, evaluate, plan, redraft, and edit as one goes – all part of the recursive, nonlinear nature of writing.
• Apply correct conventions and form. Produce legible letters and words; employ editing and proofreading skills; use accurate spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar; adhere to the formal rules of the genre.
• Read widely and deeply – and within a writer’s perspective. Read avidly; notice what authors – and illustrators – do; develop an awareness of the characteristics of various genres (fiction, poetry, persuasive pieces) and how those genres work, and apply that knowledge and craft to one’s own writing).
• Take responsibility for producing effective writing. Consider relevant responses and suggestions and writing revise; sustain writing effort; monitor and evaluate one’s own work and set goals; publish, when possible and appropriate, in a suitable and pleasing presentation style and form; do whatever is necessary to ensure the text is meaningful and clear to the reader as well as accurate, legible, and engaging.

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Chapter 3: Share Your Writing Life

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…learning model…

• Demonstration (my writing and thinking aloud)
• Shared demonstration (my conversation with the single teacher)
• Guided practice (the teachers’ conversations with one another as they shared their stories).
• Independent practice (each teacher writing his or her story individually)
• Celebration and sharing.

Chapter 4: Raise Your Expectations

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Nurture and Nudge

Gail [Wesbrook] attributes her students’ excellent writing to:

• Reading aloud at least three texts a day (fiction and nonfiction picture books as well as an ongoing chapter book). Gail reads to her kids’ first thing in the morning, right after lunch, and last thing in the afternoon. She focuses on language and how authors use words. For example, she and the students identify interesting vocabulary, and the kids brainstorm other words that mean the same thing (like peculiar, in Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches, and immense, in his Horton Hatches the Egg). They also note “golden lines” (sentences they can picture) and playful language.
• Writing poetry. Playing around with language by hearing and writing poems early in the year gives students facility with words. Gail focuses on using one’s senses and on “feeling” words, rhythm, and rhyme.
• having good peer models. Seeing the writing of other students has a very powerful effect on community and trust. Students begin to take risks when they see peers take risks in their writing.
• Focusing on audience. Before, Gail says, “I had not made audience a focus. This is the biggest change in my teaching. Once the students start to consider the reader/listener, their writing just expands.
• Modelling frequently. Gail writes and thinks aloud several days a week and also relies on frequently shared writing.
• Intentional teaching. Gail’s teaching is explicit and deliberate. She relies on what she calls the “efficiency of context” to teach skills within purposeful writing contexts.
• Holding high expectations for all students. “This sends the message that I believe in their ability and value their writing. They are worthy of that expectations.”.

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What makes our wriing interesting?

• Include something funny (use humor)
• Make it easy to read – use spaces, neat handwriting
• Tell feelings
• don’t be afraid of big words (sound them out).
• Use interesting words.
• Make sure to have a lot of sense.
• Write more – tell more.

What does it mean to write more/tell more?

• Tell what it is (give examples)
• Describe (give a picture to the reader!).
• Tell went
• Tell why
• Tell where
• Tell how (directions)
• Tell what happens
• Tell your feelings
• Tell more to make it BETTER (not just longer)!

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Raise Your Expectations for Handwriting

In every school I visit, how and when to teach handwriting is an issue. Handwriting matters. Not being able to form letters easily constrains writing. That’s common sense. If your energy is taken up forming letters, you’re not able to concentrate on your message.

We are judged, rightly or wrongly, by how our students’ papers look. When they look beautiful, parents judge us to be effective teachers of writing. That’s part of the reason I’m such a stickler for excellent handwriting and conventions in all published work.

We can focus our writing instruction on quality writing and at the same time expect legibility.

When we raise our expectations and refuse to accept poor handwriting, kids’ handwriting improves. If we want students to value handwriting and produce beautiful penmanship, we need to teach it, demonstrate it, value it, and – above all – give writers audiences they value, so that they’re engaged and invested in their writing.

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We need to take the time to demonstrate slow, careful letter formation, word spacing, and spelling verification – but without pressuring students. My everyday handwriting is messy and hard to read, but when I send a personal note, I slow down and take more care. I want the reader to feel valued and to be able to read my message easily. Sloppy handwriting is disrespectful to the reader.

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If we expect it, explain why it’s important, demonstrate how to achieve it, and provide time for it, students almost always meet our expectations.

• Once you’ve taught cursive writing, you may want to let students print if handwriting is hard for them. What you’re after is legibility. Research indicates that students need to be knowledgeable about styles of writing, not that cursive is preferable to printing.
• Have various kinds of beautiful writing paper available. Invite parents to donate writing paper, cards and envelop; and students to create their own.
• Check your students’ published writing. Make sure that any work displayed in the classroom or principal’s office has excellent handwriting, spelling, and conventions.
• When you conference with students, even on the run, teach letter formation when a student is having difficulty. (I also do this when students are writing on tiles and whiteboards).
• Take a critical look at your students’ daily handwriting. Have you given the message that handwriting doesn’t matter?
• make sure developing writings have an alphabet strip or chart close by to use as a resource/reminder for letter formation. Model for a small group of kids who need more practice. Have them practice forming letters on sand trays, in the air, on white boards.

Expect Legibiltly

Journals and writing notebooks are often a shambles. I am always baffled by teachers who will accept defaced covers, messy handwriting, scribbles, and poor spelling. These are, after all, books: writing books. When I see that lack of pride in workmanship I say something like this: Kids, I work in a lot of classrooms, and when I see such messy work, it tells me you’re not taking pride or enjoyment in your writing. let me show you what I expect.

You may need to start all over again with new notebooks. When you hand them out, make sure you model how to write in them – format, spacing, letter formation, date placement, how to cross out, and so on.

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Decide What Support Learners Need

When looking at the optimal learning model, pay more attention to the degree of support students need than to the teaching context. As yourself, What support (demonstrations, practice, guidance, resources) do students need to succeed with minimal guidance, and how can I best provide it?

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Rely on Scaffolded Conversations

…before students went on to write, I had them spend a few minutes sharing their story with a partner. When it was time to write, I met at the front of the room with those few students who still weren’t sure what they would write about. Once those students were off and writing – about five minutes later – I was free to roam around checking on how everyone was doing – to see who needed a quick conference, celebration, affirmation, and who was a good prospect to ask to share his story with the whole class.

Chapter 5: Do More Shared Writing

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Understand The Research That Supports Shared Writing

Social context is crucial for learning, and shared writing provides the safe, collaborative setting that promotes cohesive writing. The desire to share ideas and words is the impetus behind writing development.

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Principles of Instruction That Support English Language Learners

1. Productive, collaborative learning among teachers and students (“Learning is most effective when novices and experts work together for a common product or goal, and when they have opportunities to converse about what they are doing.”)
2. Purposeful conversation rather than drills and decontextualized rules.
3. Contextualized teaching and curriculum that include and value experiences and skills of students’ home and community.
4. Intellectually engaging curriculum of complex, challenging work.
5. Instructional conversation in which students question and share their ideas and knowledge.

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Teaching Tips to Go Along with Shared Writing Framework and Lessons

• Choose a Meaningful Topic
  • Show enthusiasm for the topic. Tell why you’re excited about it.
  • Write for a real audience
• Say the Words as You Go
  • use shared writing to teach phonics and phonemic awareness. As you scribe the words, stretch out the sounds slowly. Clap the number of syllables in a word.
• Shape Students’ Language
  • If a student is faltering with words and having difficulty making herself understood, gently guide and encourage her. Are you saying…? I want to be sure I am understanding you; try saying that again. What you have to say is important; take your time.
• Move Along Quickly
  • To keep kids engaged, pause as you are writing and say “Everyone, quickly spell…[choose a word they can spell, like and or going] or “Read this line with me.”
  • Decide what’s most important to focus on for this lesson. Getting ideas down? Hearing many students’ voices and ideas? Rereading and reorganizing? Editing? Polishing? Choose one or two.
  • Time yourself. Stop after ten to fifteen minutes.
  • Accept ideas from two or three students, then quickly pull things together. Let’s say it like this…
  • When everyone wants to tell a story about pets, moving day, siblings, hobbies, favorite toys, and so on, save time by asking students to write their stories instead. Then create a class book. Write the introductory page together.
• Look for Opportunities for All Students to Participate
  • Start a story or text together as a class, and then say “What if the story went this way?” or “What do you think is a better [or different] idea for this part?” have kids continue the class-generated story on their own or with a partner and write their own ending.
  • Value all students’ language and culture.
  • If a student raises his hand to contribute and then doesn’t know what to say, try I can tell you’re thinking about this. Think some more, and I will come back to you. Later, if he is still unable to speak, try Jason, tell us what you’re thinking about, is there anything you’d like to add or change here? Even if he just shakes his head, you’ve acknowledged him in a positive way, and he may be ready to speak next time.
  • Call on students who don’t usually volunteer, and ensure their success:
    Valerie, what letter would you expect to see here? It’s the same letter that your name starts with:
    Satisha, read this with me. What do you think? Should we change this word to [blank] or leave it as it is?
    Carl, we need to hear what you think. I know you have good ideas.
    Come on, Sam, I know you can add to this. I’ll help you.
• Stop and Reread as You Go
  • Write on large, lined chart paper. While it’s slower than writing on a transparency, you’ll have a permanent record that is easy to find and refer to during shared reading and independent reading. Sometimes, I have a pad that I use only for shared writing. Other times, I post completed charts on the wall.
  • Pay attention to one-to-one word matching. Tell children they have to watch the pointer and listen to your voice: When I stop, you stop. The kids love doing this, and it works!
  • Before you continue writing, have student’s partner read the text-in-process. Ask, Does it make sense? Should we change anything?

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Use language that affirms and encourages participation

• How can we begin so the reader knows exactly what this is about?
• Who has a good beginning sentence?
• Does someone else have another idea?
• Okay, let’s go with that.
• How many of you prefer this title? Okay, that’s most of you. We’ll use that one.
• Now we need to say something about such-and-such. Who has another idea?
• I won’t let you fail. Give it a try.
• What’s another way we could say this?
• That’s a good idea. How about if we say it this way?
• What’s a different word we could use here that might be clearer to the reader?
• We need to let the reader know we’re changing topics. How can we do that? how about if we say it like this?
• How can we let the reader know we are ending our writing? Okay, that works, or we could say it this way. What do you think?
• Let’s reread this and see if we want to change anything. Does everything make sense? Is it clear and interesting for the reader? Do we need to move anything around to make it easier to follow?
• Let’s take a look at this again tomorrow to be sure it’s exactly the way we want it.

Shared writing texts are ideal for rereading, highlighting features of text, learning high-frequency words, and focusing on parts of words. In particular, when students are actively involved in word work, they enjoy learning and they learn quickly.

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Tried and True Ideas for Shared Writing

• Welcome letter (to a new student, to kindergartners, to a new person in the neighbourhood, to a tourist in your state)
• Procedures for classroom, lunchroom, and playground activities
• School alphabet book
• Visitor’s guide (to the school, classroom, city)
• “All about” books (all about our classroom, our school, our science experiment, a special person)
• Class journal (daily happenings, major things learned)
• What is special about us (our school, our neighbourhood); what we love
• letter to the principal requesting something or inviting her to a learning celebrations
• A fictional story
• Poems
• Summary of a picture book to assess understanding or share with other classrooms
• A research report
• Advice (to parents of new babies, to next year’s students, to teachers)
• What to do if (you see a spider, bee, or wasp; when you’re bored; when you’ve done something hurtful or wrong);
• recipes (real or fanciful)
• favourite foods (hobbies, places, people)
• Book reviews
• Profiles and biographies (of authors, neighbours, people in history)
• Predictable books (pattern books)
• Student survival handbook/guide (for a grade level or the whole school)
• New student handbook
• Class newspaper, newsletter for parents, daily news
• How to be (a big brother or sister, a friend, a good student)
• How to take care of a (pet, a plant, toys, your room)
• How to (make a meal, select a book, get ready for school)
• What to expect in second (third, fourth, etc) grade
• Summaries of nonfiction studies
• How to act on the bus, on the playground, in the lunchroom, etc
• What to do when there’s a fire drill or an emergency
• A pamphlet explaining to younger students why they need to read
• What we have learned about…
• Rubrics
• Classroom routines and procedures (for daily jobs, recess, independent reading)
• Charts to assess students’ knowledge (of content area, authors, reading strategies, writing strategies, spelling strategies)
• Letter to student council or principal (what we’d like in an assemble, school improvement)
• Thank you notes (to volunteers, visitors, crossing guards, custodians, previous teachers, school secretaries, librarians)
• Invitations to school performances
• Letters of encouragement (to students taking high-stakes tests, sick people, soldiers)
• A book about the teachers at our school
• Keepsake memory book of school year
• Appreciation writing (to custodian, parent, visitor, friend)
• Class books (our pets, siblings, favourite toys, hobbies, what we’re experts at)
• Observations of class pet, plan, science experiment (science logs)
• Short plays

Chapter 6: Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

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Children’s writing reflects the quality of the reading they do. The complexity and literary quality – or lack thereof – of the text children read greatly influence the quality of their narrative writing.

…it is critical that we continue to read aloud fiction and nonfiction to students at every age and provide rich language experiences to all students, not bits and pieces of decontextualized skills. For students who cannot read the texts on their own yet, hearing the rich language of literature inspires quality conversations, triggers ideas for their own writing, and motivates them to become better readers.

Don’t neglect nonfiction. Expository writing develops more slowly than narrative writing, but this may be because children have less experience with and exposure to expository writing and receive fewer demonstrations of it. Most of what they hear and read is fiction – all the more reason to be sure we expose them to many informational text and teach informational writing. Children who read nonfiction have more information with which to write, have writing models at hand, and are more aware of nonfiction features such as visual aids.

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Do more informational writing

Primary-grade students who do more writing, especially content-related writing have higher reading achievement. Although writing connected to reading is the single best indicator of student achievement, such writing is not common.

pg 127

Teaching kids how to write expository text improves their overall writing skill and their reading comprehension. Kids who write nonfiction are stimulated to read more nonfiction, so it’s important to include lots of great nonfiction in the classroom and school libraries.

Chapter 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

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Reduce Isolated Skills Work

I have not been able to locate any research showing that worksheets or drills carry over into students’ successful application of skills in authentic reading/writing contexts. In fact, decades of research show that drills do not improve student writing.

pg 143

The big problem with teaching isolated skills is the kids don’t know what we’re talking about why. Our lessons should arise from what you see kids doing, or not doing, in their writing: “Skill instruction should intrude as little as possible upon students’ ongoing efforts at constructing meaning from text.”

Only isolate the skill if students know how and why that skill is used. For example, until a child understands that words can be broken into sounds, teaching “p is for paint” had no meaning for them.

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Include Audience in All Writing

One of the problems with skills teaching is it leaves out the audience. Yet writing for a real audience (not just the teacher) is one of the best ways to get quality writing. We adjust our language according to who our audience is (including ourselves), but kids don’t know this.

Chapter 8: Organize for Daily Writing

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Think of a writing workshop as the time in which everything that writers to do create a meaningful piece of writing for a reader takes place.

How I Define writing workshop

• Sustained, daily writing across the curriculum of mostly self-chosen topics
• Writing for purposes and audiences that the writer values and understands
• Playing around with languages and learning how to craft writing
• Conferring with students to respond to their writing celebrate what they have done well, and teach the next steps for moving the writing forward
• Teaching students what they need to know to write fluently and accurately
• Doing what writers do to make a piece engaging for the reader
• publishing for real audiences

Writing workshop is not:

• a lockstep, linear process: prewrite, draft, revise, edit, publish
• focusing on individual writing traits
• following a program or template
• writing to promote after prompt to prepare for a high-stakes test
• practising skills in isolation
• writing topic sentences with supporting details
• assigning a topic without teaching
• writing for purposes students don’t value or understand

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Writing requires a daily commitment. Those who write every day in a regularly planned writing session produce about twice the volume and twice the number of ideas as writers who write when they feel like it.

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Have more conversations about writing

A critical part of teaching writing is having students talk about their writing before they write, while they are writing, and even afterwards. Scaffolded conversations with students are essential for producing excellent, coherent texts.

Classrooms that have more high-level talk going on have higher reading and writing achievement.

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Model Writing Behavior

• Write on every other line (allows room for making changes)
• Write on only one side of the paper (allows for cutting and pasting and easy rearrangement of pages)
• Date everything (shows writing history and progress)
• Write legibly (makes it easier to read drafts)
• Spell high-frequency words correctly, and use your best-invented spelling for other words (raising expectations for spelling, makes drafts easier to read, and saves time during the editing process)
• Keep writing records (writing history, sticky notes of suggestions, writing plans)
• Model on projected transparency using the same paper your students will be using – size, lines, spaces.

Chapter 9: Conference with Students

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Purposes of a writing conference

Before, during, or after writing, respond to the writer by:

• listening (to what writer is trying to say)
• affirming (what writer has done well)
• reinforcing (the writer’s strengths, attempts)
• assessing (confusion, strengths, next steps)
• teaching (what’s most important for the writer to move forward and only what the writer is ready for)
• scaffolding (helping the writer say, write, and do what she can’t quite do yet without help)
• setting goals with students’ input (for the writer to attempt to meet on his own, with minimal guidance and support)

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Kinds of Writing Conferences

• Whole-class shares
• Quickshares
• Roving, on-the-run conferences (while walking about the classroom as kids write)
• One-on-one formal conferences
• Peer conferences.

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Manage Whole-class Share Effectively

• write suggestions for students (we write faster than they do)
• limit compliments (allow a few; avoid false praise; move on to suggestions)
• teach and demonstrate on the spot (cut and paste, teach quotation marks, etc; other students who are ready will also pick up the technique)
• help students with where to go next (for example, say “So what are you going to write about next?; this saves time for the students at beginning the next writing period)
• most students love to share. Some days, so that all students can be heard, have everyone share with a partner.

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Tips for successful whole-class shares and conferences

• Always focus first on what the writer has done well. (beginning with celebration affirms the writer and makes it more likely that she will be open to suggestions)
• For the first reading, try not to look at the child’s paper (listening without seeing the spelling errors, lack of punctuation, and messy handwriting ensures that we focus on the message)
• Put your pen or pencil aside (sit on your hands, if necessary. avoid the urge to write on the child’s paper)
• know where the child is in the learning model; that is, consider how much support the child will require. (will the child be able to say what he has done well, what questions he has, what response is needed, or will you need to model that?)
• Watch your language of response (whatever you say to the child, be sure it encourages her to continue writing)

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What to focus on in an editing conference

• Capitalization
• Seppling
• Punctuation
• Grammar
• Word choice (including title)
• Legibility:
  • penmanship
  • spacing
  • capital and lowercase letters
• organization (final check):
  • similar ideas grouped together
  • paragraphing
  • adding missing material and deleting unnecessary material
• rereading:
  • reread pieces out loud to oneself
  • reread with teacher (or peer)
• presentation:
  • form and format
  • possible illustration (or visuals)

Chapter 10: Make Assessment Count

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Become more knowledgeable about assessment

Think about the last piece you read that was memorable. Was it because the writing had correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling? Certainly, those elements were necessary so you could read the piece with ease and focus on the message. But wasn’t it the language, the way the author used words, that gripped you?

Good intentions around assessment can come to naught if we teachers have scant knowledge about teaching writing. For example, spending time examing students’ writing – an admirable activity – does not guarantee writing improvement, even when it’s done by every teacher in the school and across grade levels.

…knowing expected writing behavior at different developmental stages can encourage professional conversations, suggest specific language to use when talking with parents and preparing report cards, and help us choose minilessons and establish standards. But unless teachers know how to teach writing well, student writing will not improve. Take care that most of your time and effort is spent teaching effectively, not matching students with writing stages.

“Assessment to improve instruction requires active learning communities that sustain productive conversations about reaching and learning that are based on data”

pg 240

Put Rubrics in Perspective

…the teaching of writing is driven by six trains:

• ideas and content,
• organization,
• sentence fluency
• voice
• word choice
• conventions

Teaching these specific traits and judging writing on their basis is understanding since most states’ high-stakes writing tests are scored against them.

These six traits are a rubric – an evaluation tool. A rubric lists the criteria and/or the qualities expected in a piece of writing.

A rubric lets the writer know what is expected in order for the writing to be judged excellent (or poor).

White students’ test scores may be higher when their teachers adhere strictly to a set of writing traits, the writing is often “vacuous” – simplified and homogenised. Rubrics often fail to measure the development of ideas, overall coherence, and relevance of evidence presented, which sends a message to students that writing to the formula matters, not the content.

Rubrics also “fail to provide a demonstration of the reading process that can later be internalized by the writer”.

Understand how rubrics work

Rubrics are a lot like checklists or guidelines. At its simplest, a rubric is a set of criteria for what needs to be included in a piece of writing. The criteria can be general… or specific.

At its most complex, a rubric can delineate many separate qualities and many levels of performance, from high to low.

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A rubric can be used to guide text content and/or evaluate text quality:

• A content rubric provides explicit criteria to frame the writing and define the task (lets students, teachers, administrators, and parents know what is expected; helps guide the writing).
• An evaluation rubric provides criteria explaining how the writing will be rated or scored, often on a scale of numbers (such as from 1 to 4) or words (such as limited, competent, excellent)

The rubric, like a checklist, helps teachers, students, and parents evaluate writing, decide what mini-lessons to teach, and what goals to set.

Keep your focus on effective writing

Don’t overdo it. When you focus on a checklist (or rubric) instead of the child, you miss a lot of what the child is trying to do. Rubrics, like checklists, can disrupt the flow of teaching and learning.

I worry that conscientious teachers will spend hours scoring papers against a rubric only to have the writing remain stagnant because they are looking primarily at word choice or skills in solutions, such as spelling or sentence fluency, and not at the big picture, at what the writer is trying to say.

…if students’ writing is to improve, what we are teaching and expecting must be valid.

pg 243

Use Rubrics Judiciously

No rubric or progression of steps captures the full range of what writers actually do.

Create Child-Friendly Rubrics

• Get together with the other teachers and students at your school (all grade levels) and develop child-friendly rubrics that align with the highest level of excellence (usually a score of 4 or 6) on your state’s rubric. Make sure you do not overemphasise mechanics and grammar.
• Save examples of excellent student papers. With students’ permission (or names removed), have current and future students identify exactly what the writers did to make the writing memorable. Demonstrate how to do this through your own modelling and shared experiences before you put students in small groups to work together.
• Organize examples by genre, so students can look through them for ideas, organization approaches, etc. For example, if students are learning how to write fairy tales, have a file of excellent tales from former students.
• Study and monitor your own process as you compose a letter to parents, a research paper, a poem. Would you be comfortable with your writing being scored against a rubric such as the six traits? Could a score capture what you are trying to say? Would such a score be valid indicator of your writing ability? (Remember, the whole is more than the sum of its parts!)
• Write together as a staff. Based on your own process, come to some schoolwide decisions about teaching writing.
• With your colleagues, collect a set of papers at your grade level and across grade levels. Examine them and talk about what you see. Use a rubric, but make sure that your conclusions are valid as well as reliable and that your focus is on the big picture of what makes effective writing, not just on correctness. Set new goals for teaching based on what you see.

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Aim for Fluency

Expect your students (from grade one on) to be able to write a whole page of text in twenty or thirty minutes. I find when students cannot, it’s most often because they are asked to write infrequently. If students are to do well on high-stakes tests, they must be fluent writers who write easily and effortlessly. The must-have writing endurance and such stamina depends on daily writing of texts (not exercises) and excellent teaching of writing, including spelling and handwriting.

• Schedule writing every day. Try for 20-30 minutes of silent sustained writing
• time your minilessons. limit yourself to between five and fifteen minutes
• don’t shortchange the time for whole-class share. The celebration and teaching that take place improve the quality of students’ writing
• Announce the time frame at the start: You will have twenty minutes to complete this piece
• Announce when students only have a few minutes left to write: You have five more minutes. Finish up where you are and reread.
• Make sure the topics students are writing about are relevant to their lives and interests
• Do a great job of demonstrating and frontloading. The more prepared students are to write, the more easily they write.
• Use quickwrites, also called free-writes, regularly.

pg 247

Help your students visualize the reader/scorer

Because writing for a specific reader is of primary importance for effective writing, help your students “see” a reader, even on a high-stakes test …

I often talk to students about Wanta WASI (so named by fourth-grade teacher Kari Oosterveen, after the Washington Assessment of Student Learning):

Picture the reader of your writing. Her name is Wanda WASI, and she’s exhausted. She has been reading writing samples now for six hours. She is paid only eight dollars an hour to do this tedious work. She is sitting on a hard chair in front of a computer screen, about to read your writing. She is totally bored. Wake her up. She needs to be entertained. Have your lead excite her. Make sure your thoughts are organized so your writing is easy to follow. She has only ten minutes to read and evaluate your writing. Don’t waste her time with poor spelling or editing errors.

Reduce Test Anxiety

Let students observe you think aloud and strategize as you:

• Understand the language of the test
• figure out what the directions say and mean
• focus on keywords in the directions
• think and plan before you write
• reread as you go along and after you write
• pace yourself
• score yourself against the state rubric
• with your guidance, have students try out similar strategies as they take a practice test.

Lots of test anxiety also comes from students’ not having been told logistical details such as:

• how much time will it take?
• how will the structure of the regular day change?
• will we get lunch?

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Collet reliable data to share with parents, administrators, and the public:

• writing samples from year to year kept in a cumulative folder
• schoolwide prompts score by teachers
• stuent0-selected best pieces of writing (two or three times a year)
• a fall writing sample and a spring rewrite for content and mechanics
• Specific anecdotal notes from writing conferences, not just cats all phrases
• grade-level writing samples
• portfolios
• monthly, focused free writes
• journals (celebrations/goals)
• writing samples at grades level and across grade levels examined against both a holistic and an analysis rubric
• Continuums (be aware that these are very time-consuming)
• student assessments of their own work (strengths, goals, weaknesses)

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Assessments For Learning: Some possibilities

• one on-one roving conferences done on the run
• formal one-on-one sit-down conferences about content or editing
• while class shares in which students see and hear where to go next
• students’ choices regarding content, word choice, fluency, thinking, invented spelling, mechanics, and grammar during shared writing
• conversations before writing
• type and quality of questions students ask, including their ability to ask and answer their own questions
• responses to literature – notes, personal responses, literature extensions
• summaries and other assigned writing
• writing as thinking
• planning for writing (outlines, notes, visuals)
• evidence of revision (frequency, quality)
• evidence of editing (self-direction, awareness of reader, spelling consciousness)