Juli Kendall's Weekly
Writing Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List and other interested teachers
are joining together to explore the Writing Workshop and other ideas about
supporting young adolescent writers and readers. Juli Kendall, a reading-writing
teacher/coach in Long Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion.
Last year, Juli kept a weekly journal from her Reading Workshop.
This year, Juli is continuing her journals, but this time she's focusing
on her Writing Workshop. Find out more about our project at our Reading/Writing
Workshop homepage. You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
If you'd like to join the daily discussion that parallels Juli's Journals,
find out how here.
Writing Workshop
Week #17:
Feature Articles:
Writing and Reflecting
Just like making bread the old fashioned way, by measuring, mixing, kneading,
rising, kneading again, rising again, and then baking, the writing of feature
articles must proceed with patience and muscle. There's no rushing the final
product without disastrous results. So I'm learning about fortitude and
developing inner strength.
This is the third week in our unit of study about feature articles, and,
at this point, everything is coming together. As writers keep their pencils
moving, jot down notes, reread research, and rethink their purposes for
writing, the understandings of what they are doing grow.
"Students write throughout the genre study," Isoke Nia
comments in Units
of Study in the Writing Workshop. "They are collecting entries
in their notebooks, nurturing seed ideas for projects, playing with touchstone
try-its, publishing pieces for their own reasons, and so on."
But this is the beginning of their genre-study writing for feature articles.
Right now, the level of engagement in writing is high because the kids have
a choice about their topic. For our students in Writing Workshop, topic
choice is one of the keys to success. Motivating reluctant writers is tricky,
at best, but when they select their own topics within the unit of study,
they "own the learning." There's no way that Maurice is not going
to finish writing his feature about Deion Sanders!
To this point, we've completed five parts of the frame for genre study:
immersion, best guess gathering, sifting, a second immersion, and touchstone
try-its. (Journals #15 and #16) We're ready for the final part of our exploration
of feature articles.
Learning Objective #6: Writing
Given a unit of study in feature articles, students will be able to write
a feature article by choosing a topic, doing research, writing a first draft,
revising and editing, and writing a final draft.
Learning Objective #7: Reflecting and Assessing
At the end of the unit of study, students will be able to reflect on and
assess their work by answering three questions:
What was easy for you?
What was hard for you?
What do you think about the unit of study in feature articles?
Now for the final week
Days 9-14: Writing
"How's it going?"
The first two days of writing are spent choosing a topic, doing research
and getting ready to write a first draft. (Journal #16) Once the drafting
of feature articles begins, I'm busy conferring with the kids. This may
be the best part of the unit of study. Having conversations with them about
their writing while I listen to their thinking, I always learn so much about
what they know and are able to do in their writing. But it needs to be about
the writer and not just the writing. Here's what Lucy Calkins says about
conferences in The Art of Teaching Reading:
If we can keep only one thing in mind-and I fail at this half
the time-it is that we are teaching the writer and not the writing. Our
decisions must be guided by "what might help this writer" rather
than "what might help this writing." If the piece of writing gets
better but the writer has learned nothing that will help him or her another
day on another piece, then the conference was a waste of everyone's time.
It may even have done more harm than good, for such conferences teach students
not to trust their own reactions. (p. 228)
I'm using Carl Anderson's book, How's It Going?, A Practical Guide to
Conferring with Student Writers, to help me confer with our writers.
In Chapter 1, "Conferences are Conversations," he discusses five
characteristics of conferences:
- Conferences have a point to them.
- Conferences have a predictable structure.
- In conferences, we pursue lines of thinking with students.
- Teachers and students have conversational roles in conferences.
- In conferences, we show students we care about them. (p. 7)
While conferring, it helps me to remember that a conference is a conversation.
He also discusses a two-part scenario for "The Structure of a Writing
Conference."
- Conversation about the work the child is doing as a writer
- Conversation about how the child can be come a better writer (p. 17)
I purposely try to keep these two sections in mind. It helps me keep a focus
on the "lines of thinking" I want to pursue with the kids, or
"what might help this writer," and not get distracted with "what
might help this writing."
During conferences, Anderson poses questions to students that provide a
"predictable structure" for the conversation about writing. These
questions are the way he cues kids to talk about their writing work. Here's
what he says about the importance of repetition:
"In fact, I don't think it matters too much which opening
lines I actually use, as long as they're open-ended-and that, over time
I use them over and over again to start my conferences. It's the repetition
that cues students to talk about their writing work, not the questions themselves."
(p. 29)
I use three questions in a predictable fashion to guide my conferences and
to prompt conversations with the kids about writing work.
* How's it going?
* What writing work are you doing today?
* What do you need help with today? (p. 29)
A FEW BRIEF SNIPPETS of conversation from my conferences with the kids:
Susan
How's it going? Fine
What writing work are you doing today? About college football
What do you need help with today? I'm done writing.
You're done writing. I only see one paragraph. Do you have more notes?
No.
Ok, let's look at your research and see if there's more information you
can use in your feature article. When writers take notes for feature articles,
they try to have more than they might use. That way they can be sure to
have enough information for their writing. (She went back through her
research to find more information she could use for notes for her writing)
Maurice
How's it going? Good
What writing work are you doing today? Writing all the good things
that I highlighted about him (Deion Sanders).
Where are you writing them? In my notebook Oh, they're your notes.
What do you need help with today? Nothing, I know exactly what I am
working on and I know just what to do.
OK. I'll check with soon to see how your writing work is going.
Maria
How's it going? Fine
What writing work are you doing today? About snow dogs
What part of the writing are you working on? "They're not just
little, but when they train them if they are off the leash they are not
dependable."
I see you are taking notes. Are you finished with your note taking?
No, I need a little bit more.
nd what will you be working on when your notes are finished? With another
topic
Did you know we are going to write a feature article? No.
Well, after you take your notes on your topic, you're going to write
a feature article and you are going to need a good lead to start. Did you
want to use one of your touchstone try-its? Yes, the one about snow
dogs. "Admit it: snow dogs are much better than regular dogs."
OK. That's going to be the lead and then you use your notes to write
your article.
Are you ready to get back to your writing work? Yes.
Sophanna
How's it going? Fine, it's going good
What writing work are you doing today? I'm writing Hound dogs.
Actually, I notice that your topic is the English foxhound. Yes.
What part of the writing are you working on? How they run very fast.
Were you able to come up with a good lead? Yes.
Read it for me, please. "At the time of its inception, coursing
the stag with greyhounds was still the favored dog sport of the gentry."
It sounds to me like you might have taken this sentence right from your
research. Is that right? Yes.
OK. We'll talk about how you can put those ideas into your own words.
Writers need to know how to say things in their own words. But first, didn't
you tell me earlier that you were going to use a touchstone try-it for your
lead? Yes.
OK. Let's find it. "The hound dog isn't just a dog. It's also
an Elvis Presley song."
So, you are going to use this "try-it" lead to help you get
started with your writing. Do you want to add it on at the beginning
of the writing you are already doing or start again? Start again.
In our next conference, we'll talk about how to use notes to help you
write in your own words.
Manuel
How's it going? Fine
What writing work are you doing today? About Dragonball Z
What part of the writing are you working on? About Goku
I see that you have just a few notes and a small amount of writing. Have
you finished taking notes yet? I don't think so.
So, you have a few notes but you need to highlight some more important
information and then you can use that to write your feature. OK.
Show me your research. It looks like you have plenty of research to use
for your notes. So, you can keep on looking for information to use in your
feature article. Writers know that taking lots of notes makes writing easier.
What writing work are you going to do today? Finish my notes. Great.
Day 15: Reflecting and Assessing
"What do you think about the feature article study?"
As writers finish their feature articles, the printer spews out page after
page. This last part of the unit of study is important to me and to the
students. I gain information that I can use for planning the next steps
in writing workshop, and they have the chance to reflect back on their writing
work. In "Units of Study in the Writing Workshop," here's what
Isoke Nia says about this part of the frame for genre study:
Whichever tool you use should always lead to more talk among
you and your students. Your goal is not just to have students complete writing
projects. You want them to really understand these projects, and you want
to use their understandings to revise your teaching.
I use three questions to focus their thinking.
* What was easy for you?
* What was hard for you?
* What do you think about the feature article study?
What our writers have to say about the feature article study:
Maurice: What was easy for you? Figuring out what article
I wanted, the topic What was hard for you? A lot of reading
but it's worth it because the more that I read the more I am figuring out
about Deion Sanders. I'm getting answers to my questions.
Manuel: What was easy for you? Highlighting What was hard
for you? Finding the information and research for Dragonball Z. What
do you think about the feature article study? I think that it's fun
to do because you can learn more things about feature articles.
Sophanna: What was easy for you? Taking notes, because you
could learn more about your feature article, or your topic What was hard
for you? Trying to look for the information, look in the computer, hound
dogs was a hard topic What do you think about the feature article study?
I think it is good because you could learn more about it, hound dogs and
research, the lead p; it's the beginning of the sentences
Maria: What was easy for you? When we had research. First,
we went to the computer and I was looking for it. What was hard for you?
I had to search for a lot of things for my snow dog. It was hard to find
the right dog. It took a really long time and my brother had to help me
after I went to sleep What do you think about the feature article study?
It was fun working and searching for snow dogs.
Daishanae: The part that was easy for me was going on the computer
looking for my article and reading. The part that is hard for me is the
writing. I think that studying feature articles now that I learned it is
a little easy because when you first asked me I didn't know anything but
when you taught we I learned about it more and more.
Vanessa: What was easy for you? It was making notes. What
was hard for you? Looking for the information. What do you think
about the feature article study? I think that learning things that you
don't know is much better. In the beginning, no, I didn't know anything
about feature articles, but now, yes.
Helen: What was easy for you? The easy part for me was when
we were doing on the computer. What was hard for you? Writing it.
What do you think about the feature article study? I think feature
articles are easy because I can do it again and it's not going to be hard.
Jarath: The easy part was printing. The hard part was copying the
notes from the research. I think feature articles are tight because you
can learn a lot of stuff.
Pablo: (in Spanish) The easy part was highlighting. The hard part
was the writing (more writing in Spanish than any of the students in English).
I think I didn't know what it was all about and now I know.
Kavy: The easy part was taking the important notes. The hard part
was thinking about picking a topic that is good. I think we could learn
about the feature article, and when we grow up they could ask us to write
a feature article and we could do it.
Edgar: A favorite thing of feature articles, oops, it was easy to
highlight the important stuff. A hard part is how to find that stuff that,
the important stuff. I think feature article study is good because you can
learn about anything and good stuff.
Brandon: What was easy for you? To highlight on the page What
was hard for you? About writing What do you think about the feature
article study? I think it's fun. Feature article I like about it is
going to the Internet and finding some pictures to print out. And the Internet
is fun, and I like to write feature articles.
Jovani: What was easy for you? Research What was hard for
you? Thinking of your feature article before you even do it
Susan: What was easy for you? Going on the computer for my
research What was hard for you? That we have to look and search for
the information in our notes What do you think about the feature article
study? I think a feature article is a great way to learn how to read
better because it makes your brainwork.
Next week: Assessment and Evaluation - Looking at Student Work (feature
articles)
Download Juli's Curricular
Calendar #5 (feature articles) for Writing Workshop
Download a comparison of Juli's Reading
and Writing Workshop plans
Read next week's journal
Read last week's journal
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Writing/Reading Workshop Index Page