A Simple Way to Get Your Students WRITING

Our school district has been doing a book study on The Best-Kept Teaching Secret by Smokey and Elaine Daniels.  In case you haven't read it--the secret is that kids need to write more often.  I think we all know that already but I don't know if we truly understand how much writing impacts reading and other academic areas.  In the book, the authors give a plethora of ideas for how to get your students writing, regardless of whether you teach elementary or high school. There are tons of pictures and examples, which make the book an easy read and also quite entertaining.  Many of their suggestions revolve around letter writing and why this is a great way to get to know students better and build a community within your classroom.  I love using letters as part of my curriculum and did so when I was a classroom teacher. Since I've transitioned to my current position, letter writing has been one thing I've let go. I'm exited to start including more of it in my curriculum.
I've also been more cognizant of how often I am asking students to write responses after they read.  We know that reading and writing go hand-in-hand, yet I spend a disproportional amount of my time focusing on reading without incorporating many writing skills that will support students in reading.  I've been soliciting more writing recently and, while some students still complain because writing is hard for them, I have seen the writing impacting their reading and spelling skills.  As a Reading Specialist, my primary focus will still be on reading but I intend to include more written responses into my lessons.  Of course, I am talking about thought-provoking and creative writing activities--not writing answers on blanks on a worksheet.  We all know that this type of activity does not have the same impact when it comes to improving students' reading and writing skills.
One activity that I have incorporated recently is both simple and fun.  I am working with a group of first grade students on extension activities.  These are kiddos who are scoring way above grade-level in reading and many of them are also in our Gifted and Talented program. I love working with these types of students because they challenge my thinking as well.  This week, we worked on identifying the problem and solution in a story.  One of the stories we read was about a dragon with a sore back who needs a more comfortable bed. His human friend finds a solution when heat from a dragon's snort makes all of the corn in the field turn to popcorn.  The students loved reading this story but they loved writing about it even more, especially when they got to write on the white board with the dry erase markers.  With all of the technology we have today, we sometimes forget the overwhelming joy students have when they are allowed to do "teacher things."  This was certainly one of those things that they thought was cool.

Each student had the opportunity to write his or her thoughts on the board.

While the students loved writing on the board, this was also a very quick way for me to tell who really grasped what the problem was in the story and who needed to do some deeper thinking. Many of the students only wrote a short sentence, but you can see in the picture that one of them wrote a summary.  She definitely knew the problem and solution in the story and I let her help me reflect aloud on the story for the other students so that we could all consider  how the characters resolved the situation.  The entire activity took about 15 minutes (with 6 students) and by the end, everyone had a firm grasp on how to identify the problem and the solution in the story, as well as several other topics that came up during our discussion, which often happens with these creative thinkers. (We had a long chat about mythical creatures and why a dragon is a mythical character but Superman is not.)

A summary of the story, written by a first grader.  I love how she was able to synthesize  the whole story into a few sentences so succinctly.

How are you incorporating writing in your classroom and how are the students responding?