Seventh grade students throughout the room are working on either handwritten or typed drafts of their research essays in Writers Workshop. Each student chose their own topic from a reliable news resource. On the white board is a list of students patiently waiting for Ms. Hansen to answer their queries.
Ms. Hansen: (restraining herself from pulling on her hair) Why is teaching writing so hard?
Franklin*: (laughs) I don't know, Ms. Hansen. Why do you teach it if it's hard?
Patricia*: But we're getting it! We will.
Ms. Hansen: (sign) The only way this will get easier is by practicing.
Franklin: Maybe it isn't teaching writing that's hard; maybe it's who you're teaching!
Ms. Hansen: Franklin.
Franklin: (with wide eyes) That's not what I meant! I meant this would be easier if we were, like, seniors.
Patricia: But it would be hard then if we didn't learn it now.
*Student names have been changed.
Teaching writing is hard. It is time consuming. It is energy draining. However, it is also an important life skill of communication that students will need in all their post-secondary endeavors, whether they choose to attend college, accept a job, take over the family business, or wherever their dreams take them.
Because teaching students to write is such an important skill, it requires us to teach authentic types of writing. I do know that there is a place for writing literary essays and book reviews, but what about the big R in the room? Relevance. Students need to see why writing is relevant, and this makes it authentic.
Essential question: How is writing relevant to our students and their post-secondary lives?
As a language arts teacher, the list seems quite extensive. I have a favorite mini-lesson related to this that I used with seventh graders where they must discover how they would use writing and other forms of communication in their dream jobs, but I'll save that for another post.
How I started to see writing as relevant was through Kelly Gallagher's book Write Like This.
Published in 2011, I first purchased this book the summer of 2014 before my first year teaching, so some of you may already be well-aware of this treasure of a book. If not, I encourage you to invest. I love the library, but this is one to keep on your shelf.
I will be honest, I have been using this book for two full years, but I did not finish reading it entirely until June of this year.
Teachers are busy, and reading an entire book just may not fit into our schedules. The introduction to this book provided excellent background that helped guide my use of it. Gallagher explains six purposes for writing, which teachers can quickly align with Common Core writing standards.
He then explains each purpose individually with separate chapters. This is where you find the real gold: example writing assignments. For two years, I pulled mini and full lessons along with unit assignments from within this book without reading it entirely. This was an invaluable resource as a new writing teacher.
The different purposes for writing are worded in an authentic manner, not just the standard "creative," "informative," and "argumentative" that we often see in our standards. The variety of language and also the different organization and format of the assignments presented throughout seem more realistic not only to students, but also to me as a teacher.
Here is an example of my annotations from when I first purchased the book:
Unfortunately, these notes are not descriptive, so I found myself still rifling through extra pages before finding what I needed for the week. When I decided to read the book in it's entirety, I created a digital Table of Contents/T-Chart for my notes:
I cannot wait to see how helpful these notes are in the upcoming years!
Need help organizing your notes? Here's a blank digital copy for you! It's a Google Doc, so make a copy and annotate away!
What invaluable resources do you have for teaching writing?
