Transcript Welcome! [teachersteachingwriting.pbworks.com]

Welcome!
• On the note cards provided, use your 5 senses to
describe what a reluctant writer looks like in your
classroom.
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Description of a Reluctant Writer
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Quiet and “spacey”
Talking and touching others
No eye contact
Silent and head down
Joking /beating the desk
“I can’t do this”
“This is too hard”
May not have any materials
Looking like they are busy
Constantly looking around to others
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Sighs and groans / eye roll
Breaking pencils / losing erasers
Resentment / Underlying fear
Smelled fear
“I don’t need this stuff”
Find excuses
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“You Want Me
to Write?”: Top
10 Strategies to
Motivate
Reluctant
Writers
Karen Horton
SWP Summer Institute
2011
Roadblock
• Since I have been teaching, there have always
been students who we consider reluctant writers.
They are the students who are always “thinking”
instead of writing, drawing in their notebooks,
asking for ideas, tapping their pencils, talking to
other students, etc.
• I always could very easily pick the students out,
and I knew they needed an extra push, but I never
knew exactly how to get them excited about
writing.
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Let’s look at Jimmy
• My first year of teaching, I had a little boy named Jimmy. He was a
special student who weaseled his way into my heart. Jimmy struggled
in all areas of the curriculum, but writing was the worst for him. His
biggest problem was the fact that you couldn’t read what he was
writing. He needed help with spelling, handwriting, conventions,
everything. Getting to the content seemed the least of my worries. He
always found ways to spend his writing time doing anything but
writing. Whenever it was time to write, Jimmy would either be talking
to himself, talking to another student, or at my desk asking me
questions about what to write. By the end of the year, I felt successful
because he could write a paragraph that I, or anyone, could read.
Jimmy has stayed with me throughout my 6 years of teaching and
even though we made some gains that year, I feel like I failed in
motivating him to write. So through my research, I hope the next time
another Jimmy comes into my classroom, I might have the tools to
motivate them to write!
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What the experts say:
• “Teaching writing is hard work. As writing
teachers, we come upon every imaginable kind of
thorny problem: students who hate to write, who
lack confidence and write poorly, who love to write
but can’t read back what they have written, who
can’t spell, can’t conjugate, can't punctuate…”
– Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs
• So, what do we do about it?...............
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Continued…..
• “…our goal is to instill a true love of writing in the
early years and give students a tool for lifelong
expression and meaningful communication.”
– Rachel Kaspar, PCI Education
• “We must speak to our students with an honesty
tempered by compassion: Our words will literally
define the ways they perceive themselves as
writers.”
– Ralph Fletcher, What a Writer Needs
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The BIG Question
• How can we motivate reluctant writers in a writing
workshop classroom?
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Hopefully…
• One of the strategies I mention will grab you and
mean something to you.
• or
• You will use the strategies in your own
classrooms with your own reluctant writers.
• or
• You will discover that you may already be doing
this things and I will help validate that for you!
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Number 1: Make writing relevant!
• “Many students see writing as a necessary evil, only to be
endured through the school-age years.
– Rachel Kaspar, Strategies for Motivating Reluctant Writers
• For a reluctant writer, a lot of the time the problem begins
with the question, “What is the point of writing?”.
• As teachers, it is our job to give their writing relevance.
Students need to know that adults use writing all the time!
• Example: To start off the year, you can do a mini-lesson
about way adults use writing everyday in the “real-world”.
This will allow students a chance to see the true necessity
of writing.
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Number 2: Expectations NEED to
be Known!
• Giving students expectations that seem
achievable, will make them more willing to write.
• Example: After studying odes and creating
noticing charts as a class, tell students, “As we
are studying odes, each of you can create an ode
on your topic of choice based on the noticing
chart we have created together in class.”
• This, coupled with support, will make the reluctant
writers feel more comfortable with trying to write.
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Number 3: Write for an Audience!
• “Students take more pride and ownership in their work if it
is shared with someone other than a teacher.”
– Rachel Kaspar, Strategies for Motivating Reluctant
Writers
• The more authentic a piece of writing is, the more likely it
is that students will attempt to write.
• Example: Instead of having students write a feature article
for just a grade, allow them to read their feature article to a
younger class, or post it to the web, or give it to a parent,
grandparent, or even principal. If they know someone else
is looking at their work, they will be more motivated to
write and write well.
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Number 4: Use Mentor Texts!
• According to Ray in Study Driven, good writers know what they are
trying to do with their writing and can tell you what they have read that
is like what they are writing.
• Giving students good, quality texts that are accessible and high
interest will make them want to write that way.
• Example: While doing a unit of study on feature articles, you can pull
articles out of kid based magazines that are written on high interest
topics in a language kids can understand.
• It may not be wise to pull out a feature article from a newspaper about
rising gas prices.
• However, an article out of Sports Illustrated for Kids about Kobe
Bryant, might get boys excited!
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Number 5: Use multiple genres!
• According to Ray in Study Driven, “…genre needs to be
the point of departure in the teaching of writing….”
• Just giving students a mode of writing, like narrative or
persuasive, may seem daunting, especially to those
reluctant writers.
• Example: Give students a genre like “feature articles”,
then show them real world examples of feature articles,
then allow them to write about what they want.
• This might make the writing seem more doable, therefore
taking away some of the reluctance.
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Number 6: Give Choice!
• Allowing a student a choice in what they write and how
they go about getting there, will make the writing feel more
like something they want to do, instead of something they
are told to do.
• This idea of choice applies to all aspects of life, so why not
writing. Students are allowed to choose what they want to
eat each day, so giving them a choice of what to write only
makes sense.
• Example: When working on a unit of study around slice of
life. My students will be required to write an article that
includes the elements that we decided on in class, but it
can be about whatever topic that they want.
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Number 7: Collaborative Writing!
• “There is no content until the children start talking.”
– Katy Wood Ray, Study Driven
• As humans, we have a natural desire to communicate with others, so
why not allow our students to talk about what they are writing!
• Allow students to say out loud ideas they have, questions they have,
or just sharing with a peer.
• Example: During a unit study, students can talk in a group about
ideas that would fit the genre of choice. Once students have discussed
with each other. Allow them time to decide what topic they will choose,
then they can find a partner and explain what topic they chose and
why they chose it. This gives them a chance to talk through ideas
together and scaffold each other.
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Number 8: Provide a Safe and
Comfortable Writing Experience!
• Take risks with your students and let them know it is ok to
fail!
• It is important that students feel like they can try anything
while writing without the fear of making a bad grade or
doing it wrong!
• Allow students to write anywhere in the classroom. Don’t
confine them to their desks, give them choice to go where
they are most comfortable.
• Example: In my classroom, I share pieces of my writing
with my students. I show them the good, the bad, the ugly.
This way they see me as a writer just like they are.
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Number 9: Use Technology!
• Since we are living in a technology driven world, it seems
only natural to incorporate technology into the classroom.
• Using different modes of technology is a perfect way to get
a student excited about writing.
• Example: As part of a traditional tale study, my students
were asked to pick any traditional tale we had studied and
change it somehow. Once the story was written, following
the expectations, students were allowed to complete a
movie maker project using pictures and their own voices
reading their story. EVERY student in my class wrote a
great twisted tale!
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Number 10: Provide Support!
• According to Cleveland in Teaching Boys Who Struggle in
School, a good teacher should accept a student for who
they are, support them when they struggle, lets them know
it is ok to fail, but challenges them to succeed.
• In the classroom, the teacher is the EXPERT, so we need
to act like one.
• Teachers should be there to provide any support a student
might need, especially if they are a reluctant writer.
• Examples: seed ideas, stream of consciousness writing,
writing with music, drawing pictures first, writing about a
picture or an object, providing mentor texts, accessible
texts, jotting down dreams, emotion writing, etc.
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Let’s Try!
• You are all reluctant writers in my fifth grade
class. We are working on a piece of descriptive
writing. You raise your hand and inform me, “I
can’t think of anything to write about!”
• What I want you to do: look at the coin I have
given you. Think about where this coin could have
been, who might have touched this coin, or
maybe even what it has purchased. I want you to
write without thinking about grammar or spelling,
just get your ideas down on paper.
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Other Strategies….
Writing Exercises: Helps Reshape Vision of Reluctant Writers to Foster
Independence and Confidence
• Concrete examples: science experiments and then write response; do
something first and then write about it
• multisensory writing experience: boxes with different smells, music,
different textures, different candy for taste; students respond to “This
reminds me of…”
• Scribe pairs with topic/prompt; transcribe word for word, then scribe
reads the story to you and helps you revise
Writing Strategies: Differentiation!
• Get to know your students!
• Invest/research in the community (service learning)
• Paired writing/group writing
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Final Thought
• As you can see, there is no magical spell for
motivating reluctant writers.
• All of the strategies I have shared with you come
from the expertise of Fletcher, Ray, Cleveland
and Kaspar.
• Using Ray’s framework, along with Fletcher’s idea
of a successful writer’s workshop, can motivate
even the most reluctant of writers.
• I hope I have encouraged you to try and make
your students say, “I Love to Write!”
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Sources
Cleveland, Kathleen P. Teaching boys who struggle
in school. ACSD, 2011. Print.
Fletcher, Ralph. What a writer needs. Heinemann
Educational Books, 1993. Print.
Kaspar, Rachel. "Strategies for Motivating Reluctant
Writers." PCI Education (2008): n. pag. Web. 4
May 2011.
Wood, Katie. Study driven: a framework for planning
units of study in the writing workshop. Heinemann
Educational Books, 2006. Print.
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