4 Principles for Constructing a Writing Assignment
Tie the writing task to your specific learning goal.
State the purpose of the assignment.
Break down the task into manageable steps.
Spell out a grading criteria.
Writing task walkthrough (teacher)
Great historical events often have deep effects upon the people who live through them. Depending on the person and the situation, those effects can be very different. (Engage them)
You are going to read a short article about the Dust Bowl days in American history titled “Black Blizzard.” You will also look at some photographs taken during that time period. As you read and study the photographs, think about how this experience may have affected the individual people who lived through it. (manageable chunks)
Finally, you will write a narrative, showing how a particular small moment during this experience affected one person. (manageable chunk)
*Engage the students, tell them the purpose of the text and what you want them to cue in on. (text features) – we will talk about this in a future meeting.
Writing task walkthrough (cont.)
Remember, a good narrative: (Activate prior knowledge)
Establishes a clear point of view
Focuses closely on one character or characters
Uses strong sensory details to make the character(s) and event come alive
Uses precise language
May use dialogue and description to capture the character(s) and event
Concludes effectively
Here are your choices for your narrative: (add choices)
A young child watching the “black blizzard” rolling in over the plains
A young child, watching a tractor knock down his family home in Oklahoma, several years into the Dust Bowl drought
A mother sitting on her front steps in a migrant camp in California
An unemployed father, arriving at a squatter camp in California from Oklahoma
*Activates prior knowledge and supports students’ need for autonomy
The weaker students stop trying and others rely on grades as the only standard by which they judged their own work.
Postpone grading until the final piece is complete.
Being less quick to judge their work, students are better able to evaluate their efforts themselves.
Casual Talk to Generate Writing
"Monday morning gab fest” is used as a warm-up with fifth grade students.
On Monday mornings, students write personal headlines about their weekends and post them on the bulletin board. Students have a chance to guess the stories behind them.
The writers then told the stories behind their headlines. They begin to rely on suspense and "purposeful ambiguity" to hold listeners' interest.
On Tuesday, students commit their stories to writing. Because of the "Headline News" experience, students are able to generate writing that is focused, detailed, and well ordered.
Think Like a Football Coach
The writing teacher can't stay on the
sidelines.
Like the coach, the writing teacher
should praise strong performance rather than focus on the negative.
The writing teacher should apply the KISS theory. In writing class, a student who has never written a poem needs to start with small verse forms such as a haiku.
Practice and routine are important both for football players and for writing students, but football players and writers also need the "adrenaline rush" of the big game and the final draft.
Uses the letters of the alphabets as prompts for remembering important ideas or information about a topic.
Students attempt to recall and connect summary words or phrases about the topic they have been studying to letters of the alphabet.
The Last Word
When using the Last Word, the topic to be summarized becomes an acronym.
Students brainstorm all for the things they can remember about the topic studied and then elaborate on those ideas to create a phrase that start with each letter in the topic.
Get the GIST
The word gist is defined as "the main or essential part of a matter."
The GIST strategy helps students read expository text and get the main idea.
Students must then convey the gist of what they read in 20 words.
The strategy is can be used with narrative text if students are asked to summarize after each chapter.
Think-Pair-Write-Share
Think – Pair – Write
Students are given a topic/ question
They brainstorm it with a partner
Then each student writes his/her own response.
Think – Write – Share
Similar to above but the sharing is oral.
Students think about a question, write a response, then share with their partners.
$2 Summaries
With each word worth 10 cents, write a $2 summary of the learning from the lesson.
This can be scaffolded by giving students specific words related to the learning that they must include in their summaries.
This can be increased to any amount of money.
Headline Summaries
Similar to $2 summaries, have students write a newspaper headline that gives the main points of the lesson.
Shaping Up Review
Students will synthesize major concepts from the lesson using four different shapes.
Your Writing Tool Box
Writing Tasks
Types of Writing
Quality
Checks
PARCC Writing Forms
Unique to 6-12
Writing Strategies
Motivational Strategies
On
Demand
Informative/
Explanatory
Argumentative/
Opinion
Content
Organization
Anecdotes
Apologies
Complaints
Editorials
Interviews
Satires
Spoofs
Testimonials
*All PARCC writing forms are useful for grades 6-12.
