But How Do You Teach Writing? by Barry Lane

[Amy Webber]

Lane offers great ideas/lessons called TRY THIS! throughout the book that could be implemented Kindergarten and beyond. I must admit that some of the concepts may be too difficult to teach to primary students, including my second graders, but there are so many ideas, you would have to pick and choose anyway!

Here is a summary of the four parts of But How Do You Teach Writing?
1. Where should I start in my classroom? – Barry Lane believes writing teachers must be writers, and that we must share our writing with our students. This part also discusses implementing writers’ workshop (including conferences and why you should pick the same time everyday for writing) and writer notebooks (let the kids decide what to write about).
2. Why write? – Although all of the ideas in the book can be connected to the writing traits, this section focuses on ideas (character development, problem/solution, etc.), organization (multigenre writing), voice, and word choice.
3. Refining and revision – Ideas for revision, editing, and test prep. Revision ideas include leads, titles, endings, and how to find focus in your writing. For editing, make it fun. Lane suggests an “editing ceremony” which could include red pens and/or editing hats. For test prep, use pictures and truisms to generate ideas when writing to a prompt.
4. Reproducibles – Lane includes 21 pages that can be used during writers’ workshop to keep both you and the students organized. I like the “Writing Conference Tracker” and the “Do-It-Yourself Conference Sheet.”

My questions to you:
1. We have all heard the horror stories of a child getting back a writing assignment where the teacher went crazy with the red pen. In the third part of the book, Lane suggests the kids use red pens for peer editing. I agree that teachers should not go nuts with the red, but do you think it is okay for the kids to use red on each other’s work? Is red too shocking or does it add pizzazz?
2. During writing conferences, it is so easy to get overwhelmed with the 2 or 3 students that really need help and then run out of time for the rest of the class. How do you get the kids to solve their own problems so you can conference with everyone? Lane gives great ideas, but I would like to hear some more.

Hope you are having a great summer! School's almost here! :)

[Lisa Larson]

Hey Amy!

I love Barry Lane and this is one of my favorite books about writing!

If you are shying away from the red pen because you think it's shocking, but you still want corrections/editing/revising to stand out, what about assigning different colored pens for different tasks? Something like circling in blue all the "to be" verbs, underlining in red the misspelled words, drawing a green square around exciting adjectives and so on. I use this technique in my class (the kids have a checklist) and it's pretty effective. For each item on the checklist, the paper gets reread, so the students aren't trying to do everything at once. There are also times that we only focus on one area, so then we would only be using one color. The kids start to relate the color to the skill and not to something bad.

As for the conferencing, have you tried assigning kids as "experts" in certain areas? With second graders, they could wear name tags signifying them as expert spellers or expert punctuators, etc., and your instructions during conferencing could be to check with the "experts" first, before asking you. This could free up some time for you to really focus on the students who need you in areas that their peers cannot help them in.

These were good questions and ones that I revisit myself before the start of every school year!

;-) Lisa

[Mary Lynn]

Hi Amy,
Sounds like a great book!
In response to question #1 about students using red pens to edit each others' papers, I have done that. The point is not really about allowing students to use the pens, I think it's really important to model how to peer edit many, many times as a whole group, focusing on what respectful behavior in editing looks like. I've seen some kids get carried away with the red pens and it hurts the writer's feelings. I don't want that!!
Lucy Calkins introduces "special purple markers', she talks about how purple is the color of royalty! When she does the mini lessons modeling revision of a student's paper, she uses very simple questions (like I shared in my presentation:)). I will try that this year.
Question #2
This is one of my biggest challenges. I can see the line of kids at my desk waiting to conference and wasting precious writing time, chatting about nothing!
Again, Calkins talks about teaching the kids that they are all writing teachers, and they can help each other. She mentions having "experts", for instance Billy might be the spelling expert, or Joe might be the capitalization and ending puncturation expert. The kids have to earn this expert title through their own writing. I tried this last year and my GT kids wanted to be the experts, however, they got sick of doing it, and they never got their own work done!
I think perhaps focusing on one issue per paper, like just word choice or conventions, the experts might not get so burned out. Also, I would have about 5 experts, so they weren't overwhelmed.
Again, the students would need modeling of what respectful peer editing looks like before we used experts.

I am curious about Lane's reproducibles- Writing Conference Tracker and the Do it Yourself Conference Sheet.
I haven't had a lot of luck with checklists, but would like to give those a try.
Take Care,
Mary

[Jetta Lovett]

Hey Amy!
I was thinking about this just the other day. As to question number two, I am going to try the rotation schedule for my students and meet with only a few kids each period. That way I can give one on one instruction and eventually meet with every student. As for the red pen...I think older students like their friends to comment and correct them at time, but I don't think I'd use them all the time.
Hope your school year is a great one! Jetta Lovett