Third Grade Writing Center

I'm student teaching in a third grade class this semester, and while most of my lessons are scripted and quite boring, I do get to teach writing every once in awhile! Apparently most teachers don't like doing it, so they don't. That drives me crazy. Well, these kids got a three day writing workshop "Writing Center Style" last week, and they loved it.

The first day we brainstormed details they could potentially use for their dragon stories (their reading theme this week). One boy said his dragon ate meat. I asked what KIND of meat? All the students added onto that description right down the abstraction ladder: meat to water animals to frogs to fire-bellied toads! It was so much fun. I felt right at home, and they couldn't wait to share their ideas. After that I let them loose to finish their brainstorming and plan the beginning, middle, and end of their own stories. They finished quickly and began writing. They wrote with zero disruptions for 30 minutes! I was so excited to get their two and three and four page drafts. We have a boy with Asberger's, and he HATES writing (in general). Every time he has an assignment that requires writing very much, he asks for help and often throws fits because he can't write fast and doesn't like to do it. While we were writing their dragon stories, however, my cooperating teacher and I didn't even know he was there. He didn't say a word the whole three days and turned in a great story. I conferenced with most students as they wrote, then I read everyone's drafts and made comments on them WC style. I asked everyone at least one question that involved adding more detail for the reader. I didn't comment on anything grammatical. Their spelling was extremely creative. Reading it was like playing Mad Gab, the game where you have to say a string of words in various ways to try and figure out what phrase it sounds like. I remember someone spelled "excellent" "eggscalent." All of their dragons were quite original. There were beat-boxing dragons, ballerina dragons, and even Japanese Samurai dragons.
The second day we discussed revision. I taught them how it means to "re-see" what you write and that our motto is Revise, Revise, Revise. We'll get it in them early. :) A volunteer student helped me model our partner revisions in front of the class. He read his paper aloud, and I asked a couple of questions and told him what image I remembered the most from it (One of the questions on their revision questionnaire was what picture comes back into their mind when they think about their partner's story.) Everyone clapped for him afterward. He was very proud of his story. Everyone divided into partners and read each other their stories, then they returned to their seats and made revisions. They did a better job than the fifth graders did last semester. That could be because we modeled exactly what to do, but I was pleased with them. The only thing that did NOT work was editing. I had no idea what to do for that, or if it was even important at this level. I didn't want to write all over their paper. This is their first experience with writing, and I want them to feel successful at it. I finally decided to have them circle three or four words they thought they'd misspelled. We teachers ran around to all of the students and wrote the correct spelling above their circled words, and then they got to start their final drafts on Day 3. They couldn't wait to "publish" their stories, so I made lined paper in the shape of a "dragon egg" and printed it on colored paper. They wrote in their best handwriting. They look great!

Also, one student told me the first day that he couldn’t think of what to write and didn’t like writing. He likes math a lot better. We talked about some ideas that went along with what he had so far and came up with a cute scenario of him and his dragon eating at McDonald's. They had a contest for who could eat the most, and his dragon ate 200 Big Macs and definitely won. That got him excited. Since that couldn’t be the beginning of his story very easily, I suggested his start in the middle and then fill in the beginning and end later. He did it! He got the middle written—like six lines or so right in the middle of his paper. I talked to him before we ended writing time, and he was back to feeling down about it. He’s such a sweetheart. I told him that he would need to work on it at home so it would be finished by the next day. He said he wouldn’t have time that night, but I convinced him he’d find time at daycare. He started coming up with other times he could do it too. The next day he came with a very full page of his completed story! I was impressed that somehow his beginning and end fit right above and below his middle and flowed seamlessly into each other. I told him how much I enjoyed reading it and why I liked it, and he said he spent two hours the night before trying to come up with what to write. At the end of the day after we peer revised I mentioned again that I was pleased with his work, and he said shyly, “You know, this writing thing might not be so bad after all. I guess I kinda like it.” That made my day!

So this is my dream job: teaching children writing. If anyone has heard of such a thing, let me know.