The words "writing" and "magical" seem to go hand in hand in my mind. Whenever we settle into our writers workshop time, you can see their wheels turning as they go through the process of thinking about what they want to say, determining which letters they need, and then writing it on the page. You can see their smiles as they share with you an experience they had that they were able to capture on the page. This unit "Writing for Readers" seems like it would be dull, but nevertheless becomes magical. Until now, we have wanted the focus of writing to be feeling good about getting their ideas out on the page and we have hidden the struggles with being able to translate their letters into meaning. We have been distracting children from the fact that we can't read their writing by highlighting their picture and their ability to tell their story with their own storyteller words. The problem with this is that the way students students develop and interest in spelling, conventions, and spaces comes from the fact that these things make is easier for other people to read and understand their text. Alas, the dance begins. We want to empower them as writers who have ideas to share, but we also want them to be shared in a form that is readable to others. The most crucial skills to make their writing more clear are: writing in sentences and re-reading their work as they write. |
We even got some cool new pencils to help us practice making our writing easy to read! SO fancy :) These pencils even have POINTER POWER! When we are done with our writing we go back and use the eraser as a pointer to read the words we wrote. Reading our writing is just like reading our books in our book bags. It takes a lot of work! We have to stretch out the sounds and use the pictures for help. |