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Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Do you think it's a problem that my students do their best writing during indoor recess?

It was the end of a long day and yet there was a bit of an urgency in the plea to stop on my way up the hallway.  As usual when teachers talk, the conversation started with small talk about student progress but quickly drifted to a more pressing issue, "Do  you think it is a problem if my students write better stories during indoor recess?"  The teacher showed me some amazing drafts from indoor recess to support her question!  Great realistic fiction and fantasy stories about planes that looked like birds and animals that acted like humans.  There were characters, settings, problems and solutions.  There was great voice in each of the pieces.  They were the kind of writing we want kids to do!

My mind raced back to the days before writing workshop....back before writing gurus such as Donald Graves, Nancy Atwell, and Lucy Calkins proposed students needed dedicated time and space to write about personally meaningful topics for real audiences.  They called such times, writing workshops as they were places where students could work like real writers in supported environments.  It was a seminal idea that changed the way writing was taught in our schools.  It empowered a whole generation of writers; however, there were a few problems. Most students wrote more and more and became better and better writers; however, others needed more guidance and support to create the kinds of writing valued in schools.
So, those great minds suggested we needed more models and more teacher control over the writing workshop. The writing gurus softened their stances on student choice, a bit, and proposed lots of mini lessons modeling craft.  Slowly, ever so slowly, as curriculum demands for consistently and the added demands of high stakes assessments have wafted into our classrooms, writing workshops have become places where students produce more and more required documents - the kind of writing valued in our schools. 

Let's talk about how you can have more student choice during writing workshop, I responded before I left for the day; however, I continued to think about the dilemma. Perhaps we need a student takeover of the writing workshop in order to return the power to write about personally meaningful topics to our students!  Perhaps the really good news is that students are confident enough and love writing enough to want to write during designated "free times."  Perhaps, we can hope for lots of rainy days so that students have time to write down the stories that churn inside of each of them! 

7 comments:

Anne and Riss @thelitladies said...

wouldn't that be the ultimate - students choosing writing as their free time activity:) I have had teachers say 'writer's notebook' has been the big factor in switching students on to writing. Students take their notebook outdoors at recess and write at home...something worth celebrating

Terje said...

"the kind of writing valued at school" - you used that phrase twice. How to tie this phrase with what the student's wish to write? Good question. Add to this parent expectations. I haven't figured all this our yet.

Ruth Ayres said...

"RETURN THE POWER" -- I think you're on to something. :)
Ruth

Amy Rudd said...

Anita,
Choice-came to mind when I was reading...do they have free choice when writing during indoor recess? Children always seem more interested when there is choice involved...

Unknown said...

You're right. Children love to write fantasy and fiction stories and will often spend lots of time writing them, but due to the curriculum demands that we face, that's not always an option. I wonder if we could have dedicated writing times throughout the week (separate from writing workshop) that would give students the freedom to choose their genre and topic? Maybe in the morning or just before the end of the day?

Jennifer K.
web.me.com/aggiekesler/myjourneyabroad

BK said...

The end goals seem to be at the wrong place. What about engaging kids in their process with fun and student choice?
We can answer questions like this so easily. Too bad we are not taken seriously.
Bonnie

Anonymous said...

Do you think we could find the proper balance between teacher instruction and student choice? Thanks for a good review and reminder of how writing workshop has evolved. Lots to think about here.