The next few blogs will be about writing. This first blog will resonate more with online or at-home learning, as we as nation contend with COVID-19.
Writing is not a natural skill; it is a learned skill. Writing is hard work, as students are developing the brain processing connections that allow them to put coherent words on a page. Students should write every day to develop those brain connections. I like to disguise the practice of writing into assignments or tasks that seem relevant and fun. I often use science as a means to get students engaged in the task of writing. The following are ideas that can be used to get students writing every day.
- Read a book about an animal or other topic that they may enjoy. When I was with a group of Grade 1 students, we had about 10 minutes of “extra time” before we needed to be at the cafeteria for lunch. So, I took a short book about worms of the classroom library shelf, read the book to them and conducted a short whole classroom discussion about student experiences with worms. Students then wrote a couple of sentences about their experiences with worms. Some students had the time to begin drawing pictures to increase the comprehension of their written words. While they were writing I was able to remind students how to form a complete sentence.
- Conduct an experiment. Write observational notes in complete sentences. Students also like to draw pictures to enhance their written description. I like to have students conduct experiments that may last a week or so, as this gives more opportunity to write about their observations. Students usually love to make things in the kitchen, which can provide a natural setting for collaboration, observation of changes, and why those changes may be taking place. Students also enjoy gardening or germinating plants.
- Go on a bird walk. Students can write notes about bird habitats, the colors
of the birds, the sounds they may make, etc. 
Go on a hunt or walk looking for wild flowers. Students can write descriptive sentences about the flowers. Students can also add a sketch to increase their retention of the flower features.- Take a virtual tour of a museum about a topic that is of interest to the student(s). Students can take notes about specified information. Students can take notes about their observations. Observations are usually different, unique to the students and can increase student participation in classroom discussions about the tour.
- Go on a bug hunt. Write notes about the bugs that you see along the way.
Draw sketches of the bugs. - Analyzing pictures or art. (a) Have students analyze a picture and write complete sentences about things they noticed or questions that they have about the picture. (b) The picture can be used as a starting point for a story related to about the picture.
- Write a summary of a written passage. This past school year I was with a group of Grade 4 students that struggled with the idea of summarizing a two-page story. So, you may have to break the passage into paragraphs and have students write a sentence about each paragraph. Once they have a sentence of each paragraph, students can put them into a paragraph format by adding a topic sentence and conclusion sentence. Ideally the instruction should go back to modeling how to interpret sentences within each paragraph to inform the summary sentence. The instruction may also need to include word meanings or other background knowledge about the topic.
- Sharing student writing. I have not met a group of students that do not enjoy the act of sharing their masterpieces. The act of sharing is good for student self-esteem and for modeling possible sentences and format for their peers. Some classrooms use this time for student acclamations of correct usage of verbiage, punctuation, etc. I would greatly discourage negative comments by the teacher or their peers.
- Take notes during a video. I usually specify the expectations of the notes, like notes must be written in complete sentences and you must have at least 10 sentences related to the video. I usually will ask a few students to read one of their sentences at the conclusion of the video. This can begin a video discussion and give struggling students the opportunity to write another sentence.
- Keep a journal of what they are reading. Students can write a journal entry for each time they read. This helps the reader to better comprehend the passage read. Younger readers may need assistance in processing the read information into a summary. This also helps them to better retain the information read.
- Writing in a journal. Students could also write a journal entry about specific topic. I used this for students in classroom that had a very diverse student ability. At times I would have them write their interpretation of a sentence, a poem, or even just a word. The journal itself was not graded on their mechanics or grammar, but on their ability to form complete paragraph(s). This freed the writer to focus on just putting words/sentences on the paper. On some days, I would have students read a sentence or paragraph aloud to the class for those students who were struggling with forming a sentence. At times I would write a sentence or two or a whole paragraph on the board to remind, reteach students how to form a paragraph. I like to have students help me form the sentences of the paragraph to increase the “buy in” or engagement of students.
- Quick write. The student writes as much information about a specified topic as they can in a designated timeframe, usually 5 minutes. This may not be an exercise for all students, as some may shut down the process of writing altogether. I encourage using incentives or individual goals to increase the buy-in of this exercise. Again, the goal is put as many words on the page about the subject in complete sentences, not about mechanical or grammar.
Happy Writing!
