Raising Readers and Writers

We had our first writing celebration on Friday afternoon.  The kids were so excited…they have been working on their writing for only 22 days of school and they truly view themselves as authors.  That makes me VERY happy!!  We started out by charting everything we had learned about being a writer.  They mentioned, “Writers write about what is important to them. (Yes, that means we have choices in what we write about.)  Writers get ideas from things that happen to them and from other people.  Writers can write about what they are feeling.  Writers go back and reread what they write to make sure it makes sense (first steps in revision).  Writers put spaces between their words (very important in first grade).  Writers spell word wall words correctly (the first steps in editing).”  I was pleased that they could verbalize all of the hard work and thinking that we had been doing in writing workshop.

I then told them that I was going to hang the chart out in the hall and put their writing all around it.  Well, the excitement bubbled over and this is the best part…their voices clammored as they said things like, “Maybe other authors at Avery will get ideas from our writing.”  (Isn’t that the best?)  “I think that kids will tell their teachers and there will be a long line down the hall so everyone can read what we wrote.”  (That’s from one of my sweet ELL girls who is so excited about sharing her writing with all the other students at our school.  She is continually giving me tips for my mini-lessons…her last one was  “if you have to staple papers together, it’s a good idea to put numbers on your pages.”  She learned that in kindergarten. )  These comments tell me that my first graders take their roles as authors very seriously.  They know that writing is important and what they have to say matters.

I’ve come a long way in my thinking about publishing first grade writing.  Coming from the intermediate grades, I was adamant about published work being mostly free of errors.  Imagine my dilemma when I started working with 6 year-olds and I saw the wide range of writing.  I had kids who drew pictures and told elaborate stories to go with the pictures, to kids who wrote a string of letters with some primitive drawings, to those who could use some inventive spelling and had a few high frequency words under their belts, to those who could write several sentences, add some details, and their writing was able to be decoded.  My first year, I started by putting interactive writing out in the hall in the beginning of the school year or typing any work that went into the hall.  Last year, I had an insightful conversation with 2  colleagues who used to teach first grade which broadened my thinking even more.  At the time, we were publishing books that would go into our classroom library.  Because other first graders would be reading these books, I decided to type  the pages so that readers would be reading conventional spelling.  Of course, all illustrations were original!  I realized that my final decision about publishing had a lot to do with my purpose for the finished work.  This year, I had enough confidence in myself to decide that I was going to put these first attempts at writing in the hall for all to see, even if it wasn’t perfect.   My purpose is not to showcase how perfectly my kids can write.  Instead, I want to honor all of the hard work they’ve done.  I want them to know that I think they’re smart and that what they have to say is a big deal.  Everyone deserves a voice, including our youngest writers.

So where are we going next?  I am reading lots of pattern books to my young authors as we prepare to create our own.  We will be making our first individual books this time!  Our audience?  Kindergartners.  What makes it even more special is that many of my students remember visiting my first graders last year when they were the youngest ones.  Now they are the older, more experienced authors!  Should be fun!

Writer’s notebooks and pens in hand,  14 teachers and our principal met for our first teacher writing group last week.  As the teachers gathered, an  overwhelming feeling of excitement  came over me.  It was like a family reunion where you get to see all of your favorite people that you haven’t been able to see in awhile.  Seven of the teachers had participated last year, and I was so glad that our community was growing to include more teachers.  I just kind of stepped back and enjoyed the atmosphere, feeling like a proud mom.

Our group is unique in that we are a group of teachers who meet regularly to write together, share our writing, and collaborate in order to better understand the process writers go through.  This understanding helps us better understand how our students feel in our writing classrooms, which in turn, helps us be better teachers of writing.

Dr. Bloome, the director of the Columbus Area Writing Project, led us in our first writing prompt which  was created by Robin Holland, “prompt creator extraordinaire,” from CAWP.   He read from Frank McCourt’s Teacher Man, citing the chapter titles and excerpts from a couple of chapters.  Then he asked us to reflect on our teaching lives and imagine we were writing our memoirs.  Our task:  create a list of chapters to form a table of contents, decide on what words would be in the index, and finally, write a chapter to go with one of our chapter titles.

While teachers shared their writing (called a “Read Around”), laughter filled the room when certain titles were read (my first chapter was called, “What to Do…Playboy Bunny or Teacher”), as well as moments of silence as people shared some poignant memories (“Where Creativity is Not to Be Honored”).  Herein lies the magic of our group.   Sharing our writing takes a level of trust.  We put ourselves out there for others to judge our work…Will it be good enough?  What will others think if I share this?  Will someone else’s be better?  I can’t even begin to explain the feeling that enveloped the media center during the read around.  You could feel the bonds begin to grow.  We learned things we didn’t know about the people we work with every day.

Then teachers began to talk about how they felt when they were writing.  They were excited!   They didn’t want to stop!  They were having fun!  This converstion led us to how important it is to develop that envirnoment in our classrooms.  We want our students to know that their voices matter and that writing is one way to be heard.   We want them to develop the life-long habits of writers.

I know this year is going to give us many more opportunities to experience the joys and frustrations of being writers and teachers of writers.    I also know that we will grow in ways we could never imagine.  I am looking forward to every step!

I read Rhyming Dust Bunnies by one of  my favorite authors for first graders, Jan Thomas.  When I read it the first time, many of my kids didn’t know what a dust bunny was.  (I guess their moms keep their houses cleaner than I do!).  They thought they hopped around.  So, I told them that I would find some dust bunnies and bring them to school.  It was one of those things I kept putting off, mainly because I was thinking that maybe it was kind of gross to bring dirt that’s been lying around the house into school.  Well, M. asked me every day if I had brought in any dust bunnies until I finally did yesterday.  You would have thought that I had brought in  a bag full of new toys, they were so excited to see a “real dust bunny.”  I will say that it helped them understand the story better.  They were able to infer why a mystery person would walk around with a broom (they didn’t understand that in the first reading) and many were able to share stories about the dust bunnies at their house (see…authentic connections!).  I was also able to get a good feel for who can rhyme and who needs more support.  The best part came at the end of the story.  Several of the kids shouted out, “Mrs. Johnson, E. has a dust bunny in his pocket!”  Sure enough, he had found it in the corner of our room and had stuffed it in his pocket.  The kids clammored around him to see it and were very envious that he had found it.  I had to laugh when he told me that he was going to take it home to show his mom.  Think she’ll wonder what I’m teaching? 

I know it seems a little gross to bring dust bunnies to school, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do to help students make concrete connections.  I will say that I redeemed myself later in the day when I shared fresh peaches with the kids so they could see what a peach pit was.  It was the first time many of them had ever had a fresh peach.  I guess that’s one of the things I love about first graders.  They are so curious and open to new learning.  It helps me keep my eyes open to find the things I need to make learning more meaningful for them.

Georgia Heard and Jennifer McDonough have written a new book that I can’t wait to receive.  You can preview the entire book online here.  I’ve skimmed the first couple of chapters and I know that it will help support the nonfiction research that will be happening in my room this year.  These authors stress the importance of creating a culture where inquiry is honored and time is given to students to research answers and have conversations about their theories.  Their suggestions in the book fall right into what I was planning for my classroom.  Since we won’t actually start our nonfiction genre study until mid November, I wanted to begin now to create an atmosphere that encouraged students to ask questions and look for answers.  My goal is for them to be able to write as a real scientist would. 

To help my students begin to make careful observations, I bought some unusual looking gourds at the farmer’s market this weekend and I found some uniquely shaped peppers in my garden (one looks like a nose is growing out of it).  I’m also going to bring in some other vegetables from my garden that they may not be familiar with (eggplant, brussel sprouts, etc.)  I am going to give them a magnifying glass, a tape measure, pencil, and crayons so that they can record their observations.  In the Heard’s book, she gives examples of 2 kinds of observation records (called Discovery Sheets).  One has 4 boxes so students can draw what they see, hear, feel, and smell.  The other one, that I had not thought of using before,  gives space for students to write questions about their wonderings.  I know one of my questions will be, “How did the pepper grow to look like that?” 

Another suggestion they give is to create an “I Wonder” Wall where students can post their questions and others can respond with their theories.  The “I Wonder” Wall is easy to begin…you need a large piece of paper, sticky notes, and kids with questions.  Again, this activity will give us the opportunity to talk about our questions and theories, and do some authentic research to find the answers.  Heard and McDonough give more ideas to create a wondering environment as well as lists of books to support inquiry. 

The following chapters are called “Nonfiction Writing From the Heart,” and “Nonfiction Research Wonder Writing.”  From my quick look at the chapters, these women believe as I do, that our young writers need to be researching and writing for authentic purposes and audiences.  As Melissa (the OSU researcher I will be working with) and I have discussed the research project, neither one of us is sure where this project will take us.  Like my students, we will be asking our own questions and wandering through theories. observations, and research as we being our own inquiry  journey.

Wow!  I’m having a hard time keeping up with my blog now that I’m back to work full time.  I’m going to do better!  Today was a great day as I watched a new idea work as I had hoped it would.

  Each year, I ask the kids to bring in a lunch bag with 4 to 5 items that will help us learn more about them.  My bag held a picture of my family, a measuring cup (I love to bake), book and writer’s notebook (obvious!), a tomato (from my overflowing garden that badly needs tended), and a picture of me riding my bike.  After sharing my “All About Me” bag, I invited the students to bring in their own bag of items that represent the most important parts of themselves.  They couldn’t wait to share their bags and it was a wonderful way to build community in our classroom. 

As the kids were sharing, an idea popped into my head (isn’t that how we get most of our good ideas).  I thought that if I took a picture of their “All About Me” items, they could go back to the photo for story ideas.  For each child, I layed all of their items out on a white piece of paper, added their names (mainly so I wouldn’t forget which picture belonged to which child), and took a picture.  We then put the photos into their writing folders.  Now when students come to me and say, “I don’t know what to write about,” I can direct them to their “All About Me” photos to help them think of an idea.

My heart was leaping this morning as I watched my plan take hold.  (I wasn’t entirely sure it would work).  One of my little guys was stuck for an idea and we got his photo out.  One of the things he brought was a wooden snake that his grandpa made for him.  He had shared with us that his grandpa makes him a lot of wooden toys and that he loves to do things with his grandpa.  I asked him some questions about the snake and his grandpa and all of a sudden, he said, “I know what I want to write now!”  He took off and wrote a story about going fishing with his grandpa!  Even though the story wasn’t about the wooden snake, he was reminded about a special time he shared with his grandpa.  He was so excited as he began to write and I was so glad that the photograph was able to spur his memory.

I am so glad that I took these pictures.  They give me insight into my students, and my memory is jogged about some of the stories they told as they shared their “All About Me” bags.  I know that we will go back to these pictures again and again.  We will use them to for oral story telling (very important in the primary grades) too, as we work toward building our identities as authors.  It’s a very simple idea and one that took only a few minutes to produce. 

I’m curious to hear about others’ ideas as they launch writing workshop.  I’m sure there’s a wealth of information out there!  Please share in the comments.

My classroom is buzzing during writing workshop.  I love to watch the excitement in my young learners’ eyes as they create their first pieces of writing in first grade.  They eagerly go back to their places and can’t wait to talk with their tablemates about their ideas.  I know that this “talk time” is very important to helping my writers plan their writing.  Right now, we are finding the balance between this important talk and talk that is just silly giggling.  I know with some patience we will get there.

I’ve used 2 of my favorite books this week to help my students think of important topics.  Yesterday I read The Best Story by Eileen Spinelli.  The main character in the book wants to win first prize in the Best Story Contest.  If she wins, she will be able to ride the  Sooper Dooper Looper roller coaster with her favorite author.  She’s not quite sure how to make her story the best, so she consults her family members.  Her brother tells her that good stories need action.  Her father tells her she needs humor.  Her aunt tells her that great stories make people cry and her cousin thinks the best stories have lots of romance.  (That got a lot of “OOOOHHHHS” from the kids).  Finally, her mother gave her the best advice.  She tells her that the best stories come from the heart.  So after reading the book, we discussed that authors write about what is important to them.  My students couldn’t wait to get to their spots to write.  I had stories about cooking with Grandma, playing football with friends, and going to the park.

Today, we read, Taking a Bath With the Dog and Other Things that Make Me Happy by Scott Menchin.  This is another of my favorites!  In fact, I showed it to another teacher in our building and she spent her lunch doing “one click” shopping on Amazon so she could have her own copy.  In this story, Mother notices that Sweet Pea is feeling sad (very evident by the frown on her face).  Sweet Pea decides to ask anyone and everyone she meets what makes them happy.  Her dog (dressed in a robe and shower cap) likes to take a bath.  An older gentleman enjoys stripes (he’s wearing a very loud striped jacket with a striped cat sitting beside him).  The rabbit likes running on the hamster wheel.  The story is hilarious!  The kids noticed that as the story progresses, Sweet Pea’s frown slowly turns into smile.  By the end of the book, she is feeling much better and we find out that she likes taking a bath with her dog.  The kids couldn’t wait to share what makes them happy.  They were so excited and so full of good ideas that we decided to make our own class book  about what makes Room 14 happy.  Each child wrote one page and illustrated it.  We have pages about making cookies for Dad, reading with my brother, playing with my monster trucks, and swinging with my family.  I typed the pages tonight and we will put the book together tomorrow.  It will be a grand celebration when we add it to one of the baskets in our classroom library.

The rest of the week is going to be spent focusing on where authors get ideas.  I’m looking forward to see where they take their ideas!