Weekly Update

This week I'd like to tell you a bit about the writer's workshop program that I have developed for the eighth graders. Becoming effective writers is crucial to functioning in the world. There is a method of looking at and teaching writing that encourages students to become excellent writers, and that is the Six Trait Writing Model. This model of writing looks at six areas: word choice (choosing the best words to create meaning and beautiful language), organization (oraganizing writing so that it makes sense), sentence fluency (writing so that the words flow and are pleasing to read), conventions (spelling, punctuation, grammar), voice (making the writing sound unique to the author), and ideas (developing interesting and cogent ideas).

Throughout each English lesson, the students are learning some aspect of the six traits, but each Friday during English, they have the opportunity to put what they learned into practice in a comfortable way. I begin the class by grading their Word Wall dictionaries. This is a place where they write down the vocabulary words from our stories and come up with a definition, synonym, antonym, and sentence for the word. This activity encourges them to build their vocabulary to make word choice in writing better and easier.

For the remainder of class, the students are asked to write based on a prompt that I give them. They can choose to continue their story from the previous week or start a new one. Sometimes I give them goals such as using dialogue or transitions (it is usually one of the skills we have been working on). I also encourage them to use the Word of the Week (W.O.W.) in their writing.

Not only do the students write, but they also analyze it to set goals. At the end of the first quarter, I asked the students to look at ten sentences from one of their writing samples. They needed to write down the number of words in each sentence, the verb that they used, and the first four words of each sentence. After doing this analysis, I asked them to write down what they learned about their writing and what they intend to do with this information in the future. Many students found that they need to look for more interesting verbs or find different ways to start their sentences.

It has been fun to see the students pulling all of their new skills together to improve their writing. Soon they will get the chance to write a mystery story for English class, and they should see all of the work from writer's workshop paying dividends!