Teaching Writers to Reflect: Strategies for a More Thoughtful Writing Workshop

by Katie Wood Ray, Anne Whitney, Colleen McCracken, Deana Washell

Overview

Even if your writing workshop hums with the sound of productive work most days, with time carved out for sharing and reflecting, how do you know whether your students are really learning from their writing experiences, or if they’re just going through the motions of writing? What if you could teach your students to reflect—in a powerful, deliberate way—throughout the writing process?

Teaching Writers to Reflect shares a three step process—remember, describe, act—to help students develop as writers who know for themselves what they are doing and why. The authors argue that teaching the skill of reflection helps students:

• Build identities as writers within a community of writers
• Learn what to do when there’s a problem in their writing
• Make writing skills transferable to more than one writing situation.

With specific teaching strategies, examples of student work and stories from their own classrooms, Whitney, McCracken and Washell help you align the work of reflection with your writing workshop structure.  After learning to reflect on what they do as writers, students not only can say things about the texts they have written, but also can talk about their own abilities, challenges, and the processes by which they solve writing problems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780325076867
Publisher:	Heinemann
Publication date:	02/25/2019
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	7.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

For many years as the author of bestselling Heinemann books such as About the Authors, Study Driven, Already Ready, and In Pictures and In Words, and as a member of Heinemann’s Professional Development Services, Katie Wood Ray gave teachers resources and PD that transformed writing instruction and helped children discover a lifelong love of writing.

In 2014, Katie “moved to the other side of the desk” and joined the dynamic team of editors at Heinemann where she works closely with authors to craft powerful professional books on a range of literacy topics. Katie is also the series editor for the new Classroom Essentials books from Heinemann. Tasked with bringing foundational, progressive practices to a new generation of teachers, Katie works to ensure that the sharp focus and enhanced design of each book best serve the content. She also teamed up with her longtime collaborator, Lisa Cleaveland, to write one of the first books in the series, A Teacher’s Guide to Getting Started with Beginning Writers.

You can find her on Twitter at @KatieWoodRay.

Anne Elrod Whitney is Professor of Education at the Pennsylvania State University.

Colleen McCracken is a second grade teacher at Easterly Parkway Elementary School in State College, Pennsylvania.

Deana Washell is a third grade teacher at Easterly Parkway Elementary School in State College, Pennsylvania.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments x

Foreword Katie Wood Ray x

Introduction Reflective Students, Reflective Teachers xiii

1 Why Reflection? 1

Making the Case for Reflection 2

Reflection Builds Community 3

Reflection Builds Writers' Confidence 5

Reflection Fosters Independence 7

Reflection Makes Writing Stills Transferable 9

Teaching Reflection, Not Just Expecting Reflection 11

How Do We Teach Reflection? Three Key Components 11

When Do We Reflect? 14

Looking Forward; Where Reflection Leads Us 16

2 Writers Remember 19

Remembering Connects Us to Identity 20

Teaching Remembering 22

Remembering What 22

Remembering How 23

Remembering Why 23

Remembering That Decision-Making Matters 24

Strategies for Remembering 24

Time Line 25

Notebook Flip 30

Notebook Table of Contents 35

Photo Elicitation 39

3 Writers Describe 45

Specific Language Signals Membership in a Community 47

Specific Language Makes It Possible to Give and Receive Feedback 48

Teaching Writers to Describe 49

Describing What 50

Describing How 51

Describing Why 52

Strategies for Describing 54

"Verbs Writers Do" Chart 55

Writing Process Word Wall 58

Process and Product Statement Sorting 60

Process Interviews 63

4 Writers Act 67

Action Helps Writes Move Forward 68

The Problem of Time 69

The Problem of Patterns 70

Strategies for Acting 70

Connective Sentence Stems 71

Sticky Note Planning 77

Accountability Partners 85

5 From Reflection to Self-Assessment 91

Strategies for Self-Assessment 92

Claiming an Identity as a Writer 93

Setting Goals 97

Reflecting Through Documents: That Was Then; This Is Now 103

Communicating Growth to Parents 105

Learning from Formal Assessments 107

Where Reflection Takes Us 110

Works Cited 111