Writing & Discussion Strategies
Cut & Grow
Cut and Grow is a great strategy to help students revise and expand their writing. Students use scissors to cut apart sections of their first draft and insert additional words, sentences, or other details before pasting/taping it back together and writing a final draft. Cut and Grow also makes for a good collaborative writing or peer revision activity. Below are four examples of how this strategy has been used in Kindergarten Literacy, Kindergarten Writing, 2nd Grade Reading, and 5th Grade ELA classrooms.
Quick Write
Quick Write activities can be a useful way to reduce students' anxiety about writing or the feeling that they must write every sentence perfectly. Quick Writing is about increasing fluency by having students get all their ideas and understandings down on paper in a comfortable forum that removes their inhibitions about their possible strengths and weaknesses. Here are two examples of how Quick Writing is being in 3rd Grade Writing classrooms and 5th Grade Science classrooms in Lawrence:
R.A.F.T. (Role, Audience, Format, Topic)
The R.A.F.T. activity provides teachers an easy way to incorporate writing activities into all content areas. It also engages students by providing them authentic writing tasks that mirror those used by professionals in their field of study. Students and teachers can find this strategy particularly rewarding when final products are published to authentic audiences. The teacher provides the students with a writing task for which they will have a specific role, a particular audience, a format of writing, and a topic. This strategy is being used effectively in classrooms and content areas across the district. Here are seven examples, ranging from Kindergarten Writing to 9th Grade Algebra!
Sentence Frames, Paragraph Organizers, and other Graphic Organizers
Sentence frames (or sentence starters) can be found in classrooms throughout the districts. Some teachers have them posted on their walls, while others keep them taped on desks or in manila folders that students can utilize to promote accountable talk during classroom discussion or to strengthen their writing. Paragraph frames are another useful strategy for helping students produce clear and effective writing. They are particularly useful for helping students understand how to organize their writing using such elements as topic sentences, supporting detail sentences, transition words and phrases, the incorporation of quotation/direct evidence, and the use of a closing or conclusion sentence. Paragraph frames do not reduce the originality of student writing but rather model for students and help them practice what effective writing looks like until these practices become more natural for them. Similarly, other graphic organizers can be used for writing longer compositions, such as five paragraph essays, speeches, scientific lab reports, or even for taking organized notes. They are also a useful way to help students articulate newly learned concepts in their own words. Here are seven examples of how these tools are promoting academic discourse and strengthening the writing skills of students across the district:
Write Around
Write Around is a group activity that can be used to produce collaborative writing pieces, revise and strengthen written pieces, or have students respond to complicated higher-order thinking questions by building off of one another's ideas. Write Around is a great way for students to learn from one another and model their comprehension as well as their writing and vocabulary strengths. Many teachers have found that students take increased pride in their writing during this activity since their work is shared and created with classmates and not solely for evaluation by their teacher. Here are six ways Write Around is being used in Lawrence: