Read About Best Practices in Writers’ Craft Lessons

Introduction/Overview

In this module, you will learn some of the most critical strategies for implementing a meaningful writing program in your classroom. You'll learn ways to help students find topics they're excited about, write about them in ways readers can understand and enjoy, and make connections to the reading they do through the writing they've done.

Craft lessons may include, but are not limited to:

• developing strong leads
• including relevant and meaningful details about the topic
• using strong vocabulary and word choice
• using figurative language, such as similes and metaphors
• including an ending that provides closure

When students understand these tenets of craft, they can approach any type of writing with confidence and success.

Crafting is the heartbeat of the writing process. The writer considers the audience, carefully plans and organizes the piece, and purposefully chooses words and phrases to enhance the reader's comprehension and enjoyment. The writer then rereads, deletes from, adds to, and clarifies the message until he or she is satisfied.

It can be argued that a very simplistic view of the writing process looks like this:

Conceive —> Craft —> Perfect/Correct —> Publish

If this is true, it can also be argued that teachers generally express at least a basic level of comfort with three out of the four parts of the process – helping students get started with their writing, helping them correct their drafts, and establishing forums for publication. However, the one element of our simplistic writing process cycle that often is overlooked, or perhaps purposely avoided, is writers' craft.

Writers' craft is the process of putting words together meaningfully, making decisions about what to leave in, leave out, or say differently, and choosing words that express precisely what an author wants to communicate. In most classrooms surveyed, students do these things completely independently of the teacher. Fletcher and Portalupi (1998) say this is “unfortunate, because craft is the cauldron in which the writing gets forged.” In this module, and in the one that follows on writing conferences, we hope to equip teachers with the tools they need to help students compose quality writing.

It should come as no surprise that many teachers are uncomfortable with writers' craft. Perhaps the type of writing instruction you received in your elementary and secondary schooling consisted of assigning, correcting, and grading. We realize that it is hard to teach writing craft unless you've practiced writing craft.

With this in mind, try to begin your own writer's notebook or journal. The format isn't nearly as important as the process you go through in deciding what to write in it on a regular basis. Try to find five minutes to jot something down each day. Making the effort to be a writer yourself will greatly enhance your ability to relate to students and teach them about the craft.

Selecting Topics, Purposes, and Audiences

On the first day of Writers' Workshop in a primary classroom, a first grader named Isabel stared blankly at her page, at her classmates working near her, and back to her blank page. Isabel had never been in this situation before. Her teacher had introduced writing time today and encouraged the students to begin recording their ideas, stories, and thoughts on paper. She said she'd be circulating in the room visiting with students as they composed and that some students would have time to share their work at the end of writing time. She wondered what her classmates were writing. What had they thought of that was keeping them so involved in this activity? She had never considered herself a writer.

Just then, Isabel's teacher walked past and noticed her blank page. She leaned down and asked her how it was going. She explained that she didn't know what to write about. The teacher asked her if she had played with her dolls recently. She replied that she had a friend over last weekend for a tea party with all of their dolls. The teacher said she'd love to hear the story of the tea party and all of the things she remembered from that exciting afternoon. She was surprised that someone in school would be interested in this, but she agreed to begin.

“Last satrday, my fren kam ovr and hd a tee prty …”

Isabel had never considered that her teacher or any audience would want to read about her tea party. Her world of tea parties and her world of literacy had never connected until today. During the early stages of Writers' Workshop, the goal of topic selection is for students to find things to write about which allow them to show off their personal experiences. Isabel's teacher took the time to learn that she loved to play with dolls. This helped her know how to nudge Isabel toward a topic about which she'd have lots to say. Early topic selection mini-lessons help students understand that their everyday worlds are significant. Every child comes to school with experiences, and it is our job to validate these memories and teach students to write about them in their own voices.

Early on, it is helpful to plan several mini-lessons that deal with prewriting – the thinking and early idea development from which students draft their pieces. Some prewriting is done as a class, and some is done individually. It is a good idea for student to keep all prewriting in a designated part of his writer's notebook or writing folder. Often, prewriting contains several potential topics that the students can draw on throughout the year in Workshop, should you choose to save them. The following is a sampling of topic-selection mini-lessons that teachers have found effective. Try them, adapt them, or come up with ones more suited to your particular group of students.

1. Ask students to list two important memories on a piece of paper. Pair students and ask them to tell each other their stories. Next, have peers tell each other which of the two stories might make the most interesting piece of writing. Ask: Which one was told with the most vivid details and strong emotions? After students have chosen their memory ideas based on the feedback their peer audiences gave them, ask each to write an opening to the piece.

This prewriting strategy might take place over a day or two, but it is important not to leave out any of the steps. Forcing students to jump right in and write down an opening to their piece while the storytelling is fresh in their minds will help as they transition into the rest of their drafts.

2. Ask students to draw or write down the rooms of their house or apartment, such as the bedrooms, kitchen, living room, and garage, leaving three or four lines between each one. Next, have students list one or two memories from each room. For example, the student might write “work on car with Dad” under “garage” or “birthday party” under “living room.” These can then be used for story drafts.

It is good to model this activity on the overhead projector before students begin. You can also break the mini-lesson down by writing the rooms of the house on Day One, listing memories on Day Two, and choosing a memory and beginning drafting on Day Three.

3. Ask students to list things they'd like to change, such as longer recess, pizza in the cafeteria every day, or soccer nets placed in city parks. Ask: Who would you need to talk to about each change? Students then choose an issue and begin drafting a letter to the appropriate person stating their case. Depending on the grade level, students may also be taught various aspects of letter writing and persuasive techniques.

When students have a purpose for writing and have an audience for their compositions, topic selection soon follows. Often teachers express concern about their students' hesitancy to select topics and write. It is normal for students to have these problems early in Workshop. After all, it is likely that they've already grown accustomed to having people select their topics for them. Once the world has been opened to the possibilities of self-selected topics and they experience the satisfaction of accomplishing purposes through writing, they won't want to stop.

Learning About Writing Through Reading

Consider how hard it would have been for you to drive a car the first time if you had never seen anyone do it. The more you observed others driving, the easier it was for you to see yourself behind the wheel of a car. However, when the time came, the act of driving by yourself still required a whole new level of skill and thinking. You needed a coach, continued models, and some direct instruction before you developed proficiency.

In order to learn to write, students need to watch other writers. They need to notice patterns in narrative and expository development, the variety of genres available, and the different techniques authors use to accomplish their purposes. They need to try writing for themselves with a coach at their side, and they need some direct instruction. Reading quality literature in class provides students with models, and you provide them with a coach.

What should students read? For many years, primary students have been reading fictional literature. In contrast, much of what students are taught to write is nonfiction. Students writing in Workshop classrooms often begin writing about topics important to them, ones with which they've had personal experience. In surveying a random kindergarten classroom, one would typically find that about three-fourths of the students writing pieces would be categorized as nonfiction. Thus, having a wide variety of nonfiction literature in the classroom would be a very helpful resource for your budding authors.

Reading professionals have also come to realize that nonfiction has been greatly under-utilized, since a large percentage of the literature students are asked to read and comprehend on standardized tests and will be using as adults fits into this category. Benchmark Education Company publishes a plethora of high-quality nonfiction literature. If you're not sure where to start locating nonfiction for your classroom, check with your library media specialist. She can point you in the direction of several classic and new pieces of children's literature as well as the leveled texts in your building and where you might find any Benchmark titles currently available.

In addition to reading aloud to students for pleasure several times each day, writing craft lessons can draw upon children's literature as well. In the "Strength of Language" Craft Lesson below, you'll find an example of how a teacher might use a picture book to teach craft.

Craft Lessons – Organizing Ideas

Sequence

Whether students are writing fiction or nonfiction, their messages still require a beginning, middle, and end in order to be clear. It is characteristic of beginning writers to leave out one of those sections altogether or to mix up the sequence in such a way that the writing is unclear. If this is the case with your students, the following mini-lesson might be helpful.

"One of the things we've discussed recently about some of the published stories we've read is that they have a beginning, middle, and end. As I've read through some of your recent drafts, I've noticed that some of you have left off one of those things and some of you have mixed them together so that it is hard for me as the reader to know what happened first, next, and last.

As you begin your writing time today, I want you to reread what you've been working on. Try to find the beginning of what you're trying to say, the middle of your message, and the way you end your piece. If you're missing a part, add it.

(Hold up an example of a student's work which has a new beginning taped into the appropriate place in the piece. Then read the piece the way it sounded before the addition and after the addition.)

When we finish our writing time, I'm going to ask some of you who have done this today to share the parts you added. We're going to listen to your piece before your revision and the way it sounds now. Let's write."

Transitions

Primary writers are famous for telling “bed to bed” stories. In other words, stories start when the child wakes up, and end when they go to sleep. The result is a listing of minutia that loses their readers. One way to help children select parts of their day for sharing is to teach them how to use time transitions.

"Now that you have begun to write such long pieces that include so many details, I want to show you a strategy which will help you choose the most important moments in your story. When you write, you don't have to include everything that happens between one time and another

For example, let's say you are telling the story about your weekend at the beach. You want the story to start on Friday when your parents pick you up from school with the beach chairs in the back of the car and end on Sunday night when you shake off your sandy clothes outside your front door. Many details happened during your weekend, and if you share every one of them, your audience might miss out on the ones you think are important.

Today I want to share some of the words and phrases writers use to jump ahead in time. We'll call these 'Time Transitions'.

(Generate a list similar to the following:)

When we arrived…

Early the next morning…

By lunchtime, we…

After awhile…

Later that day…

Finally…

Next…

(The list may be longer depending on what other ideas your students contribute. Save the list and post it in the classroom.)

Do you see how telling your beach story using some of these phrases will keep you from getting bogged down with so many details and help guide your reader along? As you begin writing today, reread your piece to see if some information might not be critical for the reader. If you find something, draw a line through it and add an appropriate time transition in its place to hook the sentence before it and after it together.

(If possible, using the overhead, model how this would be done by using your own time transition to bridge part of a student's sample piece.)

I look forward to hearing how some of you use this strategy today. Let's write."

Craft Lessons – Elaborating on Ideas

Adding Details

For many students, elaboration means adding a string of adjectives to a noun in a sentence, such as the brown, happy, smelly, bouncing dog ran to its owner. However, effective elaboration in writing requires much more depth. Consider the strategies below as ways to move elaboration from being horizontal in nature to vertically enhancing a story.

Some primary students feel much more comfortable with drawing as a way of communicating than with writing. Either they haven’t yet developed proficiency with written words, or they need to visually represent their ideas to make them come alive. Regardless, teachers can use students’ drawings as a way to help them include more details in their piece. As students move from drawing to writing, the skills they learned in adding details will transfer.

“I’ve asked Shawn to help me model this lesson for us today. He’s been working on a great picture of his grandma’s house that he recently visited. You may listen in on our conversation.

Teacher: ‘Shawn, can you begin by telling me what is happening in your story?’

Shawn: ‘This is my grandma’s house that I went to last week. She has a two-story house with a garage in front that we played wall-ball on. She showed us her garden, and we even ate some of the fruits and vegetables she had grown. It was cool.’

Teacher: ‘Wow, it sounds like you had a great time. Now, let’s look at your picture. I see the two-story house and I see the garage in front. How will someone know from looking at your picture that you played wall-ball there and that your grandma had a big garden for growing her own fruits and vegetables?’

Shawn: ‘I hadn’t thought about that. Maybe I could draw myself playing ball with my cousin, and I could add the rest of the things that are all around her house. I could also draw another picture of us eating all the good food. It could be like the second part of the story.’

Teacher: ‘Great, Shawn. Thanks for sharing your work with us, and I look forward to seeing how all the new details help your piece.’

Whether we're writing or drawing our messages, it is important to give the reader all of the information they will need to understand what we're trying to communicate. Remember what Shawn and I did today? First he told his story to help him think about all the details. Next, he looked at his work to see if these things were going to be clear to someone else. Finally, he added the necessary details.

(Write these steps on the board or other visible area.)

Think about this as you work today, and I look forward to seeing and hearing how you've improved your work by adding important details when we come back together. Let's write."

Answering Questions

One essential, yet often overlooked, aspect of literacy is oral language development. Students need more opportunities to talk through their thinking than we typically give them. By using this vehicle, students are able to hear themselves think aloud, and all of the ideas and details they assumed we already knew are put to good use. This concept is applied in the following mini-lesson that can be used to encourage more detail, and for other types of craft lessons as well:

"Today I'm going to tell you a story before we begin writing. I just want you to listen and enjoy my story about the way I got my new puppy.

(Share whatever stories you’d like from your own experiences. I share the story about the way I befriended a neighbor’s dog. I walked over every afternoon to play with her puppies and help care for them. I was surprised a few weeks later to find out that the neighbor and my parents had talked and agreed to let me choose one of the puppies to have as my own.)

Now that you've heard my story, what pictures did you see in your mind? What do you remember most from my story? Would anyone like to have a clearer picture of the story in mind?

'What kind of dog was it?' one child asks.

'How many puppies were there?' asks another.

'Had you ever had a pet of your own?'

'Were the puppies outside or inside?'

'Did you already know your neighbor very well?'

Wow, you asked some great questions. Now that I've answered them, do you have a clearer picture in your mind of the story of my first dog?

(Ask students to sign up to tell their own stories, either during whole-class mini-lesson blocks throughout the semester or in small-group sharing with mind-picture clarification from the members of the group.)

As you write today, be sure to think about the questions your readers might have in order to create mind pictures and better understand what you are trying to say. Let's write."

Craft Lessons – Strength of Language

Specific Words

The overuse of general words dilutes writing. Beginning writers are particularly prone to this and the following mini-lesson will help draw their attention to more vivid ways of getting their messages across.

"Today I want you to look at the chart I'm making with words that I often find in your writing.

(On chart paper, labeled 'General', make a list of commonly used words, such as nice, happy, sweet, good, fun, things, love, and like.)

These aren't bad words by themselves, but when you try to use them to help your reader understand what you mean, they aren't strong enough. What if I say, 'I love my sister. She's nice.' Do you really feel like you know my sister yet?

How about this example: 'My sister Carol is the most generous person I know. She volunteers every week at the hospital, shares meals with people who are sick, and is always the first one to offer help when my family is having trouble.’ Which set of sentences is more specific?

I'd like you to put your current drafts on top of your desk. Look for these general words in your writing. If you find them, circle them with a colored pencil.

(After students have had time to do this, ask for a show of hands to see who found any general words. Solicit an example sentence from a student and revise it together on the overhead.)

If you found some of these words in your writing today, I want you to spend part of your writing time using more specific language to tell us what you want to say. Let's write."

Voice

One of the most desired yet hard-to-pinpoint characteristics of good children's literature is voice. Certain authors seem as if they are sitting across the table talking with you. Consider Dr. Seuss, Patricia Polacco, Kevin Henkes, and others who have a distinctive style of writing that can be easily identified.

Students' writing is also capable of emanating voice, but it won't be possible unless writers have developed fluency and feel comfortable taking a few risks. If your fluent students sound somewhat 'voiceless' in their writing, the following mini-lesson might be just what they need.

"We have read several books by Patricia Polacco. I want you to listen carefully while I read the first few pages of Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair. I want you to notice how it sounds as if Ms. Polacco is sitting beside you telling you the story.

(Read a few pages and discuss the author's style as well as where students can really hear the author's personality shine through.)

Today when you write, you can try to make your words sound just like you're telling a story to your friend. Let's pretend you are one of my friends. I might call you on the phone after a big weekend and say something like, 'Hi Susie! You wouldn't believe the great time we had in St. Louis. It was just like I hoped it would be and more. First we drove to the party. You have never seen such an amazing ballroom! Chandeliers were hanging everywhere and there were more flowers than we saw last year at the Rose Parade!'

When I write about this, I can use the same words that I just used with you. Watch how I do that on the overhead.

(As you write, say the story to yourself and use the same intonation you would have used talking on the phone.)

As you write today, try to use your talking voice when you're writing words. I'm eager to hear from some of you when we share our work today. Let 's write."