Originally I had a vision that you would give them 5 minutes in class to start and the rest would be homework, or something to be completed if their math, or other class work was done. If they have a target number of words, that can be completed at any …
Good point. Many teachers start with a 10 minute write and work their way up as student skills strengthen. Tell them it’s about training for stamina just like long distance running. Usually, grade 4 students will not have the stamina for a solid 20 minute write. But, some grade 7’s …
My advice is: Don’t get yourself worn out. There are lots of professional tasks you can do, including designing amazing writing lessons. Think of yourself as being willing to work 60 hours a week at being the best teacher in the world – how should you spend your hours? But, …
Fluency is one of the three pillars of writing – code, comprehensibility, and fluency. Code. English, and all languages are a code, a printed representation of language. English rules of code include left to right, top to bottom, spaces between the words, punctuation, subject/verb/object, etc. We spend a lot of …
Imagine two students. Both of them are hard working, intelligent, persistent in the face of challenges – they have all the virtues of good students. BUT one of them writes at half the speed of the other. Now imagine high school homework – 3 hours a night for the one …
If you are asking for 100 or 400 words, some students will still find it hard to think of enough to write. Does it have to be true? No it doesn’t. The point of this is to develop writing fluency and the ability to ideate quickly. You could tell them …
So what should they say when they finish reading a partner’s writing? It’s not about spelling, or quality of sentences, or messiness. This isn’t even a draft – if it were anything it would be a pre-draft – the kind of thing you write to find out what you think. …
Absolutely! Trade Pages…Read….Talk It is important that students read each other’s writing. For one thing, it can inspire greater effort in order to at least be “in the middle.” But, most importantly, we all try harder when we know that we will have an audience – a reason to write …
It’s demoralizing to lower students. Game designers are always interested in what keeps players in the game on the screen – because it’s eyes on the screen that matters. They have found that in a game with a “leaderboard”, it is only an incentive to continue to play if you …
