Month: May 2015

Using Songwriting in the Classroom

~ Ben Leddy

It’s eight in the morning, and every student is singing.

Across the classroom and in the hallways, groups of students are dancing, arguing, laughing. Over the last twenty-four hours, they have practiced at school, at each other’s houses, even over video chat. Soon, they will perform original songs for the class.

What topic inspired such fervor? An unlikely suspect: the Ganges River.

I often bring music into my fifth and sixth grade social studies classes, and I’ve even written a few songs for students. But I rarely asked students to write songs themselves. It’s too unpredictable, I’d thought. Too unstructured and challenging for most kids.  But here we were on a Friday morning, just a few hours away from the students’ performances about a river in India.

How did it go? You can see for yourself:

Something about writing songs resonated with the students in a way that essays and study guides can’t match. For this reason, I believe songwriting in the classroom is worth exploring, particularly for honoring the strengths and needs of English language learners and students with disabilities.

Writing SAM Songs

The method I have developed and used for teaching songwriting is called “SAM Songs.” The graphic organizer for students is below:

SAM Songs Student Organizer

The project will take at least three class periods: two for writing and one for performances.

Class One:

  1. To introduce the project, ask your students to share their favorite songs. After hearing from your students, tell them, believe it or not, they have the chance to sing these songs in class. Explain that you are trying something new: students will be writing songs to learn, and they will perform these songs for one another. Help students envision the project with an example. For instance, you might show students the “No Taxation Without Representation” clip from the above video (3:44 to 6:03) or “Dump It Off” below:
  1. Introduce the guiding question for the project. This is what students will answer with their songs. The question, like an essay prompt, should require research and critical thinking. For example:
  • What were the causes and effects of the Boston Tea Party?
  • When should a person use estimation?
  • What are the major sources of renewable energy, and how do they work?
  • How does daily exercise affect the body?
  • In what ways can an author establish mood in a text?
  1. Tell your students to include relevant vocabulary (“Say”), take perspectives (“Act”), and use motions to reinforce vocabulary (“Move”) in their songs. If you plan to grade the songs, introduce the rubric.
  2. Allow students to form groups of three to four and begin researching. From my experience, letting students choose their groups keeps students invested in the project and happy with their teammates.

During the songwriting process, students will be loud. They will move around. Some groups will follow the process faithfully, while others will excitedly start picking a song to parody. My advice: embrace the energy, and have faith in your students. The creative process will look different for everyone, and I’m always impressed by what my students accomplish. Students will sometimes ask for help when they are searching for just the right words or trying to explain a concept clearly. With some exceptions, I tell them, “That sounds challenging. I know you can figure it out.” Sure enough, most students do.

Class Two:

Students create motions to reinforce the meanings of words.
Students create motions to reinforce the meanings of words.

Students continue writing and rehearsing. During this time, look over students’ lyrics, ask students to show you motions for particular words, and challenge students to incorporate relevant vocabulary into their songs. If students finish, they can practice and give other groups feedback. Before class ends, encourage groups to make plans for practicing outside of school.

Class Three – The Performances:

While students rehearse for five minutes, make a stage area and prepare any music tracks on your computer or phone. Assign one student to start music tracks and another to film performances.  After each performance, take a few audience shout-outs before moving on to the next performance. Later, you can show videos of the performances. Students love watching these, and it’s a great way to wrap up the project.

Benefits for ELLs and SWDs

From my experience, songwriting has three clear benefits for English language learners and students with disabilities:

Combines speaking, listening, reading, writing, and moving

When songwriting, students speak, listen, read, write and move, and in a way that comes naturally to the activity. If I’m writing a song about the Himalayas, I’m writing the word Himalayas, saying it, reading it, hearing students around me say it, and doing a motion that relates to the word.  I also repeat the word many times because I am practicing for my performance. For an ELL or SWD, what could be more immersive than this?

Makes misconceptions visible

When students use motions in their songs, you can see students’ understanding, or lack thereof. For instance, for the Ganges River project, one group was singing about Indians praying in the river. As they sang, the students made a cross with their fingers, despite having learned that most Indians are Hindu, not Christian. It signaled to me that something was misunderstood: Hinduism, praying, or the meaning of the cross symbol. This misconception was unlikely to appear in ordinary writing.

Supports engagement

Perhaps the most important benefit of songwriting for ELLs and SWDs is how engaging it can be for these students.  Students who have trouble sitting still are out of their seats, singing and dancing. English language learners are explaining ideas and using vocabulary without fixating on grammar and syntax. And songwriting is challenging for all students. When ELLs and SWDs see that they aren’t alone in the struggle, they feel up to the challenge.

I was at the copy machine one afternoon, the day before students performed their songs. One of my students, a former ELL, ran up to me in the hallway.

“Yes?” I asked, surprised.

The student, out of breath, replied, “What’s the place where Hindus pray?”

Earlier that afternoon, I asked my students how songwriting made them feel. One student who has a  disability gave this answer:

“Like I woke up. Like I’m covered with lava!”

(I checked with the student later, who assured me that this is a good thing.)

These are the kinds of moments we all hope for as teachers. Through songwriting, we have the potential to engage all of our students – ELLs, SWDs, and their general education peers. Imagine what is possible when all our students “wake up.”

Ben Leddy teaches fifth and sixth grade Social Studies in Boston. Ben presented at 2015 Boston EdTalks, where he introduced the SAM songwriting method for using songs in the classroom. For more information or inquiries, visit www.benleddy.com, or email Ben at benjamin.leddy@gmail.com.

Creative Commons License
“Using Songwriting In the Classroom” by Ben Leddy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Building Vocabulary: Using Project-Based Learning to Understand Organelles and Their Functions

~ Marcus Penny ~ 3 Comments

Introducing students to the invisible world of microscopic life has always been one of my favorite scientific investigations. Students broaden their understanding of the surrounding world by examining tangible evidence of scientific concepts that cannot be proven with standard empirical observation. For example, students are taught that all plants are made up of multiple cells, but this concept is not made real until they see the layers of green bricks that construct a small portion of a leaf they found outside. The deeper they look, the broader the scope of science becomes, and with that depth comes an array of new terms and concepts that must be acquired. In this investigation, students had to stretch their understanding beyond the magnification of the microscope, and demonstrate knowledge of new invisible structures that made up cells: organelles.

As I began to develop my lesson plans, I found myself staring into the unknown as my curricula no longer served as a map to our final destination. According to the Massachusetts science standards, students must learn to identify the structure and function of organelles in a cell, but the district-provided curricula does not offer a way for students to meet this standard. In order to prepare my lessons, I needed to independently research the content and create instructional materials for this

This is a sketch I found on the classroom floor while cleaning after school. Polysemous words like
This is a sketch I found on the classroom floor while cleaning after school. Polysemous words like “cell” are challenging for many ELLs, and I was proud to see the spontaneous use of creativity and humor to display a complex concept.

portion of the unit. Students not only had to master novel scientific language, but they needed to use this language to describe how organelles interact to create the smallest unit of life. I knew that students needed a creative approach to mastering these novel terms, one that would help them demonstrate their mastery both using oral and written language. After conducting research and consulting colleagues, I decided that the best way to accomplish this task would be to have the students work on a project in which they either would build a cell model or create a poster that demonstrates how organelles are analogous to other systems.

This project-based learning approach proved to be an engaging strategy that allowed students to actively synthesize information, rather than just practice rote memorization of cell parts. At the center of this project was a two-fold writing process. As students constructed their project, I asked them to to write about the function of each organelle in order to learn about the cell. Later, I required that they demonstrate their knowledge by completing a writing assignment that asked high order thinking questions around organelles in plant and animal cells. This powerful process gave me insight into my students’ learning and helped me to better understand the ways in which I can support the English Language Learners and Students with Special Needs in the classroom.

The Project

I was nervous during the onset of this project, as I had never attempted an artistic, open ended assignment like this in my class. My supplies were limited, and it required a great deal of imagination and effort from each student to complete construction of cell model. Students needed to bring in materials from home to complete the task and had to rely on their own understanding of cell structure to complete the project.  I was afraid that, while students were able to construct a model or build a poster, they would get caught up in the creative process and not internalize the names and functions of the cell. These fears subsided soon after the project began.

Early in the lesson planning process, I realized that the key to a successful project would be in providing a clear objective. I developed a rubric that ensured all students were able to write about specific organelles and allowed students to either focus on a model of a cell, or create a poster that served as an analogy of the functions of the organelles. This level of choice provided an opportunity for students to select their own accommodations, and this freedom ultimately resulted in a higher level of engagement. In fact, some students decided to go beyond the assignment and merged the two projects by constructing cell analogies in a model form.

In the end, four types of projects emerged:

The Cell Analogy Model

A small group of students had their heart set on building a model, but wanted to go beyond constructing a replica of a cell. This resulted in these students creating PhotoGrid_1432689212260their own “Hybrid Project” in which they took elements from the Cell Analogy poster, and combined it with the 3-D model aspects of the cell model project. Two groups built a Cell City, where different city structures represent parts of the cell, while another student worked independently to show how a cell is like a family inside their home. In all cases the students that took on this ambitious project were my top performing students, and they had no problem demonstrating they had mastered the material, orally and in written form.

Cell Analogy Poster

Not very many students chose to create a cell poster, but those who did gained and in-depth understanding of the cell functions. Students that had a better understanding of different organelles gravitated to this project, and the results were impressive. Students were able to personalize the project and allowed for a different type of creativity than building a 3D model. In one particular project, a group of English Language Learners was able to match the attributes of their favorite futbol players to organelles in the cell. I knew nothing about these different players, and they took pride in being able to teach me about the player’s strengths and relating all their knowledge back to how organelles function in a cell. My favorite analogy was their comparison of mitochondria to Eden Hazard who serves as the “power house” of the team.PhotoGrid_1432688608468

Poster AD

When asked what they meant by “power house” they said that he gave his teammates energy on the field, just like mitochondria in a cell. Overall these students did an excellent job of orally explaining the cell functions, and the formative written assignments were thorough. The summative assessment showed that 4 out of 5 of the students who completed this project demonstrated knowledge of organelle functions, while all of the students could write about the differences between plant and animal cell organelles.

Cell Model

A vast majority of students decided to build a 3D model of a cell out of household items and recycled trash. Working in pairs forced students to use the technical language as they discussed the materials they would use to build each part. One of the most inspiring moments was listening to a group of intermediate ELL students debate over what should be used to construct a vacuole in their plant cell. They ultimately decided on a water bottle as it was the right size and actually held water as it would in the cell. Overall, students scored very well on the oral assessment PhotoGrid_1432776640536(with the exception of the only homogenous ELL group), as well as the formative written assessment. In the oral assessment, I found that the majority of students were able to correctly identify and pronounce the names of various organelles, and explain their function in the cell. This process was done without the aid of any written content. The homogenous ELL group however, struggled with recalling the names of the different organelles hindering their ability to correctly identify the organelle functions. During the formative writing assignment, every student was able to create an explanation of each organelle function and match that function to the proper organelle.

Pre-made Cell Cut Out

The fourth type of project was one that had all the organelles of a plant cell and an animal cell already prepared with labels and explanations. The students had to cutPhotoGrid_1432776322030 out the organelles, place them in the correct cell, and explain their function to me in the oral assessment. This project was created to help two of my students with more intensive special needs overcome the executive functioning demand that is associated with managing a vast array of materials. This simple accommodation proved to be valuable, and allowed those students to work independently on accomplishing the same objective as the rest of the class.

Conclusion

Planning this assignment was not easy, but after the initial heavy lift, I found it to be worthwhile. The writing component that accompanied the project demonstrated student understanding of each organelle and their function, and the oral component offered deeper insight into aspects of the assignment that challenged students.

One week after the project was complete I gave a written assessment in which the students had to identify the function of different organelles and write about 3 differences between an animal and a plant cell. While grading this test, I immediately identify a crucial mistake in planning the project: I did not provide a pre-test by which I could accurately measure growth.

PhotoGrid_1432848278237
This is a writing sample from one of my top performing general education students. This student decided to construct a 3-D cell model.
PhotoGrid_1432848098706
This is a sample from a English Language Learner who is also on an Individual Education Plan. While he did not score high on the oral portion of the exam, he did very well with recalling vocabulary and key differences between plant and animal cells.

While I was pleased with how well the class did overall, I could still see a gap between my ELLs and other students. A pretest however would help put this gap into perspective, as I would be able assess the gains of each individual student after the project was completed. It would be naive of me to believe that one project-based learning assignment would erase the gap, but this experience has shown me the value of project-based learning.

These few days were filled with qualitative and quantitative data that amounted to tangle learning in my classroom. The hours of engagement, the rich level of content-based discussion, and the higher order thinking exhibited during this project serve as strong evidence that combination of writing techniques and project-based assignments will result in measurable learning for all students.

Below you can find the Rubrics used in this Project:

Cell Anology Poster Rubric

Cell Model Rubric

Students Helping Students: Peer Evaluation and Feedback in the Classroom

~ Katy Ramón ~ 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2015-05-13 at 11.31.36 AM

In middle school, students care about what their classmates say and think about them.  Often students pay more attention to what peers say and do than to what the teacher says and does.  I wanted to harness our classroom culture of helping and learning from each other with the social influence of peers.  I did this by creating a writing activity that we can use with any piece of student work.  The objective of this activity is for students to evaluate the work of their classmates and provide meaningful student-to-student feedback through writing.  By synthesizing a protocol from the National School Reform Faculty called Making Meaning with Accountable Talk sentence starters, I created a Peer Evaluation Protocol for our middle school students.  My colleagues who teach K-5 at the Gardner Pilot Academy adapted the Peer Evaluation Protocol to make an elementary friendly Peer Evaluation Protocol.

There are a number of underlying beliefs that support this activity.  Some beliefs are backed up by research, and others are grounded in personal observations from my classroom.  First, I believe that math teachers are also writing teachers and math students are writers.  Writing activities must be deliberately planned in math because writing is not a skill that is built in to the curriculum.  Writing in math deepens mathematical understanding and students must be able to communicate their math knowledge through speaking and writing.  They can only do this if we teach them how to and give them plenty of opportunities to practice.

Second, students improve their math skills by evaluating peer work.  There are enormous benefits in making students active participants in the evaluation process.  There are two parts to this:  when a student looks at a peer’s work and learns something new, and when a student’s work is looked at by a peer, given feedback, and the student learns something new.  Indeed, since I began this process, I have noticed students caring more about their work.  I have asked my students, “Are you excited to read what others wrote about your work?”  The answer is always an overwhelming “YES!”

Third, students improve their math skills by receiving feedback from other students.  Giving high quality feedback is challenging for teachers, imagine for students!  However, given the tools, students are capable giving effective feedback and of asking quality questions.  The challenge for teachers, then, is to teach students how to give high quality feedback.  I believe that this includes the skill of students asking quality questions to their peers that will push mathematical reasoning skills.

Fourth, students improve their math skills by engaging in Mathematical Practice Standard 3: Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.  This writing activity is rich in critiquing the reasoning of others.  The last two parts of the protocol require the evaluator to conclude what the student should continue to do and discontinue doing.  Students will read the math strategies of their peers and decide whether it makes sense, ask clarifying questions, and make suggestions for improvement.

In step one, a student looks at the work of another student and writes about what they see.  They are only writing about what they observe, all judgment and opinions are left out of this step.  The sentence starter “I notice…” is suggested for this step.

Step two asks, “What questions does this work raise for you?”  The sentence starter that students can use is “I wonder…” I have found that asking questions about math work is not easy.  We want the questions to be cognitively complex and push students mathematical reasoning skills.  It may be helpful to provide students with question stems.  Here are Depth Of Knowledge questions stems that I have found useful.

Step three asks, “Which math strategies are used?”  At this point, students describe the strategies they see and should be encouraged to use math vocabulary in their description.  Students own their description by starting with the sentence stem “I think…” In the past, I have put a minimum requirement of math vocabulary words that a student must use for this step.

Step four asks, “What should the student do differently next time?”  This is a chance for the evaluator to give some tips.  This step comes near the end of the protocol because students have had a chance to notice and describe, and now they need to develop an opinion and offer advice for how the author can improve.  Some students struggle to give advice to the more advanced students in the class.  However, I try to stress that our best can always get better and that even the most brilliant mathematicians are constantly seeking to improve.

Step five asks, “What should the students be sure to do next time?”  At this final step, the evaluator acknowledges the awesome things they saw.  This is a chance to praise and end on a positive note.

Peer evaluation and feedback is hard work.  The majority of the activity requires higher order thinking skills in the analyzing, generating, integrating, and evaluating categories.  Students are analyzing student work, reflecting on what they see, asking questions about student work, evaluating strategies for correctness and efficiency, summarizing strategies in their own words, and concluding with their opinion about what students should and should not do next time.  As students have more experience using the Peer Evaluation Protocol they develop their ability to ask critical questions and provide meaningful feedback to classmates.  This in turn positively affects everybody’s mathematical reasoning and critical thinking skills.

Screen Shot 2015-05-13 at 11.26.53 AM
After completing the Peer Evaluation Protocol, students were asked, “Do you care about your peer evaluation protocols?” Or alternately, “Are they meaningful to you?” Students overwhelmingly said, “Yes!”

Ideally, this activity will become a routine that is used throughout the school year. Students will improve their writing skills and engage in complex thinking through the peer evaluation protocol.  Students have reported feeling like this work is meaningful as evidenced by the sticky note collage pictured above.  I asked students if they care about their peer evaluations and if they are meaningful to them?  The feedback was powerful and has inspired me to continue this work of students helping students by evaluating each other’s work and giving feedback through writing.

Generating the Right Question

~ alicelaramore ~ 1 Comment

Teachers spend hundreds of hours developing questions for students to answer. We come up with essential questions, comprehension questions, reflection questions, quiz questions, guiding questions, essay questions, and more. But what if, instead of teachers developing the questions, students did that work?

All eighth graders at my school write a research paper on a Civil Rights Hero. To prepare, students have examined primary texts using Facing History and Ourselves’ essential questions: “How do the choices people make, individually and collectively, shape a society?” and “How can individuals and groups in a democracy organize to correct injustice?” Usually, we use those questions as a jumping off point to begin our research and writing.

One of my classes, however, I knew would need a more step-by-step approach to the research process. As I conducted research to support their work, I found The Right Question Institute (suggested by my ever-thoughtful librarian), which suggests that “the ability to produce questions, improve questions and prioritize questions may be one of the most important-yet too often overlooked-skills that a student can acquire in their formal education.”

To jumpstart student thinking about what makes a good question, I taught “little questions” and “BIG questions.” I defined a little question as one that has only one right answer, and the answer is usually a “right there” kind of answer. BIG questions are those with longer answers that are debatable, in which the answer might be different for different people.

Big Questions v Little Questions Was MLK married? MLK Qualities

Then, we worked through a series of questions projected onto the whiteboard. Students stood up and yelled “BIG” if the question was a big question or stayed seated and whispered “little” if it was little. We went through six questions this way, and, after each question, students provided the reasoning for why they classified a particular question as BIG or little. Finally, students were given the opportunity to develop their own questions about our class and share them with the class. The class got to call out whether the questions were BIG or little.

Some gems include:

– Who has the longest tongue in our classroom? (little)

– Should our class win the most improved award for the work we are doing right now? (BIG)

– Why do we even come to school? (BIG)

– What’s for lunch? (little)

After the BIG/little mini-lesson, we practiced generating questions. Students, who already sit in groups of two or three, were given the statement: “Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership created a safer America for people of color.” Then, they were to come up with as many questions as possible in four minutes. When the timer went off, student teams were still generating. I thought about giving them more time, but I wanted them to have that extra time on the real statement, so they “put their pencils down” and picked up a marker. With the marker, they sorted their questions into BIG and little. Then, they chose the best BIG question to share with their peers. We wrote the big questions up and, at the end, evaluated to make sure that they were all truly BIG. Their papers looked like this:

KJ Question Generation

Then, we began the question generation that would lead to the research we would do for our papers. I presented them with this statement: One person’s choices can change the way the whole world works.

And they generated.

I gave them the same four minutes on the timer, with the promise that they could have four extra if they needed them. They used all eight and came up with deep, thoughtful questions. The authenticity of this process brought them much more organically to the research phase and then, eventually, the writing phase.

Students generated these questions as groups and chose diverse activists to research in order to answer their own questions. For example, one group asked, “How can artists change the world?” Those girls did projects on Marian Anderson and Alvin Ailey, trying to put their collective finger on how change was made. Another group asked, “Which is more powerful, the spoken word or the written work?” and embarked on research comparing James Baldwin and Jesse Jackson. A third group asked, “Does it matter what age, race, or gender you are when you are making change?” They did research on Melba Patillo Beals, John Lewis, and Roberto Clemente.

Throughout the research process, students were talking to one another. Although they each turned in separate papers for individual grades, much of the conversation that they had to generate questions, ideas, research strategies, and conclusions took place in their small groups. And, when they were stuck, they always went back to their original question. They sat in their groups in the library, and the common, authentic questions propelled their conversations and their research forward.

CAH Library          SS Library

Through question generation, I saw a different, more organic engagement with the research process. Students understood what information they were looking for and why they were looking for it. Even the organization of the papers was more authentic because students were explaining the answer to a question that they generated.

Finally, I found that my ELLs and my students on Ed Plans were better able to develop thoughtful conclusions a) because they had spoken to one another to generate the question and b) because they were able to continue speaking with each other and comparing the results of their research to reach their conclusions. The result of these conversations was a deep connection to the topic, which was reflected in their final papers and their continued connection to the research topics.

Internalizing the Writing Process: Organizing and Writing

~ Jennifer Dines ~ Leave a comment

Once students have completed the planning stage of the writing process, it is important for teachers to conduct an informal assessment to ensure that their young writers are well-planned and bursting with ideas.

Writers who have effectively completed planning should be able to respond to the following questions:

  •      Why are you going to write this piece?
  •      What genre will your piece be?
  •      Who is your audience?
  •      What do you know about your topic?
  •      What are the most important ideas that you will share in your writing?

An oral assessment in which peers ask and answer questions while the teacher circulates can serve as a great checkpoint before beginning to facilitate organizing. My students have also enjoyed recording their brief interviews with one another via the super-simple online recording tool vocaroo and submitting them via e-mail.  If students do not pass this checkpoint, they require more support and the planning stage should be revisited. After all, how can ideas be organized when there are none?

In order to internalize ways to organize writing, students need to know how to create their own outlines and graphic organizers. However, meeting this goal takes effective teacher modeling as well as practice and repetition. Teacher-created graphic organizers can serve as initial models, but these should be  phased out during the year as students draw them and memorize them. Although it doesn’t make sense for students to memorize a unique organizer for every genre encountered, students should develop the following general repertoire:

  •      a narrative or fiction summary consisting of characters, setting, and major beginning, middle, and end plot points
  •      a non-fiction summary with main idea and at least 3 supporting details
  •      a process writing essay
  •      an enumerative essay
  •      a comparison essay
  •      a contrast essay
  •      a compare and contrast essay
  •      a brief or 5-paragraph essay

A wonderful source for expository graphic organizers is the book From Talking to Writing: Strategies for Scaffolding Expository Expression by Terrill M. Jennings and Charles W. Haynes. This Landmark School publication is an incredible resource on explicit teaching of writing that I use nearly daily in my practice.

Compare and Contrast

At the beginning of the year, I often spend a class period or two using transparencies or chart paper to model using an organizer. For example, when my intermediate ESL class studied World Mythology, students read various myths of Heracles. The students then had to select three episodes from the life of Heracles to write as diary entries. In order to do this, the students needed to create a narrative summary organizer with a detailed list of the important plot points. I used the story of infant Heracles killing the snakes who invaded his nursery to model the organization task on a transparency, showing the students how I continually returned to the text to identify the characters, setting, and plot points. Because the students had read the story prior to this modeling, they were also able to engage in the conversation and orally assist with the completion of the model organizer.

After this demonstration, students had a solid model of how to complete their own organizers for their diary entries. As another checkpoint, I highly recommend collecting and assessing organizers, to ensure that the students now have substance acquired from the planning phase and the structure acquired from the organization phase to finally move on to writing.

Honestly, the writing phase of the writing process is such a joyful moment for me as the facilitator. Before the pleasure of our first “writing” session of the year, I review my norms and expectations with the class.

On our writing days, students must:

  •      come prepared with their planning and organizing documents
  •     have sharpened pencils and working pens
  •      enter the room quietly
  •      write silently for the entire time

Of course, this does not happen perfectly the first time. The first time that we embark upon this journey, I time the class in order to gauge their writing stamina. I also make a rule that students may not get up from their seats for any reason for the first fifteen minutes.

The secret is that, usually, after fifteen minutes have passed, the students have become absorbed in their work, and I get to sit back and watch the fruits of my labor – young writers putting words on paper for an extended period of time. To encourage the children, when fifteen minutes have passed, I walk around quietly and put a small candy next to each child, but I am careful not to interrupt their writing.

When students know why they are writing and have ideas to write about, they are more successful in the writing stage. Students are able to fill a page or two (or even more) with their ideas.

This article is the second in a three part series on the topic of “Internalizing the Writing Process”.