TEACHING ADOLESCENT WRITERSKELLY GALLAGHER

Laura Yaeger IU5 April 6, 2011

What Would You Do?A) Lying down and curling up, covering your head

with your armsB) Running directly at the bulls, screaming wildly and

flailing your arms in an attempt to scare them in another direction

C) Turning and running like heck in the same direction the bulls are running (even though you know you cannot outrun them)

D) Standing completely still; they will see you and run around you

E) Screaming bad words at your parent(s) for insisting on a back-to-nature vacation in Wyoming

What Would You Do?A) Go home, curl up on the sofa, play video games

and hope the demands of the literacy stamped go away.

B) Stare the Information Age in the face, screaming wildly and flailing your arms in an attempt to make it go away.

C) Elevate your reading and writing abilities to the point that you can run with the literacy stampede.

D) Stand completely still. Pray that the Information Age will avoid you.

E) Scream bad words at your parent(s) for conceiving you in the shadow of a literacy stampede.

If kids don’t write more than three times a week, they’re dead.

-Donald Graves

1. Let Them Mess Around With Writing

Daily in-class writing activities Quick writes Brainstorming

2. Write as a chance to consolidate and review ideas and experiences

The Grocery List Theory Exit slips SDQR Chart Movie Reading

3. Write to reformulate and extend knowledge

It doesn’t always have to be about demonstrating knowledge. Free response Looping Pass-the-reflections Conversation logs

4. On-Demand Writing

Attack the promptBrainstorm possible answersChoose the order of your response

Detect errors before turning the draft in

Kelly’s Rules for ABCD

Quarter 1-Repeated practice until students are able to complete A, B, and C in seven minutes or less. They haven’t yet actually written the on-demand essay.

Quarters 2-4-Students write an on-demand essay every third Friday, resulting in ten on-demand essays using the ABC format by the end of the year. D items become mini-lessons.

Encouraging Writing

1. Move beyond the Grecian Urn approach.

2. Adopt a 4:1 grading policy.3. Talk the paper out.4. Model how to create a map before writing.

5. Allow for choice within given topics.

First Draft Philosophy in Kelly’s Class

It is a requirement to produce a lot of bad writing.

Before you can get it right you have to get it down.

The first draft is a “sneeze.”

Modeling to Drive Better Revision

The Patti Stock mini-lessonPimp My Write, make me a

SubstituteTake things outAddRearrange

The Last Word

For many students, “make them better” is interpreted as recopying neatly. I caution them that making a paper better is not the same as making it correct. Right now I want them to revise the paper and show how the second draft is better than the first.

-Kelly Gallagher