Writing Workshop with Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey

Developing an effective writing programme workshop - Far North Reap 

- Thursday 27th May 2021

Here are some of the big ideas, activities and suggestions from Sheena and Louise, as well as some of my thoughts and reflections.

Key things to remember

• Have realistic goals about how often you will work with the learners (suggestion, one group a day)
• Expose students to a range of texts in reading and writing 
• Repetition is key 
• Chunk it up (the writing process or the piece of writing) 
• Purpose and audience - this is so important for learners to know and understand why they are writing 
• Link reading and writing - shared reading is a great warm up for writing 
• Teach kids to note take 

MY GOAL: To explicitly teach my students how to self check their writing. 

Our curriculum doesn't outline when we need to teach different text types. Teaching the same text type over a long block of time (4 to 6 weeks) is boring and not as engaging for learners. With the younger levels (especially New entrants to Year One), Sheena and Louise suggest we don't focus on text types. Instead, focus on doing something and writing about it. They will learn about using capital letters, full stops and writing the sounds we can hear for example.

Sometimes we go too fast for children. It's not always about the quantity of writing but the quality. Repetition with different contexts is great for children to develop their writing skills and knowledge.

Louise shared about their suggested structure of a lesson. This included a lesson introduction (15mins), independent writing (guided - 20mins) and a lesson wrap up (10mins). She talked about how the wrap up is important because it's that opportunity for children to share as well as give and receive feedback. The students don't always need to finish their writing before the wrap up. Louise also showed us how we could chunk a narrative writing task by showing them a video on day one, children write their introductions and review their writing. The following days they would work on their next two paragraphs and then their conclusion. I already break my writing into planning, drafting, editing and publishing but I haven't been breaking the sections of the writing up. 

Pygmy Seahorse video - could use this for children to practise note taking. You could stop a video and have the children write their notes (gives them a bit more time). Prompting would be used in this time to support learners.

Drama is a great thing to use in writing too. In this example, Louise had shared an image of a cave as a writing prompt. She then had the children act out moving through the cave, This can help children to imagine what it's like actually being in the cave. It can help build vocabulary too. Sheena talked about how research actually shows that movement can support the children's ability to write. If they have had this time to get up and move around, it can help them settle in to writing. 

Sheena and Louise also have a Facebook page where there are lots of ideas and resources. 

In the introduction to writing lessons, you could have children clapping the full stops, making a capital letter with their body, finding sounds, letters or words on their word cards. 

Clear criteria and challenge - visual, memorable and measurable (able to find it or tick it). Don't make children write out the WALT or SC. It's not a good use of time. Children need to understand it but they don't need to write it down. Learners need to practise saying their sentences. Louise talked about a class she worked with and how they used the success criteria to self assess. They had to look back at their books and check if they wrote a sentence, used capital letters, or wrote words they knew. They circled words from their word cards that they wrote in their books too.

Can also use a challenge in writing too. For example, using two adjectives or adding in dialogue. 

Exemplars can be short or long, and really useful. Children really respond when there are exemplars written by others in your class or school. This is something I have done before and it definitely makes using an exemplar more meaningful. 

We looked at a Union of Strength video and Louise showed us how we could use the Hook Book resource to help learners create an effective introduction. In a video , Louise shared the success criteria with learners, and then gave examples of how the writers could hook their reader. She then read out examples and had the children identify if the examples of writing were dialogue, jumping into the action or setting the scene. This was a great example of modelled and shared writing and moving between the two in a lesson introduction. She also talked about how we or the children could put a wiggly line under a word that could be better. 

Self check - read your writing, can you spot three mistakes? Give opportunities for children to celebrate their self checking too. 

Partner checks are great because someone else gets to hear or read your writing and give feedback too. It's also another chance to proofread, edit and review the success criteria. Make sure the author reads their writing while the partner is a respectful listener and then starts their feedback with a positive comment. Next they will give feedback based on the success criteria. Task for learners - look at the last sentence in your partner's work, is it a super sentence? If not, work with your buddy to fix it up. 

Sharing circles - each author reads only one sentence. Doesn't take too long and is a great way to share their writing. 

Punctuation mime - great way to have the children notice the punctuation in a passage as well as helping them know what the punctuation is called. 

Complex sentences create relationships. They explore cause and effect and give the connections of time. For example, I ran to the bus stop BECAUSE I was running late. Now the reader knows why I was running late. 

Overall, a fantastic day packed with learning and lots of reminders about the awesome things we can include in our writing programmes.