Reluctant Writers Lesson Idea and Giveaway!

We are using the Lucy Calkins Units of Study for our writing program, and she really encourages lots of free time for students to just write.  While I love this idea, some of my reluctant writers absolutely do not!  They spend the entire time hemming and hawing over not knowing what to write about, and end up with a sentence if I am lucky after 30 minutes of writing!  

I know that students become better writers by ACTUALLY WRITING, so I am constantly trying to think of ways to spur my reluctant writers on. 

One thing that I have been working on is giving my students mini-lessons with strategies for developing ideas to write about.  One strategy that we use often is the use of a mentor text.  I found this book, I Didn't Do My Homework Because... and I knew my students would LOVE it!

It looked like it might be a fun read, so, I purchased it, but when I read it, I knew I hit a writing mentor text gold mine.

When you open the text it begins with a teacher asking her student why he didn't do his homework.

He begins to list a variety of outrageous excuses.

My students roared with laughter as we read each of his reasons.  When we finished the book, I asked them to think of additional ideas they could add to the book if they were writing a sequel.  My students actually jumped at the chance.

Their ideas were hilarious!  Here a just a few examples...

And one of my favorite pics... look how proud of himself he is!  A full page of writing!  Woo Hoo!

And... before you go, make sure to head over to our giveaways page to enter our current giveaway!

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Martin Luther King - I Have a Dream Mobile

I found this adorable idea for a Martin Luther King I have a Dream Mobile on Scholastic Teacher. I had done a very similar project with my 3rd graders two years ago, but I really liked this format better.

We first read Martin's Big Words so they could better understand who Martin Luther King Jr. was.

This post contains affiliate links. I earn a small commission each time someone makes a purchase using one of my links, which helps to support the blog.  All opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I have used myself and truly love.  

Then they started writing their dreams for themselves, their community, and their world.

An artist in the making!

A star in the making!

a future mathematician?

This one just cracked me up!

Finished Products

And our future Tom Cruise!

I loved reading about their dreams!  Head over to Scholastic to print out this freebie!

Other Martin Luther King Jr. Day Teaching Resources:

Do you need other resources for your Martin Luther King Jr. Day Lessons?  Here are a few:

Martin Luther King Jr. Color by Number   

Martin Luther King Jr. Subitizing Color by Number  

Martin Luther King Jr. Figurative Language Color by Number Worksheets

And, before you go, don't forget to enter our weekly giveaway for teachers!

Turning Reluctant Writers Into Inspired Writers

Our school district recently adopted a new writing curriculum, Lucy Calkins Units of Study.  While this is the first year of our district implementation, it is my 2nd year because I had purchased the units for 4th grade last year myself after hearing rave reviews from my Twitter PLC folks.

The workshop method has dramatically changed the way I approach writing instruction, and I have seen a tremendous change in my students as writers since starting using the program. 

The most exciting part for me has been seeing dramatic changes in my struggling writers.  You know, the ones who could spend 30 minutes writing and have only  sentence or two on the paper.

There are many reasons why students don't like to write including: learning disabilities, boredom, lack of the necessary sub skills of writing, poor muscle control, and/or lack of interest in the writing prompt.  No matter what the underlying reason, students who struggle as writers generally dislike the practice of writing, but it is the practice that they desperately need to become better writers. 

I have found the conferencing with students aspect of Writer's Workshop to be the best place to encourage all of my writers.  Recently, I have seen a great change in two of my most reluctant writers because of comics.  Yes comics!  No, comics are not included in the Units of Study, but as a teacher, I felt that it was the direction I needed to turn to in order to help these two particular students.

 During the research stage of my conferences I noticed that these two students did not have a lot of writing in their writer's notebooks, but they did have an overabundance of these little doodles.

So, I googled comic strip paper and found these.

 

I printed them out and made a ton of copies.  I introduced them to the class as a whole and let them know that they would be an option during writing workshop if they chose to use them.  Then, I put them at the writing center and waited.  Sure enough, the two boys that I had in mind gravitated right to them!

At my next writing conference with one of them he was excited to show me his work.  The previous conference included tons of hemming and hawing and excuses about a missing writer's notebook, but this time he raced to my table.

You can already see an amazing change in the detail he has included in his work compared to what he had drawn in his writer's notebook!  It was almost as if he felt validated because of the comic paper!

I let him continue writing like this for a little bit, and then I said to him at a conference. "I have figured out what kind of writer you are!"  I grabbed a copy of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and told him that I thought he was a writer just like Jeff Kinney.  He was the type of writer who used BOTH words and comics to tell a story!  Lucy Calkins DOES advise using mentor texts during instruction.

 Then I pulled out a Big Nate book.  I again told him that he was a writer like Lincoln Peirce.

He got so excited and raced over to his book box and grabbed out this book.  He said, "That's what I was thinking too!"

Here is his latest piece:

I had him share this piece with the class during our sharing time of Reader's Workshop one day.  His smile was ear to ear as the students showered him with compliments:

"I love how he told the story bit by bit."

" I love how he used dialogue."

" I love how he used precise language to tell us how the zombie said it, he said it hungrily."

At recess he came up to me out of nowhere, gave me a big hug and ran off to play!

The best part of his new found love of writing is that has also transferred to his reading!  He was reading below grade level in August and is now reading two grade levels ahead!  He is a voracious reader who has to be told to put his book down now when we change activities!

 

And the other boy?  A few days after starting to use the comic strips he flashed this note at me during math practice (we use white boards to show our answers).

Although I did what any other teacher would do and asked him to please solve the problem I had just given, I also snapped a picture with my iphone so we could discuss it at his writing conference.

I told him, "If you have Minecraft Fever, then you must write about it!"

 

And he did!

If your students have Minecraft fever, you may want to check out this post about how I used Minecraft to help my students practice their math facts!

Publishing Party

This year our school has adopted Lucy Calkins' units of study for our writing instruction.  I had used them a little bit last year, but I am seeing even better results this year!  We just finished up our narrative unit and celebrated with our publishing party.  The kids were so excited!  Warning, this post is a bit picture intensive, but I have a few tips for getting your students to self edit and revise.

Students gave each other feedback to make their written pieces better as we worked on revising and publishing.  This year has been AMAZING for revision.  The past two years seemed like pulling teeth when I asked students to revise, but now they are eager to.  One difference  is that we literally cut and paste.  Instead of rewriting a piece, they cut paper and tape it into the story where they need to revise.  They LOVE this!

 

An illustrator hard at work!

 

 We glued our finished pieces into "books" made of construction paper to make them a bit fancier.

 

One thing that I changed this year about editing, is that I had them edit it themselves.  I used to look at their work, make changes, and then have them rewrite (after tons of groans, eye rolling, and protests).  Unfortunately, the corrections never stuck and they made those same mistakes in later pieces.  During our training, we learned that students really need to do the editing in order to learn, and more importantly transfer that skill to other pieces.

 When they came to me to edit their work, I handed them a colored pen and told them to underline any words they thought they misspelled, or places where they thought they had made punctuation errors. They really re-read their pieces and made changes as they found them.  So much better!  For the spelling errors, I handed them a dictionary and showed the ones who were able to type how to use spell check in Word.

 

Look at the concentration.  Remember, the one doing the heavy lifting is the one doing the learning!

 Making changes as she reads.

They were so proud of their work!

When the pieces were done, the students each read 4 pieces and gave positive feedback to the author (on the sticky notes).

 

Then I hung them on our "bulletin board" of lockers.

 

Chapters??? Are you kidding me?  Woo hoo!  Last year some of mine struggled to write a paragraph.

Specific feedback.

It says, "I liked the way you used punctuation."

And what would a publishing party be like without a "little" food.  Getting nervous about our Halloween party though!

 

And the very best part?  I got my first book dedication.  Love it!