Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 12: Make Every Minute Count

Ch. 12: Make Every Minute Count

When it comes to writing instruction it is important to make the best use of the time you have. The time that we have to teach at school is precious and every minute counts. Regie recommends teaching what’s important and teaching in a way that students value the instruction and the opportunities they have to write and to learn. Students should have plenty of time to write freely for creativity and to develop fluency. They should also be challenged and meet expectations while setting goals for themselves.

I’ve learned that a great way to make your instructional time count is to make sure students feel they are in a safe environment where they can be themselves and take appropriate risks. My positive classroom climate is one of the first things my principal comments on when he observes me. It is usually very obvious that my students feel comfortable around me and in my classroom. I think that I’m very good at relating to my students at a professional and personal level. It is clear that I am their teacher, but I also share appropriate information with them about my personal life, including my likes/dislikes and stories about my family and things that have happened in my life. My students also feel like they can share their stories with me. It’s nice to know that we can communicate with each other comfortably and I’ve learned that communicating in this way can really help teaching and learning come much easier and be a richer experience. It also helps me know when my students are struggling and in what areas they may need help, as well as when they are excelling and it is time for celebration.

To help students understand what good writers do, Regie Routman recommends developing a list with students by discussing, writing, and posting ideas about good writers. I’d like to try this with my students next year to get them thinking about what makes a good writer and what they can do to make the best use of their writing time. This list might include things like- thinking about writing, rereading, writing for a reader, getting feedback, striving for accuracy, revising/editing, getting your message across, etc. I think if students know what they are aiming for during writing time they will be more likely to set goals and make the best use of their time. I’ve never really had a list like this for students to refer to before and I think that developing it together (with my students) could be beneficial as students would hopefully want to follow their own guidelines to good writing.

I am one of those teachers who spend 12 hours a day at school…almost every day. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m doing there so late! A lot of the time I am there making SMART notebook pages for lessons, planning for the next day, or grading papers. Regie recommends asking yourself if what you are doing after school so long is REALLY worth your time and is really benefiting student learning. I’d have to say that some of the things I do really are worth it and really do benefit my students, but some things that I do after school seem to take so much time and don’t really pay off in the end. For example, sometimes I spend time writing up a sample paper for my students to see before they write something similar. This is a waste of time because students need to watch me as I write that example and observe my thinking and writing throughout the process. I also grade way too many papers. My coworkers have told me that for a while and Regie also makes it sound like you can spend too much time grading when it’s not really necessary. I worry a lot about having several grades in the grade book, but I’ve learned that especially with writing it’s more important to conference with students and give feedback without pen on paper. Students also need time to practice before they are evaluated- instead of being graded constantly.

Regie explains that most students do not even read written comments or suggestions on paper. This is so true! I’ve seen so many students throw papers away or just put them into their mailbox for parents to see without even looking at them. If they’re not going to look at my comments and read them, I am obviously wasting my time writing them on their paper. They are more likely to internalize what I’ve talked to them about and the feedback that I’ve given them verbally in a conference. I still need to read my students’ writing and give them feedback, but I think I may need to reconsider the way I do this.

This book gives some good advice about ways to save time and make the most out of writing instruction. One thing I need to do is focus on writing in the classroom EVERY day and in multiple subject areas. I’d also like to put writing instruction closer to the beginning of the day so it doesn’t get skipped over if I run out of time in the afternoon. Integrating test prep and basic skills into context is a good way to reduce test anxiety and make learning more meaningful for students. Raising expectations of your students and having good classroom management is also very important for using time wisely. With better classroom management and higher expectations you can anticipate better spelling, handwriting, and overall effort from your students.

I think my favorite part of this chapter was when I read that teachers need to live their lives! Sometimes during the school year I feel like I don’t have a life. I’ve seriously considered bringing a cot into my classroom so I can just sleep there at night! Okay…maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I really feel like I spend more hours at school than I do at home. Regie makes me feel like I don’t have to keep working like that. If I can learn to be an excellent teacher of writing by following her advice, I can make the most out of the students’ learning time and my teaching time so we can all have more free time to do what we want after school and “live our lives”!

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Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 11: Build on Best Practice and Research

Ch. 11: Build on Best Practice and Research

In this chapter of Regie’s book I learned that I really need to keep up with the newest research and be more of a leader for writing instruction at my grade level, in my school, or even in my district. We haven’t had much professional development on writing instruction in my school and I feel like we need more. If only we could have Regie Routman stop by! As of now we teach what is in our curriculum and use a program that is pretty traits-based. We have specific pieces of writing in designated genres that students do throughout the year. Most of the writing students do is assigned by us. In third grade some of the main projects students do are- write about a special friend/person/place, write a research report, create poems, write a persuasive essay, and write/demonstrate a “how to” instructional piece. Although we do give students choices within the topics, we are still telling them what to write and when. I know that I personally do not give my students enough time to free-write or quick-write. My students last year even asked for that time, but I felt like when I gave it to them it was wasted, so I kind of gave up on it. Research shows that writing everyday for a sustained period of time is good for the development of fluency. It also proves that free-writing with choice for a purpose and specific audience helps students value writing as a whole. Obviously I need to change my mindset, increase my expectations, and manage my class better so I can include this free-writing time for my students.

I’ve learned that teaching reading and writing together are considered “best practice”. Last year one of my coworkers started teaching the two together in the morning after a book that she’d read explained its importance. I didn’t read that book and wasn’t sure of the benefits, so I didn’t change my schedule to combine the two subjects. After reading this book and finding some of the research results, I’ve learned that reading and writing support each other. Good readers are often good writers and vice-versa. I’ve also learned that you can use shared writing experiences for your guided reading instruction, so next year I may try to switch my schedule around to place reading and writing next to each other during the day.

Regie recommends adopting the practices and habits of highly effective teachers. I’m happy to see that I am already doing some of the things that she listed, but there is also a lot I still need to work on. I already talk with my colleagues daily and as a professional learning community we talk about how we can improve our instruction in all areas, including writing. I feel like I am a pretty good communicator with my students and with stakeholders in their education, including their parents. I try to meet with students for conferences (whether they are one-on-one or quick roving) and I use what I learn from those conferences to help guide my instruction. For example, if I notice a lot of students are struggling with finding exciting ways to start a paper, I will teach a mini-lesson on that the next day. I have a lot of great books in my classroom library, but I do feel like I need to organize it a little better- maybe by genre, subject, or author. All of these are already strengths of mine or are becoming strengths.

There were some traits of highly effective teachers that I feel I need to improve on. I definitely want to do more shared writing with my students. I want them to hear me think aloud and watch me write. I’d also like to start sharing more of my own writing that I do outside of school so students can see that writing is a life-long process that is not only done as school work. Reading Regie’s book is a good start for learning about best practice and research-based teaching strategies, but I need to continue to stay up to date with research. I’d also like to talk to my principal to see if there’s any way we can have more professional development related to writing instruction. One thing I never get to do that I would really like to do is observe another teacher, or several teachers. I am always so busy teaching my own students and working over my plan time that I never really have or take the opportunity to observe other teachers. I’d like to try to make time for this next year so I can see what other teachers are doing in the classroom. Maybe we can all learn from each other!

I like the idea of charting what you’ve been doing with writing, the new strategies you try, and how the new strategies change writing as a whole. I think I need to wait and do this after I implement some of these new ideas next year, but I look forward to seeing all the changes that may be possible. Some goals that I have for next year include adding more modeling and shared demonstrations to my instruction, giving students more free-write time, and helping students visualize an audience/reader for their messages. I’d also like to make more time for the sharing and celebration of writing and for different types of conferences with my students.

Regie writes a lot about developing a school-wide vision when it comes to writing instruction. If our school has a vision when it comes to writing, I honestly don’t really know what it is. I just know that we follow the curriculum guidelines and use the resources we have to develop lesson plans that follow those guidelines. We also have students write in various genres throughout the year and keep samples for their portfolios. I feel like my coworkers and I work really well as a grade level team when it comes to planning instruction, but even as a grade level we’ve felt that writing is the hardest subject to plan. All of the grade level teams work together to develop their plans, but we don’t really meet with other grade levels or meet as a school to discuss writing instruction. Usually when we have staff meetings we discuss things like back to school night, parent-teacher conferences, or the Kansas reading and math assessment- along with other various things that are going on in school at the time. We rarely meet to talk specifically about writing instruction. It would be interesting to see what kinds of professional discussions would come up if we did meet regarding writing instruction. I’d also like to see what the overall school vision is for writing and how the other teachers feel about it.

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Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 10: Make Assessment Count

Ch. 10: Make Assessment Count

In this chapter I learned that assessment should improve the quality of students’ writing, but unfortunately in most cases it doesn’t. Standardized tests hold students, teachers, and schools accountable, but they also do not improve instruction and learning. As teachers our forms of assessment should be helpful to students and should lead us to instructional decisions to improve student learning. I have been using a six trait rubric to assess my students’ writing. I usually only use the six trait rubric for formal assignments that students spend a lot of time completing. I think this is okay, yet Regie mentions in her book that rubrics like the one I use an also turn programs into isolated trait-teaching programs. I must admit that the program I use involves teaching mini-lessons about the traits in isolation over a period of several weeks and the rubric I use measures how the students are performing with the traits.

Next year I’d like to make more child-friendly rubrics like the examples Regie has in her book. I think this will be more beneficial to my students because the language will be easier for them to understand and the expectations will be clearer. I think that child-friendly rubrics are also more parent-friendly as well because they take away the school and writing lingo and put it into plain words and language that’s easy to understand. I teach third grade, so the child-friendly rubric on p. 241 is a perfect example for me to base my new rubric off of. I think that having the kids help you develop a rubric is a great idea too because they can tell you what they think makes good writing and should be expected as you can also state your own expectations.

There are many different types of rubrics that can be used- content, evaluation, holistic, analytic, formal/informal, and state/district/school/class. Most of the rubrics I use are evaluation and analytical rubrics. The same rubrics are used by the other third grade teachers as well. I think that we could use these rubrics to drive our instruction, but we don’t. We score our students’ papers with the rubric, but we should take more time to analyze the scores and look at our students’ papers to determine what needs to be taught in the next mini-lesson, etc. I feel like we are scoring students, but we’re not really scoring our own teaching at the same time. We need to look for trends where students are strong or weak in certain areas and improve instruction for the areas that students need help with.

I like Regie’s idea of not having to score all of the students’ writing. Sometimes I feel like I have to score most of my students’ writing so I can have enough grades in the grade book, but I’ve learned that grading everything can be stressful for students and stifle their freedom and creativity through writing. Grading all of the writing done in class also takes a lot of time on my part, so knowing that all of it does not have to be graded is kind of a relief. I’ve learned that students need to have plenty of practice before being critiqued. They also need more than just a score when they are critiqued- they need to have feedback.

Regie Routman claims that excellent teaching is the best test prep you can give to your students. It’s funny because you don’t hear that very often. I feel like I’m supposed to teach the traits and teach testing strategies to prepare students for the writing assessment, but Regie says that doing so can take the fun out of writing. Overemphasizing the big test can be stressful for students and teachers. Traits and strategies should still be taught, but they should be taught through content rather than in an isolated way. I think I need to change my mindset and start teaching with more shared demonstrations and whole-to-part-to-whole instruction. I also need to focus more on making writing joyful for students so testing does not become so much of a stressor. One thing that was mentioned in the book is that students who are taught to the test often feel “done” with writing once the test is over. I completely see this in our school once our Kansas assessments are over. The kids seem to think that because the “big test” is over that school is over too. It’s hard to get their attention and focus after that, but Regie makes it sound like if you do not overemphasize the test and you teach writing in a fun way that focuses on students’ messages, the “after test” attitudes may not be so bad.

I really like how Regie mentions talking to students about the audience/reader when they have to write and answer prompts for a test. She gives an example of how she actually told her students the “name” of a scorer in the past and told them she would be bored and underpaid, looking for excitement in their writing to wake her up. I think if you can get your students to picture someone in their head reading the message they are writing, you can probably build their motivation. Without allowing them to visualize the reader/audience, they just see their writing being sent away and then returned later without a purpose.
When I have quiet writing time or “sustained writing” in my classroom I feel like some of my students just sit there or get off-task and start talking to their neighbors instead of writing. Regie claims that students should be able to write a whole page in 20-30 minutes. I really need to get into gear! I can say that a few of my students last year would’ve been able to accomplish that task, but a lot of them could not, or did not. I don’t know if they really couldn’t or if I just wasn’t firm enough on my expectations. I think that I need to improve my classroom management and be more explicit about my expectations. Letting my students know what is expected from the beginning and holding strong to those expectations will hopefully keep them writing longer which will build fluency.

Regie recommends assessing student writing every day. This does not have to be done with one-on-one conferences all the time. It can also be done through roving conferences, student shares, and observations of students using anecdotal notes. I do most of my assessments with roving conferences and with the use of rubrics. I’d like to do what Regie recommends though and start preparing students to do more self assessment. I need to do this by modeling how I assess my own writing, charting what good writers do, teaching rereading for revision, and evaluating writing samples with my students. Independent writers know what good writing looks like and they know how to reread and assess their own work. A goal for teachers should be to help their students get to a point where they can write and self-assess independently.

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Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 9: Conference with Students

Ch. 9: Conference with Students

According to Regie Routman, conferences can be used for many purposes- celebrating students’ writing, validating what has been done, encouraging students, nudging them to try something new, teaching a skill, assessing their writing, and setting goals. A variety of conference types can be used and they can be formal or informal. I think that most of the conferencing I do with my students is informal and involves walking around the room talking to students as they work through the writing process. Sometimes I spend most of my time with struggling writers, but I need to find more time to confer with all of my student writers. In this chapter Regie Routman recommends different types of conferences that can be used to reach all learners.

One type of conference that I have never done before is a whole-class share. I was very interested to read more about this. A whole class share is where one student has a conference with the teacher while all others watch, listen, and have opportunities to give feedback. The student’s writing is celebrated first and then the teacher and students support that writer by giving feedback, ideas, and advice. Teachers can choose specific students who have used a strategy that was taught or who tried something new with their writing. I can see how this type of conference would benefit students because the entire class gets to see what a good conference looks like. They can also listen to find out what important things you should look for in good writing. One thing that could be difficult in a whole class share is holding all of the students’ attention. Classroom management would be very important in making a whole class share effective. I would want all of my students to be engaged and learning about writing during the process. You would definitely need to teach and model good listening skills.

A quick-share is another type of conference that I can really picture myself using in the classroom. Quick-sharing can increase the amount of students who share in a short time period. It is also a way to have a conference when you don’t have a lot of time. The student or teacher can read one part or line of the student’s writing that was done very well. This part of the writing may be great because the child had good word choice, tried something new, used humor, or touched the reader. Sharing the line or part of the story is quick, but it also shows the class what good writing looks like so they can attempt it. Quick-shares can be done in front of the whole class or with students working together in pairs to share. I’d like to try these quick-shares by having my students all pick out a favorite line or part of their story to read for the class. Sharing would be optional, but with quick-shares I could possibly have all students share in just a week during writing time. You could also do quick-shares by having all students pick a favorite line or part of their story, do a stand up-hand up-pair up, and then share together. This way you could have all students share in a matter of minutes!

Roving conferences are what I mostly do in my classroom. These are quick conferences that are done “on the run” as you walk through the classroom. You can have a one-on-one conference with all students this way, but they are very brief. With roving conferences you can quickly see where students are in the writing process- who needs help starting, who is doing well, who needs encouragement, and who needs extra instruction/guidance. One thing I don’t really do during roving conferences is take notes on my students and where they are at in the process. Regie recommends keeping notes on each child and their progress so you can go back to them for one-on-one conferences or extra instruction when needed. Next year I will try to be more organized with this and have a form to use for recording notes on each child’s progress.

Regie recommends scheduling one-on-one conferences only with students who are ready for them or who really need your help. I’d like to make a chart with my students during shared writing time next year to document what it takes to be ready for a one-on-one conference. I would take students’ ideas and also add my own which would include Regie’s suggestions- do everything good writers do, make it your best, reread several times for clarity/organization, follow directions, and complete all requirements. If students are not completely finished with all of the items on the list, I will still conference with students who are really stuck and need help moving forward with their writing. Like roving conferences, I need to be better at taking notes on my students and their progress. I think I may try to keep a notebook specifically for writing conferences that I can use to take anecdotal notes about my students including their strengths and the difficulties they face in writing.

I think that peer conferencing is a great way to ensure that all students can have a conference. The only thing about peer conferencing that is tough is making sure that students are conferencing in a productive way. I think that I need to model conferences for my students more often so they can see what a peer conference should look like. I think sometimes I just tell them to peer conference and give them a checklist to use while they do it, but they’ve never really seen it done. Next year I plan to model all of these different conference types so my students can really feel comfortable with them and understand how they work. To model a peer conference I may start by leading a conference with a child in front of the class acting as the peer. I would show students how to listen, compliment, and give feedback. I would also ask the student thoughtful questions so my students could see what that looks like. After that I might have two students that are really comfortable with the process model peer conferencing for the class. I think that if my whole class sees two students conferencing correctly and productively, they will also gain confidence in the process. Peer conferencing will be very useful if I want all of my students to have a conference, but I only have time for a one-on-one with a few students. All of my students can still make the time that I am with individuals productive on their end.

Regie recommends having editing conferences last to avoid interrupting the flow of writing throughout the process. Students should not have an editing conference with the teacher until they’ve done their best job and have reread their piece several times to correct it. I am guilty of helping my students edit their work before they have truly done their best job. A lot of times they will tell me they’ve done the best they can and even though I feel they could do more, I still help them. This teaches them to rely on someone else to fix their mistakes and I need to stop teaching them that! I’ve learned in this chapter that if I find two or more errors in a child’s work that he/she can fix on his/her own, I need to send that child back to reread and fix it. I need to set expectations about editing early on in the year and continue to enforce them each time we write. Regie states that by second grade students are capable of editing their work. I teach third grade, so my students should be more than capable. I need to push them a little more to really do their best work during the editing process. Students can peer edit as well and I need to improve how I model and demonstrate peer editing for students so they have a better understanding of how it works. I think that if I really help my students see how the editing process works they will gain confidence in editing each other’s work and will make peer editing more productive in the classroom. I need to work harder as a teacher to help my students gain the writing independence they will need to be successful in their lives.


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Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 8: Organize for Daily Writing

Ch. 8: Organize for Daily Writing

This chapter discusses what writing workshop really is and how you can include more writing in your daily schedule. I’ve always heard people use phrases like “writer’s workshop” to describe their writing time in class, but I never really understood what was different about writer’s workshop than regular writing time or instruction. It really just seems like a fancy name for it. I’ve learned that writing workshop includes everything that’s done to create a meaningful piece of writing. It does not have to be focused on traits/skills or taught in order of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Writing workshop is sustained daily writing that is done with purpose and for an audience. It can include conferences, celebration, and instruction by the teacher and it usually involves publishing text for a real audience.

In a writing workshop students write for specific purposes and audiences. The teacher gives demonstrations and gradually releases responsibility to students using the optimal learning model. The teacher’s job in a writer’s workshop is to celebrate students’ writing, respond to questions, evaluate writing, teach new skills, conference with students, and help them move forward with their writing. I feel like I do most or all of these things, but I’ve just never really called it a “writing workshop” or “writer’s workshop”. I also may not do these things to the best of my ability. I need to improve the way I teach and demonstrate writing by including more shared writing in my instruction. I also want to include more conferencing with students, consisting of group, peer, and one-on-one meetings. Celebrating leaps and bounds in the writing process is very important, so I plan to give my students more opportunities to share their writing in the author’s chair.

Regie Routman recommends including writing into your schedule for forty-five minutes a day, at least four days a week. I try to include thirty minutes of writing instruction into my schedule each day, but I must admit, it does not always happen. I think that the standardized testing of reading and math skills tends to put math and reading at the top of our priority list when it comes to scheduling. When I feel like I need more time for reading or math, writing/spelling or science/social studies usually takes the back seat. I need to try to change this mindset because according to Regie, putting off writing for several days can create a writer’s block or disturb the flow of writing for students.


One thing I do in my classroom to ensure that students have worthwhile topics to write about is have them create a list of things that they know a lot about, care a lot about, and want to learn more about. This list is kept in their writing folder throughout the year to help them choose topics. They can also continue to add items to their list as they think about them throughout the year. After choosing a topic, children need to plan out how they will write their papers. Creating webs and extravagant forms for planning writing is apparently not very sensible because it can exhaust students before they even begin writing. I have my students make webs sometimes and I can see that some students become more confused and frustrated with writing before the actual process even starts. I’ve learned that children can plan their writing by simply talking aloud, drawing pictures, writing down notes, or just thinking as they go. Honestly, when I write, I usually think as I go, reread what I’ve written, think again, and then add more content. I almost never create a web. Sometimes I don’t even list or organize my ideas first- I do this as I go along by cutting and pasting. I need to use more common sense when teaching my students to plan for their writing as well. I need to show them various different strategies to use so they can decide what works best for them.

I’ve learned a lot about writing instruction from this book and plan to incorporate what I’ve learned into my instruction. I need to do more free-writes because students enjoy writing about topics of their choice without concern for grammar and conventions. I also need to do more demonstration and shared writing activities so my students can observe and gain understanding of the writing process. Adding conversations about writing into writer’s workshop time can give students ideas before writing and can model the thinking process that goes along with planning and writing. Conversations can be as simple as conversing with one student in front of the class or having students converse with one another in groups or in pairs. Having conversations about writing can encourage students to take risks in their writing and feel like more confident writers. Sometimes I have conversations and conferences with individuals about their writing, but I rarely model a conversation for the class. I’d like to try to do this next year.

Regie Routman recommends including writing in all subject areas, rather than just limiting it to writer’s workshop. I feel like I do this already as I often have students respond to our daily reading, journal about the daily math lesson, or write what they’ve learned about a science/social studies topic. When you incorporate writing into your daily schedule like this, you can get more writing into your day than you think. I have a thirty minute time set aside for writing each day, but when I think about all of the extra times we write in class, I realize I really may be hitting that forty-five minute mark that Regie recommends.

Organizing daily writing and getting in the appropriate amount of writing involves careful planning and good classroom management. Classroom management is something that I feel like I struggle with at times. I have routines, procedures, and expectations in my classroom, but I feel like I need to be more consistent and firm about them. I also need to model behavior and have students model expected behaviors for the class more often. I try to do this at the beginning of the year and come back to them when our class is having trouble following the guidelines. I think that I need to include more procedures than just the general ones when we model them. Regie recommends modeling what it should look like to get supplies, sharpen pencils, sign out for the restroom, confer with a peer, ask for help, etc. These are more than just the general procedures that occur in the classroom and students need to know how to perform these tasks appropriately and respectfully during writing time. Creating a chart with students to document what writing time should look like and sound like can also help by giving students expectations to refer to during writing time.

Behaviors that are modeled can also include writing behaviors. Students need to see the teacher and other students demonstrate appropriate writing behaviors including writing legibly, skipping lines, including the date, etc. I try to model these before we begin a writing project. When students write they need to have very few distractions. They should also be organized and prepared for writer’s workshop. In my classroom students have a writing journal that they use for rough drafts and a folder that they use for final copies and important lesson information. Regie recommends using a three ring binder for students and separating it into topics of minilesson notes, writing forms, drafts, genres, and published pieces. This is a great idea and would be very helpful to students, although I’m not sure if I can add another binder set of dividers to our supply list as we already have the parents buy one large binder and dividers for all subject areas. I think that we can make do with the folder and spiral as we also have a writing divider in our general notebook.

Regie Routman recommends simplifying genre teaching and teaching more nonfiction. Genre study can be simplified by using more child-friendly language at the beginning of a study and adding the labels to it later. Schools can decide which genres will be introduced at what grade levels and then they can be revisited each grade level after that. Our district has curriculum guidelines for the types of published pieces students should create at each grade level so that genres are introduced at certain levels and practiced at others. More practice with each genre continues throughout the grades. Nonfiction writing is so important because most of what our students read and write is fictional. Students should have many opportunities to read nonfiction text and explore text features such as the table of contents, graphs, pictures, and captions. The more exposure students have with nonfiction text, the more easily nonfiction writing will come to them. I’d like to do more shared writing experiences with my students next year in general, but if I can incorporate nonfiction writing into some of these experiences, it should help my students understand nonfiction and feel more confident reading and writing in the genre.

I really enjoy assigning shorter pieces of writing to my students and Regie Routman recommends doing this because it takes less time and is easier to publish. I like that students are able to see the final product more quickly and can practice writing without being too overwhelmed. One mistake that I make when assigning shorter pieces of writing is that I do not focus enough on editing and revising. Sometimes the students write one copy and they’re done. I need to take advantage of shorter pieces of writing by using them to practice revising and editing skills. Using shorter pieces to do this would be less overwhelming to students and would help them apply the skills to larger pieces of writing. Some short pieces of writing that I’d like to try with my students include the book of compliments and student snapshots.

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Regie Routman's Writing Essentials- Ch. 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

Ch. 7: Be Efficient and Integrate Basic Skills

This chapter discusses the importance of focusing on the meaningful teaching of writing rather than teaching to the test or to specific skills. Working on a whole piece of writing should occur first, and then you can go back to the students’ writing to look at the individual skills and parts. Regie Routman described teaching skills before writing as being like giving a child a puzzle and telling him to put it together without giving him the whole picture to look at. From this I think that she means we should have students write a meaningful piece first, then they can look at that whole piece of meaningful writing (like the picture of a puzzle) and break apart the individual pieces (or skills and parts) of the writing to examine and fix them.

I’ve learned that doing skills-based worksheets and drills cannot easily be applied to real writing by students. At our school we tend to teach minilessons on the traits where students then do a worksheet to practice utilizing that trait. For example, if we are talking about organization, we will show examples of organized and non-organized writing, have students help us organize a sample piece of writing, and then have students work with a partner to organize sample writing. After that the students write their own small piece to practice the organization trait. I’ve learned that using this strategy is not really what Regie Routman recommends in her book because this focuses on the trait of organization before students have actually written their own piece to organize. Although we use something like the optimal learning model Regie discusses, we are still teaching in a part-to-whole way instead of whole-to-part-to-whole.

Regie explains that the quality of writing often improves when you have students work with real audiences and write meaningful text. I’ve noticed in my classroom that students tend to write more and write well when they are interested in what they’re writing. When I give assignments that students are not interested in, I do not get near the effort from them. I get frustrated when I see that my students are not trying their best, but I obviously need to start looking at my own teaching and what I am assigning as well. If I start giving my students more choice in their writing and help make assignments more interesting and meaningful I should start noticing more effort and better quality work on their part.

Focusing on meaningful writing and writing for a desired or specific audience can help bring out voice in students’ writing. I’ve learned that voice is not really something that can be taught as a separate subject. At my school we’ve shown and read students examples of stories with good voice and tried teaching it with those examples, but I’ve learned that students need to write on their own and then we need to point out when and where they are using good voice in their writing. As teachers we also need to be sure that we are being ourselves in front of our students. When we write and think aloud for our students we need them to hear the way that we put our own personality into our writing. We need to show them who we are and tell them our stories as we put them on paper.

In this chapter Regie Routman explains the importance of telling your students why things are being done in class. In college classes (as adults) we want to know the purpose of the assignments we must complete. We want to know that we can apply the skills we are learning to real-life situations. Our students want to know the same details. They want to know that what they do in class will be meaningful and useful in their daily lives. It is important that we keep this in mind when we are teaching and demonstrating writing for our students. We must make sure that what we are teaching can be used throughout our students’ lives and we must teach them why we are showing them certain techniques. If our students value the purpose of the assignments they are doing in class, they will be more likely to internalize the knowledge and apply it again.

If you teach writing effectively you can surpass standard and skill requirements because they can be met through your writing instruction. An idea that I really liked from Regie’s book was that of the chart or list of “what good writers do”. I think that this list could be made with your students as you evaluate text and talk about the important things that you see. For example- use descriptive words, sound like who you are, make beginnings exciting and endings something to remember. I’d like to make a list like this with my students next year so they can refer to it when they write. This could be a reminder to them of what good writers do and what they are capable of doing when they write.

We teach a lot of minilessons at my school which is fine, but we need to make sure that those lessons are useful and meet our students’ writing needs. When we teach minilessons we usually teach them because they cover the standards and curriculum. I don’t think we relate our minilessons enough to what our students need at specific points in the writing process. We need to create and teach minilessons based on what our students need help with at that point in their writing. For example, if many students seem to just end their stories with “that’s all” or “the end”, a minilesson on making a more creative ending/conclusion would be a good choice. Teaching in this way is more conducive to learning as students can use the information they learn right away in their writing, rather than try to remember it for another time.

Revision is probably the most difficult thing for my students as a whole. When I ask my students to reread their writing and go back to make changes, they just don’t seem to get it. That is probably mostly my fault. I need to make sure that I teach them to care about revising for their reader and for themselves. First of all I need to be sure they are writing for a real audience and that the writing is meaningful to them. Then I need to teach them how to revise by demonstrating the revision of my own writing for them during our shared writing time. I don’t think I’ve ever really done this! I’ve shown them a few examples here and there, but it is usually with writing samples that are not even my own. I can’t believe I expect my students to revise their work when I don’t revise my own writing for them and explain the process throughout it. My students need to see what revision looks like and what the thought process is behind it. They can only see this if I demonstrate it for them and we talk through the process.

Editing, including the correcting of spelling and other conventions, was the last topic mentioned in chapter seven. Regie Routman recommends teaching editing after students learn to produce quality writing. She says that focusing on correctness throughout the writing process can reduce quality and discourage young writers. Students also need to have content to edit before they can practice editing. We also need to teach why editing is important- the reader/audience is a large part of that. We want to get our message through to readers without frustrating them or turning them away.

Spelling, reading, and writing are all interconnected, so it is important for students to have the opportunity to write words, read text including those words, and talk about the words. Our school has adopted a spelling program that uses word patterns for each list. I believe this goes along with Regie’s recommendation of teaching word patterns. While reading this text I’ve learned some different things about accepting students’ spelling approximations. At first I thought that it was not allowed at all, but then I realized that it should only be allowed when students sound out and write larger unknown words to the best of their ability. Common words should always be spelled correctly and I feel that I need to raise my expectations for this. Any words that can be found around the room or on word walls (that I plan to create with my students next year) should be spelled correctly every time. To ensure that words are spelled correctly or to the best of my students’ ability I need to demonstrate how to sound out and stretch out the sounds in words as I do shared writing with my students.

One thing I read in this chapter that really surprised me is Regie’s recommendation to limit the use of thesauruses and dictionaries in the classroom. I always thought it was important for students to use these tools to help them improve word choice in their writing. I still think it is important for students to learn how to use these tools, but maybe it is not as important for them to use these resources during the writing process. Regie claims that using the thesaurus and dictionary during writing interrupts thinking and slows down the flow and process of writing. I think students can still use these tools during the editing process, but you have to be careful because students can choose words from the thesaurus that they don’t really know or wouldn’t really use. I’ve noticed this before in my classroom when students have found synonyms in the thesaurus for words that don’t really make sense in their writing. This doesn’t improve writing- it actually makes it more confusing for the reader and the student is likely to use the word incorrectly again if they don’t understand its proper use.

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Regie Routman's "Writing Essentials"- Ch. 6 Reflection

Ch. 6- Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

I always remember hearing that students who write well are usually good readers and students who read well are often good writers. This chapter enforces that same concept. Reading and writing are closely connected and tend to support each other. Using shared writing experiences and the resulted text from those experiences as part of your guided reading instruction is a great way to make the connection between reading and writing more personal for all students.

I’d really like to work on integrating shared writing experiences into my instruction more often. I’d also like to be able to use them with my reading instruction as well, but I’m concerned with when and how I will do that. My district uses a text book series as a basis for reading instruction and we rarely steer away from the series to do other types of reading instruction. Of course we adjust our lessons to meet the needs of our students and to meet standards and goals, but we usually stick to the text book. Most alternatives to the text books that we use include explicit teaches to prepare for assessments (talking about using context clues, text features, synonyms, antonyms, etc.), core lit books, or Scholastic News magazines. I think that maybe if I talk to my colleagues about the possibility of integrating reading and writing instruction with shared writing experiences, this could become an option for one of our alternative forms of instruction, but I can’t see it becoming a daily thing that we do all year.

An important thing that I learned from this chapter is that we should never deprive students of their free-choice independent reading time. I feel like I really need to work on my time management to ensure that students get this time more often. I have DEAR (drop everything and read) time planned for each day, but I often tend to brush that time aside if I find myself running behind or having to spend more time working on another subject. This past year I felt like my students only got their DEAR time if we got through everything else. It turned into more of an “extra” or “free” time, rather than an important time to have each day. Regie Routman explained in this chapter that voluntary reading develops competence.

Composing text and comprehending text are related, so Regie recommends writing in the content areas. In other words, if I have my students write about caterpillars and butterflies in science, or about government in social studies, they are more likely to remember the information they wrote. Sometimes teachers and students tend to focus a lot on fictional writing, but expository writing is just as important. It is also important to have non-fiction books in your classroom library to link that reading and writing connection in the classroom.

A large part of this chapter talked about summary writing. I think that a lot of times as teachers we ask our students to write a summary, or to summarize a story and they really have no idea what that means or what it should look like. I know that as a grade level this past year, our students really struggled on answering re-telling and summarizing questions on the state assessment. I believe this was our lowest indicator. Regie Routman recommends teaching summary writing to your students through modeling, shared demonstration, and guided practice. She also says that sometimes oral summaries, retelling, and shared writing experiences are easier ways to practice summaries in grades K-3.

Next school year I’d like to really like to focus on modeling and teaching summarizing and retelling to my students. I’m going to try to do this with a read-aloud or picture book that my students become familiar with. Regie recommends reading a few pages aloud, then thinking aloud and summarizing those few pages for the students. Once this is modeled, I could have the students help me with the next few pages. They could talk amongst each other to get ideas to add to the summary, and then they could help me complete the rest. Once my students become more familiar with this concept through demonstration and guided practice, we could come up with a list of important parts of a summary. Then I could give them some smaller texts to summarize or retell with a partner or in groups and we could share our summaries and discuss their important components.

Something I’ve been doing already that was mentioned in this chapter is having students respond to reading through writing. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t have students write more than what they’ve read, but that connecting to the text through writing is important for comprehension and test preparation. Regie Routman recommends responding to text through writing daily. A lot of times my students respond to text by answering QAR questions or vocabulary questions, but I’d like to add more open-ended questions for students to respond to in a writing journal.

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