Prewriting isn't about organizing a bunch of nothing into paragraphs

Writing Suggestion: Get kids writing. Most people understand the concept of prewriting. Yet there is a distinction here worth noting. ...Prewriting is not always about creating a piece of prewriting for a specific text. The point is to generate prewriting that could turn into any text. The point is to create a place where kids can return when they are looking for substance and examples and facts and models and illustrations and quotes and so much more. Maybe we have 2's on STAAR because we haven't helped kids activate their funds of knowledge. Maybe we have 2's on STAAR because they are trying to organize a bunch of nothing into five paragraphs.

The beginning of the year is the perfect time to help kids understand that they have many things to say and plenty of feelings and experiences. These become seeds for generating ideas that they can use on many papers, not just one. This approach also honors the concept of choice. People will write more about things that they care about, are in the mood to think about, and know something about.

(NOTE: I learned about this sequence of instruction from Gayla Wiggins at Lead4Ward. It was just THE thing to bring together the other things I had been building and thinking. She’s a genius. It perfectly follows the gradual release of responsibility and balanced literacy models.)

1. 5-7 Quickwrites - In the first six weeks, start with some Quickwrites. Which ones will you use?
1. Lead4Ward
2. Freewriting
3. Wet Ink
4. Trigger Words
5. Free Association
6. Sentence Stubbs
7. Invisible Writing
8. Something else?
2. 4-5 Thinkwrites - Weave in some prewrites that involve thinking.
1. Lead4Ward
2. Reporter’s Formula
3. Quicklist
4. Looping
5. Blueprinting - my favorite
6. Something else?
3. After students have a chance to draft something. Let them share. Try these grouping techniques.
4. Let kids choose what they would like to write about. These become the anchor, or seed papers ,students use to experiment with the skills and strategies you are learning about in reading and writing lessons.  Be sure to let kids talk with each other about the ideas they have chosen.
5. Start a collaborative draft. The basic idea here is to brainstorm some ideas and topics. Gayla gave us a choice of social issues. We formed groups and read texts on the ones we were interested in. After that, we discussed the issues with our group members. We jotted down our ideas and placed them in our group notebook. Now the group is set up to apply all the lessons as the teacher addresses them with whole group instruction.
1. The teacher models how to brainstorm and plan for writing a paper.
2. Then the group collaborates to complete the same task with their group.
3. The groups all share their process and products, discussing their work and refining their thinking and products.
4. Then students enter their individual papers to apply the same strategy.
5. And so on through the writing process and specific TEKS for the unit.