"All of our teachers agreed that CraftPlus has been a fantastic program. We are
very excited to see results in another couple of months. As we "dissected"
writing samples, we saw evidence of CraftPlus in every child's piece."
-Amber McLaughlin, reading specialist, STEM Magnet Academy, Chicago, IL
The CraftPlus K-8 Writing Program is correlated to Common Core State Standards for writing, language arts, and speaking and listening. It also supports Common Core Reading Standards.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Monday, November 5, 2012
Feedback from the Field
"I am a 4th-grade teacher at Mermentau Elementary. This past summer, I
was introduced to your writing program by my instructional assistant, Jackie
Hanisee. I looked over the program and received special permission from my
school board to utilize the program this year. I am now going into week eleven
of the program, and I can't tell you how impressed I am with my students'
progress. This is my 12th year teaching 4th grade, and it is the first time
that I actually feel like I'm getting through to my students in writing! Writing time is now something my students and I look forward to each day. My
students have taken to the skills I've taught them. They are not only using the
skills in writing, but in other subject areas. When we are reading, they stop
me to tell me about some good writing practice they see in the reading. I am so
confident in my teaching of writing that I asked my principal to observe my
teaching of writing for my formal observation. I just wanted to share with you
the success I'm having, and let you know how thankful I am to be using this
writing program."
Sincerely,
Amanda
Miller
4th-grade
teacher
Mermentau
Elementary
Monday, October 15, 2012
Feedback from the Field
"We are
loving CraftPlus and thank our lucky stars every day for having it. Our children
are enjoying learning about a thesis statement, strong verbs, and descriptive
attributes. We like how the assessments are built in each week and how grammar
is integrated throughout...we find it very user friendly."
-Lori Rosenberg, primary writing teacher at Imagine Charter School at Broward in Coral Springs, FL
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Ways to End an Expository Piece
A good ending is like a great dessert: it ends a delicious piece perfectly. Many students struggle with ending their writing pieces, but good endings are not rocket science. They are chosen by the writer from a list of possible ending types. The K-5 writer should have practice with at least four
common expository ending techniques:
· Remind the reader of a piece’s major points: “Remember, if you ever find yourself in a house full of germs, drink lots of fluids, get your rest, and wash, wash, wash your hands.
· Give advice: "Take it from me, if you want to save yourself a lot of trouble, just do your chores.”
· Feelings statement: “I love the way that butterflies change during their lives.”
Give your students a chance to create a satisfying ending by helping them master just three simple writer’s techniques. (Reader, you’ve just been reminded. J )
Yours in joyful writing education,
Susan Koehler
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Free-writing: Bringing smiles or tears?
Free-writing time should be a joy for young writers. Sometimes, though, when you announce a time for writing about anything that comes to their active little minds, students react as if they are being punished. Or tortured. What’s up with that?
How do you handle a student with writer’s block? Or the one who finishes after two sentences? What if a student is reluctant to share his or her free-writing with you? How do you handle the writer who wants to draw? And what about the student who doesn’t want to stop free-writing and move on to the mini-lesson? As teachers, we’ve seen them all. This Free-writing Troubleshooting Guide from The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop helps you keep free-writing in the smiles-only column! I would love to hear how you handle free-writing challenges!
How do you handle a student with writer’s block? Or the one who finishes after two sentences? What if a student is reluctant to share his or her free-writing with you? How do you handle the writer who wants to draw? And what about the student who doesn’t want to stop free-writing and move on to the mini-lesson? As teachers, we’ve seen them all. This Free-writing Troubleshooting Guide from The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop helps you keep free-writing in the smiles-only column! I would love to hear how you handle free-writing challenges!
Susan Koehler
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Seven Ways to Begin an Expository Writing Piece
Ever notice the different ways that writers begin their writing pieces? I just used a question, which—along with onomatopoeia and an exclamation—is one of three hooks that young writers should have under their writing belts as they enter second grade.
By the time young writers are in third to fifth grade, they should have been introduced to many more hooks. Four good ones for expository writing are a startling fact, an anecdote, a definition, and a quotation.
Introduce these one at a time with a literature or teacher model, and ask students to try it out for a social studies or science writing assignment. As always, choose positive student examples to share during response time. What you've done works double duty: they have practiced a writing skill that is easily integrated into content-area studies and which can be applied to other genres as well. Here's a list of hooks with examples from The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop. I'd love to hear how this works for your classroom.
Yours in creative writing education,
Susan Koehler
By the time young writers are in third to fifth grade, they should have been introduced to many more hooks. Four good ones for expository writing are a startling fact, an anecdote, a definition, and a quotation.
Introduce these one at a time with a literature or teacher model, and ask students to try it out for a social studies or science writing assignment. As always, choose positive student examples to share during response time. What you've done works double duty: they have practiced a writing skill that is easily integrated into content-area studies and which can be applied to other genres as well. Here's a list of hooks with examples from The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop. I'd love to hear how this works for your classroom.
Yours in creative writing education,
Susan Koehler
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Practicing Setting
When young writers practice setting a scene, describing a character, or otherwise explaining how something looks or works, they are also practicing seeing. Writing a personal description offers a good starting place to hone this skill. As you ask them to write a personal description, set their Target Skills: use interesting descriptive attributes (adjectives for specific attributes, like size, shape, color, texture, etc.), try a comparison, use strong verbs, and begin sentences in different ways. As they begin looking at themselves and write to hit the Target Skills, they will begin to learn how to evaluate what is before them – a handy skill to have in writing, and in life as well! Teachers of grades 3 and up can use these worksheets from my book , The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop, to scaffold and assess their first attempts. Click here for the worksheets.
Let me know how this works for you!
Susan Koehler
Let me know how this works for you!
Susan Koehler
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Getting Started with Your Daily Writing Workshop
A new school year is an opportunity for new resolutions.
This year, resolve to dedicate a daily block of instructional time to the
teaching, practice, and process of writing.
Voices across the field continually tell us that best practices in the
teaching of writing include the following:
·
Daily workshop environment
·
Process-oriented writing
experiences
·
Explicit skill instruction
/ Mini-lessons
·
Literature models
·
Self-selected topics
·
Teaching meaning, purpose and
audience
Whether you are learning to play an instrument, or learning
to read and write,
Monday, July 16, 2012
Practice Describing a Character
Susan Koehler modeling The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop, a perfect addition to CraftPlus |
Stay in touch for more helpful handouts,
Susan Koehler
Practice Describing a Setting
This setting handout builds descriptive language Target Skills and allows students to review and practice parts of speech. After the interactive exercise, students in grades three and up can work independently to create their own free verse poems. "The Setting Poem" from my book, The Complete K-5 Writing Workshop, gives you a ready to go handout, click here.
Keep writing and stay in touch,
Susan Koehler
Pictures Help Teach Descriptive Writing
Descriptive
writing creates a “Word portrait,” so what better way to teach that than to use
pictures from old calendars, or greeting cards, pictures from magazines, art
projects, or scenes from your school campus as a writing catalyst?
"Lucy, the sleepy Maupin House mascot, relaxes after a long weekend." |
To get started,
project a picture for the class and work interactively to describe it. Focus on
the Target Skill your class is trying to master. For example, if you are working
on descriptive attributes, you can work together to make a list of adjectives
and descriptive phrases, and then craft sentences to build a description. If
you are working on strong verbs, find an action oriented photo and begin by
listing action words. Start with simple skills like these, and then move to
skills like alliteration, metaphor, personification, or abstract attributes.
After the
interactive model, provide students with individual picture prompts or place an
array of magazine photos at a center and allow students to choose a picture and
complete a craft-based descriptive writing activity. Younger writers should
focus on a single skill for this activity, but intermediate student can handle
applying two or three skills at the same time. As students become proficient
writers, picture-prompted writing can include genre organization, composing
skills, conventions and writing process steps, too.
Put pen to paper and stay creative,
Susan Koehler
Keeping Student Writing Organized
K-1 students can use a two-pocket folder to hold their pieces in progress and their completed work. Just label each pocket for easy identification. Children will have easy access to their pieces, and you will have easy access for reviewing progress. Keep a separate writing portfolio for each student, which can be stored in a file cabinet or milk crate. This portfolio should contain works chosen by the student and the teacher that represent an array of finished genre pieces. It’s a great resource for genuine progress monitoring, accountability, and documentation for parent conferences.
In grades 2-8 students can organize their writing in a loose-leaf
notebook with tabs. Core tabs might be:
· Resources. This section fills up during the
year as you teach skills and create models, lists and examples.
· Practice Pieces. Students refer to practice
pieces when they write to apply the Target Skill they have been taught that
day.
· Assessment Pieces. Weekly formative
assessments are kept here to record student progress. If you require students to review and revise
these pieces, they become valuable learning tools.
· Published Pieces (or Portfolio). This section provides a chronological record
of a student’s growth as a writer.
Stay organized,
Susan Koehler
Listing: A Great Pre-writing Technique
Most pre-writing
can begin with making lists. The foundational organizational skill of
list-making helps writers of all ages gather ideas and gain focus.
Tell me how it works for you,
Susan Koehler
·
Narrative writing: Lists help young writers put
lots of events in chronological order and allow for easy re-organization to
strengthen the plot.
·
Expository writing: Listing allows students to
call on a wealth of details that relate to the topic, without putting them in
order. The details are easily grouped to become the content for body
paragraphs, and the details collected will help the young writer shape the
focus of the piece. They can list-link by color-coding related details, or by
using an icon. For example, all blue-highlighted details go together in one
paragraph; or, related details are sorted with a triangle; another set by a
square.
Tell me how it works for you,
Susan Koehler
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