“Daily?!” Before you groan, let me explain. Writing is an instructional strategy for learning content and developing composition skills. It’s most effective when students write often. Daily writing fills this need and it’s easy to implement. Once a pattern of practice is established, daily writing also is easy to maintain.
Begin each class period by having students respond to a question posted in a standard place in the classroom. The question can be a lesson starter or a discussion starter, but it should require higher-level thinking, not merely recall. Establish a routine that students come into the classroom, quietly take their seats, take out their journals, and write a short (3-5 sentences) response to the posted question. They write independently, settling in and getting focused for the lesson to come, while you take care of your own routines such as taking attendance. Take only about five minutes for this part.
Then the first whole-class activity will be a brief discussion about what the students have written. Don’t use daily writing only for getting students settled (though it also works well for this purpose). Use it to initiate the day’s lesson:
- Review a previous lesson before continuing on the same topic.
- Activate prior knowledge before starting a new topic.
- Arouse interest or curiosity about the day’s lesson content.
By asking a few students to share what they have written, you are teaching all of them 1) that writing is part of learning, 2) that such writing assignments are integral to the lesson and not merely busy work, and 3) that what students write is valued.
Using students’ daily writing in this way also will give you an informal way to check for understanding (formative assessment) and thus gauge how best to proceed with instruction.
No comments:
Post a Comment