Routman's writing advice

In order to follow Routman's advice it is important to "focus on excellent teaching of writing, you will be teaching beyond what the standards require."

Things to work on:

-When only several students need explicit guidance, form a small group to teach, instead of teaching the whole class.

-Watch the amount of time spent on mini lessons. Sometimes kids don't get the chance to write when the lessons take up all the time.

-Before the kids write, go over the key writing techniques that you went over the day before to help remind the kids what you're looking for in their writing. (Expectations!)

-Focus more on the content and coherency of the piece instead of focusing on capital letters and punctuation.

-Keep the flow of writing. Have them try to write every day, but if this isn't possible, have them write on consecutive days.

-Share your thinking!

-Talk about writing, demonstrate different kinds of writing,  have the kids talk about writing and ideas


In order to help my students with writing, it is important to share writing samples with them, in order for them to write on their own. This is part of the "we do it;" where the teacher guides the children in the correct steps, and models fluency. It is important to allow students to express their ideas orally, before starting the actual writing. This helps students feel more comfortable with the writing process as they become more confident with their ideas. Shared writing is especially important for ELL students.

I think that one of the dilemmas I might encounter is making sure the kids have enough time to write, especially with younger students. It is so easy to get caught up in a lesson, and answering kid's questions that you lose important writing time. Another issue I have with time is that many of my younger students take a very long time to think about what they want to write, before they begin the drawing or writing process. This gives them less time to develop their writing piece. I could "finesse" this by integrating smaller learning groups for the students who still need guidance, in order for other students to begin writing.This would create more time for my students who are eager to write, but still creates the time I need with my students who need more instruction.

What Can I Do? - Julie

During these first few weeks of the school year I have been balancing being a professional member of the staff, a student who is still actively learning and a teacher to my students. Professionally, I have not had any problems yet. The other teachers in my grade level are absolutely wonderful as are most of the staff. The positive environment makes me more comfortable but I still need to find my place within the staff and share my opinions in meetings more. Currently I feel a little out of place and out of my league with some of the conversations (curriculum, testing, evaluations, etc) but little by little I am finding my way. For the most part my students treat me as an equal to my mentor teacher and respect me. I am trying to do more each day to get them more comfortable with me teaching. The district I teach in (Waterford) has a strict literacy curriculum. I anticipate this to be challenging when I start my lesson plans because I won't be able to be as flexible with my lessons and unit. When planning these lessons I will try to take some of the things I learned from Finessing and Hybridizing article to add my own spin onto the curriculum mandidated by the district.

I have not been able to look at the curriculum calendar to see what I will be teaching this semester but overall I feel the most comfortable with the teaching and assessing aspects of the lesson planning. I am the most worried with planning a lesson that is inclusive to the entire class. I have a huge range of learners in my class with some at Kindergarten reading levels and some at or above 2nd grade level so I will have to use finesse to manipulate and manuever the curriculum.

Julie-I'm glad to see you feel the same way I do! Although I feel comfortable with the other teachers, I feel as though I don't have much to contribute when they talk about testing and curriculum. I am also happy to see that my students all treat me as a teacher, and treat me with respect. I have been actively participating since the first day of school, and I think that has helped the students see me as an equal with my mentor teacher. So far I have been doing the daily read aloud and discussion questions, and math calendar. By the end of the week I will be co-teaching a couple of math lessons and teaching the scholastic news on Friday. I am excited to have more opportunities, but I am nervous that they are not going to go very smoothly. The first day I did our math calendar it did not go very smoothly, but I was more comfortable with it the second time I did it, and now it goes great. Practice makes perfect! I am not worried about teaching content, but more worried that I am going to stumble over the lesson. I know that not every lesson is going to be perfectly, but I like to think that I will be able to plan them that way!