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Creating a Classroom Community of Writers

A study in a first grade classroom

Michelle ToddFirst Grade Teacher

Sparta Elementary SchoolPersonal Teacher- Researcher-Writer Paper

Overview

1Classroom Community

My goal for this semester was to move my students forward in their

writing development by creating a classroom community of writers. While

researching quality writing structures for primary classrooms, I found a great

deal of information supporting the implementation on a writer’s workshop. I

felt that this approach would meet my student’s needs and help me grow the

classroom community that I envisioned. While reading the book, About the

Authors: Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers, I found a framework

for this type of instruction. The author’s advocated for an hour long writing

block, stating that this is “essential for the teaching of writing to young

children”. It provides enough time for quality teaching and enough time for

experiences with the writing process. (Ray & Cleveland, 2004, p.23)

I knew that a one hour block of time was not going to be feasible due

to the prearranged schedule at our school. I would need to be flexible in

developing this classroom structure. I had challenged myself to commit to a

three part writing workshop at least twice a week. The workshop that I

envisioned would include a mini-lesson, student writing time, and class

sharing time. This goal was important to me because I had seen so much

growth in my students as writers in the isolated writing lessons that I had

conducted in my class. I surmised that if I were able to conduct a

meaningful workshop model with my students that they would continue to

show growth and develop into confident writers.

By modifying the schedule, I was able to set aside three smaller writing

times during each day for implementing the writer’s workshop. It was a work


in progress but emerged into a structured time for mini-lessons, peer and

teacher conferences, writing time, and whole class sharing. I was hopeful

that this structure would grow my students’ writing abilities and transform

them from being just a group of individuals to a “community of writers.”

Below is a timeline of the Writer’s Workshop journey in my first grade classroom.

Timeline


Date Teaching Opportunity 1/24/17Week 1

Scheduling Time-I arranged my classroom schedule to accommodate time for a short mini-lesson, student writing time and a group sharing time.

2/6/17 Week 2

Introduction of the Workshop Model- I spent time reviewing with my students what real writers do and reminding them of how to generate ideas for writing (heart map, writing notebooks, posters in writing center, etc.).

2/13/17Week 3

Building Stamina- I monitored the writer’s workshop and encouraged students to build stamina in writing. Began some group conferencing, coaching and redirecting.

2/20/17 Week 4

Focused lessons with Mentor Texts – Moving beyond personal narratives into persuasive and opinion writing. This type of writing will continue to be an option for students throughout the semester as they choose writing topics.

2/27/17 Week 5

Quality Whole Group Sharing -Focusing on “I noticed…, I wonder…statements. I modeled appropriate feedback as students shared and invited their peers to give feedback. Peer feedback is so powerful.

3/6/17Week 6

One-to-One Conferring – (2 or 3 students per day). I looked for positive aspects of writing that I wanted students to continue to use and one strategy that I could teach them that would improve their writing.

3/13/17Week 7

Writing Partnerships- Students met with their partner at least twice a week to discuss plans for new writing or thoughts on revision. The students used me as a model for their conferences. They looked for some positives in their partners writing and possible fix-it-up strategies.

3/20/17 Week 8

Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing-Revisiting personal narratives with different topics and strategies and with the extra eyes of a writing partner.

3/27/17Week 9

Exploring Revision- Students are working on basic editing and whole paper revision. We are not afraid to dissect and make it better.

4/3/17 Week 10

Student Made Books - adding student made books to the classroom library and the school library. First grade authors on display.

4/10/17 -4/24/17Week 11 and Week 12

Refine and Publish - The students are continuing to look for ways to make their writing better.

Findings


Finding 1: Productive Whole Group Sharing Time At the beginning of the school year, well before I implemented writer’s

workshop, I began to teach my students to be confident in sharing their

ideas and to be respectful of one another. Each morning I shared a story or

poem with the class and then we would discuss what we noticed about the

author or poet’s craft. I taught my class these general rules for whole class

discussions.

General Rules for Thinking Together1. When we are asked a question we answer the question as clearly as we can.2. We listen carefully and quietly, with our hands down, to what someone is

saying.3. We think about what we heard.4. We decide if we agree or disagree.5. We think about why we agree or disagree or if we have a comment to add.6. When it is our turn, we say whether we agree or disagree or we add a

comment.7. We respect what everyone says.8. We all have valuable contributions to make.9. We have fun thinking together.

As our community of writers emerged and the writer’s workshop began, we

used these rules to help us establish a set of norms for class discussions

about writing. The students were so accustomed to listening to one another

in regular discussions that this was an easy transition for them.

Specific Rules for Whole Group Sharing during Writing 1. When it is your time to share, speak as clearly as you can. 2. Listen carefully and quietly, with our hands down, to what is being shared.3. Think about what was shared and about what we might comment on.


We might say “I noticed.... We might say, “I wonder…. Make sure that your comment helps this person to improve their writing.

4. Respect what everyone says.5. Value everyone’s contributions.6. Celebrate Everyone’s Writing Efforts.

My challenge, as the teacher, was to model and coach them on specific

comments that they could make to help each other to become better writers.

It was important to me that the students did not simply say, “I like

something” or “I don’t like something.” I wanted sharing time to truly be a

time when students would give valuable feedback to one another.

If the students liked something that a peer wrote, I instructed them to

use an “I noticed” comment such as, “I noticed you drew a detailed picture.

That really helped me understand your story.” If they didn’t like something

or didn’t understand something, I told them to make an “I wonder”

comment. For example, “I wonder if you added a picture on that page if I

could tell more about your new haircut.” As time went on the students were

able to vary their comments and provide authentic conversation. But by

setting the standard for the specific vocabulary that would be used during

class sharing time, we were able to keep the conversations focused and

productive.


In the following excerpt, I model for the students how to make an “I wonder”

or an “I noticed” comment. In these early conversations, it was important to

me that the students felt their writing was valued and that they left the

conference with a direction for their writing.

Student- “I went to Disney Land and I had fun and my cousin Marley came to.

Me- “I noticed that you added a very colorful picture of your family at Disney Land. That’s makes me interested in reading your story.”

Me- “I wonder what you did that was fun at Disney Land.”

Me – “Can anyone else give Hannah some feedback about her story?”

Susie- “I wonder if you rode any rides at Disney Land.”

Hannah- “Yes, we rode lots of rides, especially at Universal Studios.”

Me- “Oh that would be a great detail to add to your story.”

Joe, “I wonder what you ate at Disney Land?”

Me- “Did you eat any food while you were there?”

Hannah – “Yes, I ate cotton candy, and lemonade and breakfast with the princesses.”


Me – “Class, do you think Hannah should add those details to her story.”

Class- “Yes, Yes.”

Me- “I agree, you need to add all those details. You have a lot to think about during writing today.”

Me- “What do you think might be your first step in adding to your story?”

Hannah – “I could tell about eating breakfast with the princess. That was really fun and I forgot about it.”

Me- “Great. What else do you think you might do?”

Hannah – “I could write about the rides. The Scooby Doo Ride was the best.”

Me- “That’s sounds like a good plan. I will visit with you during writing time to see how it is going.”

By establishing a scheduled sharing time such as “author’s chair”,

students made connections between writing and reading. They learned that

authors have options and make lots of choices while composing. This

knowledge carried over into the student’s own work in writing and reading.

A powerful classroom connection was made when students created authentic

pieces and participated in regular sharing times. Through this process all

student voices were affirmed, and everyone, no matter what their stage of

writing, was considered an author (Gallas, 1992).

In the following excerpt, Lillian shares her plan with classmates for a piece of

writing about getting a flu shot. As she talks, she demonstrates that authors

make choices about sequence, word choice, and images to convey meaning

to readers:


Lillian –“The time I got my flu shot.”

Me – “Ok. Tell us your plan for writing that story.”

Lillian – “So, on this page I’m gonna put, I’m gonna put a picture, lines, and

words which say, which will say one time I went to the doctor’s office to get

my checkup. I didn’t know that I was going to get my flu shot. And on that

page a picture and lines and then I’m gonna put after I got done with my

checkup it was time for my flu shot. When I got my flu shot I hid under the

chair and started screaming and crying. And they had to pull me out from the

chair by my legs. Then we went to get ice cream and candies. Then we went

home. I don’t like band aids I said to my mom but I had to get mine pulled

off. My band aid had doggies on it. And then I’m going to draw a picture on

it. And then I’ll put …. The rest of the pages are just going to be….

Another student – “Pictures?”

Lillian – “Yea.”

Me – “Thank you for sharing your plan for your story.”

In the following excerpt, Levi, Kayden and Sage offer feedback and

suggestions to strengthen Lillian’s writing.

Levi – “I was thinking…maybe you could, maybe um a thought bubble saying maybe you didn’t want to have one (the flu shot). Maybe your mom told you and you said you didn’t want one (the flu shot).”

Me – “So she could use a thought bubble to tell what she was thinking or worrying about getting that flu shot.”

Levi – “Yea.”

Kayden –“She could get candy from the doctor instead of buying it at the store.”


Me – “Oh”

Kayden - “Because when I got a shot the doctor gave me a popsicle.”

Me – “Oh, so you want to know, did she get a treat and if she did she could include that. Is that what you want to know?

Kayden and other children – “Yea”

Me- “Sage, what do you think?”

Sage – “Sometimes the doctors just tell you to look away and it usually doesn’t hurt as much.”

Me – “So did that happen Lillian?”

Lillian – “Yes”

Me – “So would that be another detail she could add in her story?

Sage and other students- “Yes.”

Me – “Oh yes.”

Kayden – “One shot hurt me but the other one didn’t”

Sage – I had to get two shots deep in my legs.”

Me- “So she could add actual details of how she felt.”

As highlighted in Lillian’s sharing episode, I have watched powerful

connections develop this year in the writer’s workshop between students.

After Lillian shared her plan for her story with a fair amount of detail, she

listens intently as her classmates tell what they noticed about her writing,

gave her feedback and made suggestions. She was interested in what the

other students had to offer. This is a community of writers at work.

In the following picture, students are participating in a whole group sharing

time. They are waiting patiently for their turn and are offering constructive

comments to the author.


Finding 2: Establishing Long-Term Writing PartnershipsAs my first graders continued on their journey to become good writers,

they learned that writers need lots of tools to do their best work. They knew

about the usual writing tools such as paper and pencils but I wanted to teach

them about a tool that would be very beneficial to them. I told my students

that sometimes, to help generate ideas, writers talk with other writers. They

need company. They need a writing friend, or two. In our classroom we call

this special writing friend – our writing partner.

When dividing the class into partnerships, I considered ability levels,

friendships, and behaviors to form mixed-ability groups. Since I had an odd

number of students, we had one threesome. We named these our “Peanut

Butter and Jelly Writing Partners”. The students got to decide in their group

who would be peanut butter and who would be jelly. Surprisingly, there were

no arguments. The students were super excited about having partners.


As the students writing abilities increased, the role of writing partners

changed from being a sounding board for generating ideas to peer coaches

for refining ideas and editing. In the following pictures, students are meeting

with their writing partners to discuss ideas for writing

In the following example Kendall is helping Brayden edit his writing during a writing partner session.

Brayden is writing a story about some children that want to go to the

movies. When he and Kendall are meeting, I observed Kendall commenting

that she noticed that Brayden did not include a capital letter to begin his

sentence. She also told him that she knew that movies was spelled with an


“ies” and Brayden changed his spelling. Lastly, she told him that hopped

had two “p’s” instead of one. Brayden was not offended by the help he got

during this writing partner time. He commented to Kendall that his paper

looked better.

In the writing sample above, Brayden gets to return the favor as he

helps Kendall with her writing. In the first writing sample, he tells her that he

thinks her paper would be better if she used capital letters for “Father,

Father” because she was reading it louder and she wrote it bigger. He also

helps her correct the spelling for the word “will”. In the second example,

Kendall reads this same story that they have edited together. Brayden gets

to see how she has incorporated some of his suggestions. It was his idea for

her to add that she would change the baby sister’s diaper for twenty-nine


cents. He laughed when he discovered that she had included some of his

ideas in her final piece.

By creating a structure for the writing partnerships, the students were

able to really use each other to better their writing. To help the students

stay focused and not waste time, I made sure that they always put their

writings in their folders. If they conferenced with me or with a peer on all of

their writings, then they were not allowed to work with their partner until

they had a piece to share. This really motivated the students to write during

workshop time and to keep up with their pieces.

The use of long term writing partnerships has helped to create a classroom

community of writers.

Finding 3: One-on-One ConferencesAfter the writer’s workshop model was fully implemented and the

students knew what was expected, I began to conference individually with


students. My goal was to meet with each student once a week. During this

special conferring time, I wanted the students to know that I was genuinely

interested in their writing. I did not want them to view my role as just a

corrector or a fixer of writing. I began each conference by asking the

student what they were working on as a writer. It was very important to me

that I did most of the listening and the student did most of the talking. I

listened for connections to writing lessons I had taught. I listened for

connected parts of a story and I listened for passion or excitement about

some topic or event.

After I had listened to the student explain what they were working on

as a writer, I asked them to read me their piece of writing. Most students

caught the basic mistakes such as words omitted or story events that did not

make sense. After the reading, I asked any clarifying questions I had about

the story. I did not ask questions that I already knew the answers to.

During a conference, I wanted to learn new information about each writer.

Conducting conferences in this way has helped my students to use me

as a model for their writing partnership sessions. During their partner

meetings, the students are peer conferencing. One student will listen

intently as the other explains what they are doing as a writer. Then the

other student will ask questions and make suggestions. I even hear students

bragging on one another for trying strategy taught in class. By helping to

develop these deep conversations, my one-on-one conferencing has helped

build our classroom community.


Below are photos of a conference I had with Kayden. When we begin

our conference she prefers to stand. I always sit or kneel. I do not want to

tower over the student as they are sharing. I ask her what she is working on

as a writer. She tells me that she is writing a persuasive story just like the

authors we have been learning about. I make a mental note to comment

about the attempt to use the new strategy taught.

She continued to tell me that she is begging her mom to buy her a new

toy called Shopkins. She had a good story structure and had thought about

changes she would like to make. She had written her story in a book made

from blank paper folded together. She wanted to make her book larger with

a bigger front cover. She also wanted to experiment with print on the side

of the page like some of the mentor texts we had studied. We discussed

how these changes could be made. I noticed that the one thing that would

move Kayden forward as a writer was the addition of details.

I took this opportunity to review with Kayden some of the mentor texts

that displayed a great deal of detail. She read her story again out loud to me

and I asked questions to help Kayden discover additional details she could

add to her story. It is important to me that the student have ownership of

their writing. I want to help them discover elements for their writing and not

tell them what to write. Conferencing is guiding students to discover

themselves as writers.


front cover before front cover after

Details added to the piece making revisions


Synthesis Many authors and researchers have been interested in how children

learn literacy skills and many books and articles have been written on the

subject. In the process of creating a classroom community of writers, I

considered what others had learned about this classroom setup. I was

interested in the writer’s workshop and all of its components. In the book,

Writing Workshop with Our Youngest Writers, Katie Ray and Lisa Cleaveland

(2004), discuss the importance of writer’s workshop as a classroom structure

where children are busy producing a great deal of writing that will ultimately

be shared with an audience. This book stresses the importance of teacher

and peer conferencing and sharing times.

Incorporating a sharing time into my writer’s workshop was important

to me. Don Graves and Jane Hansen wrote an article in 1983 called, Author’s

Chair. The concept of Author’s Chair is known in primary classrooms as the

time when children sit in front of the class and share writing. Graves and

Hansen wrote that through Author’s Chair, the children got to experience the

effects of sharing their writing and the effects on the audience. When they

shared their own pieces and viewed the reception of their classmates, they

recognized the variance of opinions. In another article titled, Write-and-Tell,

Ruth Hubbard (1985), explained how sharing time helped young children

bring out more of the story they had created. It was an important time for

students to develop their oral language, using this mode to sort through their


experiences with the help of a supportive community. The students looked

forward to this sharing time during the writer’s workshop each day.

Conferencing became a special time for me in the writer’s workshop. It

is ironic that this one-on-one time with each child effected the growth of our

whole classroom community. I realized that what I said to a child about their

writing and the writing process had an effect on how they viewed themselves

as an author. This was important to me because I was the model for my

students of how they should talk about another student’s writing in a peer

conference or writing partner session. Purposeful conversation in the

classroom has been addressed by researchers and authors. In Choice

Words: How Our Language Affects Children’s Learning, Johnston(2004)

recognized that it was through talk that children learned how to become

strategic thinkers and literacy learners, and that what teachers said and how

they said it shaped the opportunities for student learning that were possible

during instruction. In an article by Lisa Hawkins, she noted that by

successfully scaffolding children’s thinking during a writing conference from

present to desired understanding required that teachers purposefully

structure their talk in relation to those overarching goals they and their

students were trying to achieve (Hawkins, 2016, p.8).

One of my goals in creating a classroom community of writers was to

develop long term writing partnerships in the classroom. These partners

would provide feedback to each other throughout the writing process more

quickly than the one-on-one teacher conference. (Cathy Hsu, 2009). In the


article, Writing Partners: Expanding the Audiences for Students (1994),

Candida Gillis shares that one of the benefits of writing partners is that the

students realize that other writers have the same feelings they do. They

might be unsure of themselves, lack confidence, or hope that the reader will

like what they have written. My experience with writing partnerships in the

classroom have been positive. The students gave meaningful feedback.

Impact

My goal for this year was to move my students forward in their writing

development by creating a classroom community of writers. This endeavor

has changed me as a teacher in how I view writing instruction. The

implementation of the writer’s workshop has allowed my student’s to grow

into independent people. I am amazed at the amount of writing they have

produced. Their confidence level and motivation have risen as a result of the

whole class sharing time. My students learned how to give purposeful

feedback to their peers and to work through the revision and editing process

of writing. In all my years of teaching, I have never had students produce as

much writing and beg to write and publish.

Next year I plan to implement the writer’s workshop which will include

sharing time, writing partnerships, and conferencing. I hope that I can

incorporate more mentor text and specific targeted writing skill lessons into

my workshop. I would like to explore more publishing opportunities for my

writers. My writer’s workshop will definitely include students producing a


great deal writing and everyone having time to share and give and receive

feedback.

Reference List

Gallas, K. (1992). When the children take the chair: A study of sharing time in a primary classroom. Language Arts, 69(3), 172-182.

Gillis, C. (1994). Writing partners: Expanding the audiences for student authors. The English Journal, 83(3), 64-67.

Graves, D., & Hansen, J. (1983). The author's chair. Language Arts, 60(2), 176-183.

Hawkins, L., (2016). The power of purposeful talk in the primary-grade writing conference. Language Arts, 94, 8-21.

Hsu, C. (2009). Writing partnerships. The Reading Teacher, 63(2), 153-158.

Hubbard, R. (1985). Write-and-tell. Language Arts, 62(6), 624-630.

Johnston, P. (2004). Choice words: How our language affects children’s learning. Portland: Stenhouse.

Ray, K., & Cleaveland, L.(2004). About the authors-writing workshop with our youngest writers . Portsmouth: Heinemann.

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