FAIRVIEW Elementary Fox Chapel Area School District

Improve Student Writing

Through a Systematic,

Progressive K-5 Writing Plan

Governor’s Expanding Excellence Grant 2014

Fox Chapel Area School District; Dr. Gene Freeman, Superintendent

Fairview Elementary; Mrs. Rebecca Stephan, Principal

SPP Indicator:

Writing

Implement teaching of writing strategies built upon grade

appropriate techniques and school-wide expectations.

Key strategy

Systematic Progressive K-5 Writing Plan

The key strategy is teaching defined progressive grade level writing

skills supported by communicating clear expectations, utilizing tools

for organization, teaching the writing process, and administering

common assessments.

Clear and high

Expectations

• Clear and High Expectations were vital in eliciting the

best writing from students

• A fundamental commitment to a “You Can Do It!”

attitude

• A cultural shift in thinking for professional staff as to

what was needed and what could be accomplished by

each student

Clear and high

Expectations

• Clear expectations in every grade level focused on

consistency of implementation, teacher modeling,

teacher-student writing conferences, examples of

exemplar writing, and student accountability and

independence as they write every day.

• Collaboration among specials teachers, support

teachers and staff, and classroom teachers ensured that

students received the support that they needed to

achieve these high goals.

Clear and high

Expectations

Tools: Rubrics

• Rubrics stated the expectation of the quality elements

of writing. The quality elements included Focus,

Content, Organization, Style, and Conventions.

Reviewing the rubrics with the students assured that

the students realized what they must include in their

writing to achieve a score of 4. Posted rubrics allowed

the children to read the rubrics each time they wrote

and to self assess as they write.

Clear and high

Expectations

Tools: Checklists

• Teachers gave students checklists so that they could

review their writing “to check” that they had included

what was necessary for quality writing. Checklists

made the expectations more clear and concise for the

students. For example, students could look for number

of details, transitions, punctuation, capital letters, a

hook, number of paragraphs, and a thesis sentence.

Clear and high

Expectations

Tools: Exemplars

• Exemplars showed students exactly what high quality writing looks like at a level 4, a level 3, a level 2, and a level 1. Teachers concentrated on the exemplars at a level 4 so that the children could see and hear good writing. The quality elements of writing; Focus, Content, Organization, Style, and Conventions, were highlighted and discussed to demonstrate to students that they, too, could write at this level. Each year exemplars were collected from the district writing assessment.

Clear and high

Expectations

Tools: Peer Editing Checklists

• Peer editing checklists gave students specific elements

to look for when they were editing another student’s

writing. For example, they could look for misspelled

words, sentence fragments, run-on sentences,

descriptive words, a thesis sentence, an introduction,

and a conclusion.

Clear and high

Expectations

Tools: Graphic Organizer

• Students used graphic organizers throughout the grade

levels for pre-writing.

• The most crucial tool to simplify the clear and high

expectations.

Graphic Organizers

• The use of graphic organizers enabled writers to

organize material logically.

• This purposeful, spatial arrangement enabled essential

information to be structured; therefore, a very

important tool for successful writing.

• This prewriting tool facilitated the communication of

thoughts and ideas effectively and efficiently.

The writing process

• Each teacher had to be committed to following the

same writing process outline so that students were

given a consistent approach from year to year. By

breaking down the major task of writing into simple,

attainable steps, students could find success in their

writing. As the students practiced and applied these

steps throughout the year, the process became

automatic for the summative assessment.

The writing process

1. Read and Understand the Prompt

• Reading and understanding the prompt or directions to

an assignment was a crucial starting point to the

process. The student had to determine the genre of

writing (informational, opinion, or narrative) and took

into consideration what specific tasks must be

accomplished for that specific genre. Students were

taught to go back to the prompt to read it multiple

times, highlighting or underlining the important words

or phrases.

The writing process

2. Brainstorming

• Brainstorming took on many different forms. Some students preferred to make a list; others preferred to make a web. There truly wasn’t a wrong way to brainstorm as long as students were letting the free flow of thoughts make it onto their paper. It was important to remind students that having more thoughts than needed was always better. Pairing down, or finding a way to combine ideas, could be done in the prewriting process. In writing informational pieces or works that were connected to a text, note-taking was a form of brainstorming for the students.

The writing process

3. Prewriting

• The use of a graphic organizer helped students organize their thoughts from the brainstorming process. We used a five-paragraph graphic organizer that the students were taught in third and fourth grade. At the fifth grade level, our goal was to develop more mature writers, so some subtle nuances were added to the overall organizer. The graphic organizer laid out the introductory paragraph, with a hook to engage the reader, followed by two to three detail sentences, and then was finished with a thesis statement

The writing process

Prewriting continued

• The thesis statement simply stated what the three body paragraphs would be. The student then wrote their main idea sentences for each of the three body paragraphs, as well as bullet pointed notes in phrase form on what the three supporting details for each of those paragraphs would be. The first and second body paragraph ended with a transition sentence that led the reader into the next body paragraph. The final body paragraph should have one additional detail since there wouldn’t be a need for a transition into the concluding paragraph. The concluding paragraph should restate the thesis and should wrap up the writing piece with an additional 3-4 sentences.

The writing process

4. Rough Draft

• The graphic organizer was created in the prewriting step to flow right into the rough draft. Students could seamlessly transition their work from the graphic organizer into complete thoughts and sentences in their rough drafts. We often discussed how easy the rough draft was to write due to the attention that was given to the prewriting process. Students often had the opportunity to type their rough draft in order to save time and effort in the final product phase of our writing process.

The writing process

5. Revise/Edit

• Students first needed to revise for themselves.

Following the checklist or rubric as a guide kept the

revision process flowing smoothly. Students could

then revise with peers following the same pattern.

Multiple clean copies using the word processing

program were encouraged once the paper got “inked

up.”

The writing process

Revise/Edit continued

• Throughout the process students were encouraged to

read their work out loud in order to catch mistakes

their eyes missed. Reading to their locker, an

iPod/iPad, or a video program were options. Once

major structural improvements were made, then the

students were ready to edit their work. Looking for

conventions mistakes was the intended work. The

major focus throughout this step was to improve the

written piece more by content than by perfect spelling.

The writing process

6. Final Draft

• After the editing process, students made the necessary

revisions to their work. (Not all suggestions from peers

had to be made… it was still that individual student’s

work.) This led to the finalized version of their

writing. The final piece was almost always in word-

processed form.

The writing process

7. Read/Revise/Edit

• A final read, revision and edit proved very beneficial.

Finding errors in homophones and homographs,

spelling and conventions, helped a writing piece turn

from good to great. This last step was often most

beneficial after a break in time.

The writing process

Assessments

• Diagnostic: Students responded to a district created

prompt at the end of the school year. District grade

level teachers scored and analyzed the student writing

to plan instruction.

• Formative: Teacher-teacher coaching through critique

of student work during the writing process, peer

editing and critiquing among students and teacher-

student writing conferences evaluated writing and

guided instruction.

The writing process

Assessments

• Benchmarking: Teacher-teacher coaching through

critique of student work for each genre and teacher-

held writing conferences with students evaluated

writing and guided instruction. Teachers and

administrators conducted gallery walks in the building

to critique student work and guide instruction.

• Summative: Students responded to a district created

prompt at the end of the school year. These prompts

were scored by all grade level teachers.

Professional

development Day 1

1. Introduction: History and Context

2. Strategy: Overview

• Clear Expectations

• The Writing Process

• Tools for Organization

• Assessments

3. Foundation: Accomplish and Change

Professional

development Day 1

4. Components: PP/Video

5. Group Interaction: Organizational framework,

examples, and characteristics of quality writing

6. Gallery Walk: Building/Whole Group Critique

7. Professional Reflection Journal:

• What am I learning?

• How will I apply this information inside my classroom to

improve student writing?

Professional

development Day 2

1. Gallery Walk: Building/Whole Group Critique

2. Writing Round Table: Looking at Student Work

3. Encouragement of Student Writers

4. Grades 3-5 Writing Expectations for Writing within

the ELA PSSA

5. Approach to Different Genres; Writing Across the

Curriculum

Professional

development Day 2

6. Assessment Design

7. Action Plan: Debrief and Plan for Next Steps

8. Reflection

Current STatus

• The commitment to the continued improvement of student

writing in all grade levels and maintaining high expectations

is at the core of our success and remains a focus at Fairview

Elementary.

• Since 2013, the district administers one district writing

assessment at the end of the year, rather than two writing

assessments, one at the beginning and one at the end of the

school year.

Current STatus

• The graphic organizers have evolved over time with grades

3-5 students writing out the organization structure on their

paper rather than folding the paper, or grade levels using

designed graphic organizers that still maintain the necessary

organizational structure.

• The number of expected details within a paragraph has also

increased.

Current STatus

Our next steps are to align our instruction and

expectations to the new format of the ELA PSSA

connected to writing in grades three through five

while continuing to increase the achievement and

depth of growth of our students in writing.