READ ALOUD
MODELED WRITING
CLOSE & pointed READING
shared writing
SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTION
conferring
READING & WRiting WORKSHOPs
phonics & vocabulary

Modeled Writing

I look to Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher for guidance on modeled writing with middle and high school students. Their books 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents and 4 Essential Studies: Beliefs and Practices to Reclaim Student Agency help me to envision what modeled writing looks and feels like. Modeled writing often runs alongside students writing in their own notebooks. This writing may or may not be tied to the current writing unit of study. For about 5-10 minutes within 40-80 minute periods/blocks Kelly and Penny share, “…when we write, we show our notebooks under a document camera so students can see our first-draft thinking (and often struggle). Every day we model the construction of ideas into sentences and make visible the decisions we make as writers.”

The writing students explore in their notebooks at this time is ungraded. Ungraded for a reason. Penny and Kelly explain, “…we feel a play with language that drives us to be playful, if the conditions for this writing are set up for ease. For ungraded play. For lowering expectations of our writing in order to free ourselves to spill words onto the page….joyful practice first, then performance. It’s how we’ve all learned how to do anything.”

At times, I pause during the 5-10 minutes to share my struggles with students and think aloud to share how I moved beyond them or shifted my writing focus to move forward. Dedicating time in our busy schedule when each minute counts ultimately sets our writers up for success when they need to transfer their author voice and craft from their notebook “free” writing to other types of writing they take on during writing workshop or as Penny and Kelly call it time to “create”, where their writing will be graded.