Sharing the Pen Interactive Writing with Young Children

by Tompkins, Gail E.; Collom, Stephanie

• ISBN13: 9780131129658
• ISBN10: 0131129651
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-07-17
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This engaging book, co-authored by one of the most respected literacy and language arts authors today, istheresource for teaching interactive writing to children. Everything you need to know in order to gain these instructional skills is presented in a clearly written, interesting format. Step-by-step implementation ideas, relevant student feedback, and an easy-to-use chart of teacher guidelines clearly illustrate how phonemic awareness, phonics, print awareness, and vocabulary can be incorporated into writing lessons; how this system can be used with ESL learners; and how it can be adapted to meet your specific goals.Dozens of lessons that are ideal for sparking the interest of early writers are accompanied by a description of why and how it improves writing. Topics covered include: the writing continuum, grouping options, building on favorite words, creating research murals, current events skills, illustrations and context, story innovations, writing poetry, science and interactive writing, recycled writing, using the computer, teaching revision, interactive writing as an assessment tool, and writing with older novice writers.An excellent resource for elementary school educators.

Table of Contents

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTERACTIVE WRITING
Linda Boroski	1	(4)
THE WRITING CONTINUUM: LEVELS OF TEACHER SUPPORT
Stephanie Collom	5	(4)
GROUPING OPTIONS OF SUPPORT STUDENT SUCCESS
Susan McCloskey	9	(5)
BUILDING ON EVERY CHILD'S FAVORITE WORD
Carolyn Stewart	14	(4)
ENVIRONMENTAL PRINT: BUILDING A BRIDGE TO LITERACY
Diane Leonard and Stephanie Collom	18	(9)
WONDER WALLS: CREATING RESEARCH MURALS WITH YOUNG CHILDREN
Diane Leonard	27	(8)
WEEKLY NEWS: BEYOND SHOW AND TELL
Cynthia Schaefer	35	(7)
A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
Martis Becker	42	(3)
SETTING SAIL ON A SEA OF WORDS: A PASSAGE INTO STORY INNOVATIONS
Diane Leonard	45	(10)
WORKING YOUR WAY THROUGH A STORY: BEGINNING, MIDDLE, AND END
Martis Becker	55	(3)
TEACHING SKILLS AND STRATEGIES THROUGH INTERACTIVE WRITING
Theresa Kasner	58	(4)
POWERING THE POET'S PEN: WRITING POETRY INTERACTIVELY
Kinberly Clark	62	(4)
SCIENCE AND INTERACTIVE WRITING
Andra Christensop	66	(5)
RECYCLED WRITING
Theresa Kasner	71	(2)
BEYOND THE PEN: INTERACTIVE WRITING ON THE COMPUTER
Cynthia Schaefer	73	(5)
INTERACTIVE WRITING AND THE WRITING PROCESS
Michelle Crippen	78	(7)
USING INTERACTIVE WRITING TO TEACH REVISION: TWO APPROACHES
Theresa Kasner	85	(4)
USING INTERACTIVE WRITING AS AN ASSESSMENT TOOL
Michelle Crippen	89	(3)
DARLENA: PORTRAIT OF AN EMERGENT WRITER
Stephanie Collom	92	(5)
USING INTERACTIVE WRITING WITH OLDER NOVICE WRITERS
Gail Tompkins	97	(5)
THE MISSING PIECE OF THE PUZZLE
Adrienne L. Herrell	102

Excerpts

SHARING THE PEN: INTERACTIVE WRITING WITH YOUNG CHILDRENA few years ago, I had the pleasure of attending an institute sponsored by the San Joaquin Valley Writing Project in Fresno, California. I did a presentation on interactive writing, an exciting writing strategy I had just begun using with my kindergarten class. A few months later, Dr. Gail Tompkins asked me to coordinate a weeklong series of workshops on interactive writing in a nearby school district. As I started contacting teachers and viewing their presentations on interactive writing, I began to realize even more what a powerful teaching strategy interactive writing is and appreciate the variety of ways teachers were integrating interactive writing into their daily writing activities.The success of the workshops led Dr. Tompkins to the idea of putting all the different ways teachers were using interactive writing into a resource book that we could share with other teachers. We started meeting with Teacher Consultants in the Writing Project, discussing how we were using interactive writing in our classrooms. Soon, each of the teachers started writing about his or her favorite and most successful interactive writing lessons. We met over a series of months, reading each other's chapters and sharing thoughts and insights. We collected and analyzed students' work samples and tried out each other's lessons, which led to more discussion and refinement of our lessons and chapters. THE RESULTWhat resulted from the many exciting months of collecting, refining, and experimenting is the book in your hands. We hope this text will not only help you to understand interactive writing, but will provide you with many classroom-tested, meaningful ways of implementing interactive writing in your classroom.Interactive writing is the bridge between more teacher-directed (or modeled) writing and independent writing. We made two important discoveries in looking so closely at interactive writing: Teachers can easily differentiate instruction to meet the needs of any student during an interactive writing session. Phonemic awareness, concepts about print, phonics, and vocabulary development can be incorporated easily into each interactive writing lesson.We have many students in the San Joaquin Valley who speak English as a second language, as well as many struggling readers and writers; consequently, these discoveries were very important to us.Because interactive writing is a strategy most commonly used with emergent and early writers, many chapters in this text are most applicable to kindergarten through third grade. We have, however, included a chapter on using interactive writing with older, struggling students.Early chapters focus on the theory and implementation of interactive writing. The balance are individual lessons, or series of lessons, that teachers can use immediately in their own classrooms.The San Joaquin Valley Writing Project is part of the National Writing Project (NWP), and there are NWP sites in every state. If you are interested in learning more about the NWP or joining your local site, contact the National Writing Project through its website at http://www.writingproject.org .