Supporting students to edit their writing

Sheena Cameron/Louise Dempsey

What do we want our students to know about reviewing writing?

1: Target students

-       I know what I am learning and why. (Would your kids know why you are learning something?).

-       Why is it better to use this verb instead of this verb (Better verbs)?

2: I can find examples in my writing

-       Can you find an example in your writing of descriptive verbs?

3: I can improve my writing

-       Make the appropriate changes.

4: I can talk about my successes and next steps

-       Talk about what they have done and why.

5: I write carefully – checking as I go.

-       Can’t think of a better word for

-       Quality over quality.

6: I can self-check my writing and fix up some mistakes

7: I feel like an author and want to share my writing

-       Make time for reviewing writing, celebrate writing.

-       Sharing writing is an essential part of writing and motivates students to write their best writing because someone is going to read it.

-       At least share a super sentence or something from their writing at least with someone or the class.

-       Kids are authors, we are readers.

Reviewing, editing and celebrating writing.

Respond as a reader:

Before we respond to their criteria, say something about what they have written, their content. We respond as a reader before we focus on the criteria.

Identify positives:

Link to criteria, pay attention to positive, identify successes.

Agree on one improvement – Link to criteria

Choose one thing to work on and celebrate when they do succeed.

Model and refresh on editing

-       One line straight through the incorrect word. Explain why we do this etc.

-       Google Roald Dahl draft editing and show children what writing before publishing looks like.

Mini Lessons

-       Learn skills for writing and editing skills for writing.

-       Starting the lesson off with a mini lesson, warming them up on the type of writing they are going to be doing.

-       Super Sentences – Crafting a really good sentence that sounds really good.

Give them a sentence, is it a super sentence. Is there an adverb, more detail (adjectives etc.)

Quick Writes

-       Adding variety into writing, shorter blocks to keep things interesting.

-       Juggle text types fluently, doing other things in our programme rather than just focusing on one text type for a few weeks etc.

Recrafting

-       Adding (Add something the sentence or writing).

-       Deleting (See us deleting, modelling).

-       Changing (Change words, sentence starters, improve a verb).

-       Moving (Move words or sentences around to make it better).

Clear criteria (focus) and challenge

Visual! – Keep it as visual as you can. For example, choose 4 descriptive verbs they have to use in their writing. Know what they are doing a why.

Memorable – 3 criteria and a challenge. Keep the same criteria for the week and change the topic or stimuli.

Measureable.

Self-Check

-       Highlighting the success.

-       Teaching children to self-check, let them know we are teaching them to be independent, they need to know how to do this.

-       PR = Proofread = 4 (They found 4 mistakes in this line).

-       Spot the difference (Spot the difference between two pieces of writing their writing and the published or edited version/edited or unedited).

-       Get children to come up and edit the modelled writing – put a photo on the white board for them to come up and edit – Make it fun and interactive.

Guided Writing

-       Guide, prompt, and support.

-       Roving and quick stop – Check your writing, do you have a capital at the beginning of your writing and spaces between your words just like Blake? Ripple effect throughout the group from celebrating one child’s success.

-       Make useful comments, highlight what they may need to fix or focus on and ask them why you highlighted. Have them tell you. Then they may be able to help a buddy fix the same problem.

-    Guide a group a day. Be smarter about how we use kids, how do we get them doing more.

-    Students do not learn when teachers or other students correct their mistakes for them.

-    Do not expect students to find and correct all mistakes.

-    Give them reminders rather than corrections, keep it positive.

Lesson Ideas

-       Begin the week with a mini lesson and working on a skill, criteria (topic).

-       Next day plan and begin writing.

-       Work on writing, proofread, edit.

-       Recrafting, publish to sharing doc.

-       Work with groups between, check ins, see focus group within the rotation.

-       Make sure students know what their criteria (focus) is.