While I watch students labor over their writing test today, I'm reminded of the importance of time to write. There's no magic to becoming a good writer. Simply stated, fine writing takes focused lessons, reading great books, writing practice, purpose, audience and feedback.
We're never there when it comes to great writing, it's a never ending mountain to climb. Yet, we can bring students forward with ingredients above.
As I look at this year's writing program and students' work today, I wonder about what I would add, revise and possibly, delete with respect to fourth grade writing. The one element, I will try to add is more time to write wonderful stories, paragraphs, essays, dialogue and reports. I'll think about how I might fit that in on top of all the other standards, mandates and desired goals at our grade level. I'll keep the exciting projects such as the digital stories and "I AM" poems which help with regard to eliciting voice and investment. I'll find out if next year's stories will be typed rather than handwritten. If that's the case, that will be a huge relief, and also if that's true I hope they don't make us turn off grammar and spelling tools--tools that we all access when it comes to best writing. Further I'll encourage parents to help out with the writing by fostering shared journals, letter writing, emailing and more.
Time to write is one critical ingredient to becoming a better writer. How often do you make time for this in your students' learning program?
