The Rookery

After several weeks of writing circles, students last week were asked to pick one of their pieces to publish.  Each piece they had written had been read to their writing circle audience who had shared specific places where things were confusing, needed a description, needed more of the character's motivations, or needed to be slowed down.  Now it was time to choose the piece that had the most potential.

I stress that the best writers make a lot of changes.  We celebrate the purple (our revising pen color) that is splattered liberally across our pages.  We use a system so students don't feel they have to erase to make room for new writing – they simply put a star where they want to add something and then, like a footnote, have a corresponding addition at the bottom of the page with that number star on it.

After they have revised the pieces are typed into a Google Doc – errors and all.  They are then ready to edit.  I've found that it's hard for students to see punctuation and capitalization errors when the work is hand written – they need to see it in the stark black and white of a double spaced draft.

We use 5 colors in all when we do revision and edit.  We celebrate "rainbow" papers which are loaded with all kinds of corrected errors.  

Orange is paragraphing – a beginning skill for most fourth graders.  As you read with your child, stop every once and a while and puzzle together about why the paragraph you are reading stops when it does.  This is a concept without specific rules and it can be very hard for students to know where a paragraph should start.

Red is punctuation – students in 4/5 are expected to end sentences with a period.  Many use periods when they write their first drafts, others add them all during editing (gulp.)  Editing actually provides an authentic reason to start using them in the first draft – it's a whole lot easier.  Many students are beginning to use more commas in their writing and we'll have several grammar lessons on comma use this year.

Green is the color we use to make changes to capitalization.  Again, students are expected to start every sentence with a capital.  I am also in an epic battle against the forces of lower case "i" pronouns.

Finally, students check their spelling.  To do this, they read their drafts backwards looking for words that may be wrong.  They look up words and make corrections.

The students do all of this work on a hard copy, not on a screen.  It's very important for them to see the changes they are making in a concrete way (they are very proud of their edits.)  After they have made their editing marks, they then make the changes in their Google doc.  I do a final teacher edit with the child along side.  During this conference, I explain new punctuation concepts to them as well as do a final sweep for misspelled words the child may have missed.  Then they are ready to CHOOSE A FONT!  This, I think, may be carrot that keeps kids going through the long revising/editing process.

Currently, the Herons are planning on publishing their work in a literary magazine.  I'll keep you posted.

Ask your child to share his or her documents with you.  The commenting function is a fun way to share ideas and compliments.