Creating a Writing Classroom

Your Writing Classroom: Getting Started •
Ideas for getting started, creating an atmosphere for writing, developing fluency, developing early writing strategies, managing the paper flow, establishing parental/community support and connections for writing in your classroom.

The Writing Process •
A visual overview and description of the different stages of the writing process.

The Writing Process Phases and Strategies •
Another view of the writing process that defines purpose and lists strategies.

Writing Program Observation Log •
This is a tool for coaches and teacher colleagues to conduct peer observations and talk about writing instruction. This log highlights stages of the writing process, some key instructional strategies, and student activities.

Activities and Lessons to Prepare Students to Write

RAFTS prompts •
RAFTS is a mnemonic device used to help teachers write prompts and students read prompts with a better understanding of purpose and audience.

Activities, Lesson, and Templates for Organizing and Drafting

Expository Paragraph Outline •
Kate Kinsella’s expository or justification paragraph outline that guides students topic sentence, transitions, main points and details.

Activities, Lessons, and Templates for Response and Revision

Responding to Writing •
Summary of article by Nancy Sommers that reviews purposes and effects of teachers’ comments on papers.

Conference Record •
A sheet to use for recording skills taught during conferencing.

Conferencing Questions •
Common writing problems and questions you might consider when conferencing with a student about his or her writing.

Writing Record •
A grid for students to record revision strategies.

Peer Response Guide •
A form to use in partner response.

Skeletons •
Adapted from BAWP TC Bob Presnall, this activity helps students develop details to support main ideas in a piece of writing.

Activities and Lessons for Editing and Teaching Correctness

MLA Formatting and Style Guide (website)

Error Marking Strategies (Kate Kinsella’s) •
These are handouts from Kate Kinsella on marking errors in student writing and identifying the difference between a local (less serious) and global (more serious) errors. Helps teachers identify where to focus when teaching grammar and correctness.

Proof Reading Suggestions for Students (Kate Kinsella’s) •
A list of nine proof reading strategies for students.

Sentence Combining Practice •
Groups of simple sentences and sentence fragments for students to practice combining.

Transitional Words and Phrases •
A list of transitional words and phrases organized by how they show the relationship between ideas (i.e. compare, contrast, time, etc…)

Ideas for Final Draft Writing, Evaluation, and Publishing

Ideas for a Successful Author’s Chair •
(Stephanie Travaille)

Ideas for Publishing Writing •
(Amy Brooks Gottesfeld)