Middle Level Lit 2- Test 1

What will you learn about in this chapter?

In this chapter, you learn about developing strategic writers and how students can apply strategies purposefully as they plan, revise, and edit their compositions.

How do you create a community of writers?

When creating a community of writers, students and their teachers need to create a secure classroom with honesty and trust, and this environment strongly influences students' writing development and their productivity. The classroom community should be conducive to learning.

When are writers regulating their strategies?

When they do the following: -Setting goals -Questioning -Monitoring -Evaluating

What is Narrowing?

When writers choose a topic, they ask themselves if it's specific and manageable, or if it's too broad. To narrow a topic, writers often use the five "W' questions to examine their topic; these questions help writers identify a specific area of interest. Another technique is to create a cluster or other graphic organizer about their topic and then narrow the topic to one main idea.

What is Evaluating?

Writers evaluate or reflect on their writing and make judgments about it. During each stage of the writing process, they review the text they are producing to see if it matches their intended meaning and to regulate their use of other writing strategies.

What is Elaborating?

Writers expand their ideas by adding details, examples, and quotes. Students brainstorm additional words and ideas or do more research to learn more or to expand their ideas. This strategy is most beneficial during Drafting, when students are writing their ideas, and during Revising, when students notice that their writing lacks vivid details.

What is Organizing?

Writers organize the ideas they have generated as they prepare to write. They group ideas and details together and sequence them so that their writing will be easier to understand. Students often make clusters, diagrams, and other graphic organizer that are appropriate for their ideas, their purpose, and the genre they will use.

What happens at the end of a workshop?

-At the end of the workshop, the class gathers together to share their new publications and make announcements. -Students take turns sitting in the author's chair to read their compositions. -After the reading, classmates clap and offer compliments. -They may also make other comments and suggestions, but the focus is on celebrating completed writing, not on revising the compositions to make them better.

What are some ways students can share their published writing?

-Author's CHAIR -Class "read-around" where students read each other's work -Placing the book in the class library -Posting it on the class website -Sharing it with parents and siblings -Sending it to a pen pal -Reading it to another student in another class -Contributing it to a class anthology -Submitting it to a literary magazine or ezine

Researchers have compared more and less capable writers and identified these characteristics of capable writers:

-Capable writers vary how they write, depending on their purpose for writing and their audience. -Capable writers use the writing process flexibly. -Capable writers focus on developing ideas and communicating effectively. -Capable writers turn to classmates for feedback on how well they are communicating. -Capable writers monitor how well they are communicating in the piece of writing. -Capable writers use appropriate formats and structures for stories, poems, letters and other texts. -Capable writers use a variety of strategies and self-regulate their strategy use. -Capable writers postpone attention to mechanical correctness until the end of the writing process. -Capable writers assess their writing according to how well they communicate with their audience.

Why is Differentiating Instruction important?

-Differentiating Instruction is extremely important to support students in a community of writers. -Teachers understand that their students vary in their interests and motivation, writing development, and background knowledge and experiences and they tailor instruction accordingly. -Teachers consider these individual differences as they work with students to set goals, design engaging writing projects, and provide opportunities for students to collaborate with their classmates.

What are the three main ways teachers modify instruction?

-Differentiating the content -Differentiating the process -Differentiating the product

What activities are writers involved in during editing?

-Distancing themselves from the composition -Proofreading to locate errors -Correcting errors

What are ways that students can gather and organize ideas for writing and the words and sentences to express them?

-Drawing pictures -Doing online research -Talking with classmates and the teacher -Reading stories and informational books and other texts -Dramatizing and retelling stories -Doing informal writing -Making diagrams and other graphic organizers

Researchers share that strategy lessons should exemplify the following characteristics:

-Explicit Instruction -Modeling -Collaboration -Independent Application

What are the seven oral language functions that Halliday (1975) believes also apply to written language?

-Instrumental language -Regulatory language -Interactional language -Personal language -Imaginative language -Heuristic language -Informative language

What are the four levels of support that teachers use as they teach writing strategies?

-Modeled writing -Shared writing -Guided writing -Independent writing

In what ways do computers support the writing process?

-Prewriting: Students research topics on the internet and brainstorm lists of ideas and words, and then they organize those ideas before beginning to draft. -Drafting: When students have good keyboarding skills, they pour out their ideas quickly because typing is faster and more legible than handwriting. -Revising: Students meet in online revising groups in networked classrooms and get feedback on how to improve their writing. -Editing: Is simplified because word processing programs automatically correct common spelling errors and capitalize words. -Publishing: Students design their layout and format, their compositions.

What are the five strands that the CCSS for English Language Arts are organized into?

-Reading -Writing -Speaking and listening -Language -Media and technology

What identifiable characteristics does a successful classroom community have?

-Respect -High Expectations -Collaboration -Differentiation -Choice -Responsibility

What are some interactive read-aloud procedures that teachers use?

-Select a book -Prepare to share the book -Introduce the book -Read the book interactively -Involve students in after-reading activities

What is a Revising Group?

-Students meet in small groups to share their drafts with classmates. -In a revising group, a writer reads aloud. Group members listen and offer compliments, sharing what they liked about the draft. -Positive complements should be specific, focusing on strengths. -The writer then asks questions, asking classmates for their assistance. Listeners offer suggestions carefully phrasing their comments in helpful ways. -Writers then plan for revision, sharing how they will revise their writing. -Because students verbalize their revision plans, they are more likely to complete the revision stage.

What happens when a teacher does a read aloud?

-Teachers read aloud high-quality books and chapter books, often ones that they've chosen carefully to highlight a writing concept. -These books are called Mentor Texts, and after reading them, teachers refer to them again and again to teach students about concepts during minilessons. -Teachers choose books to demonstrate writing strategies or the writer's craft or to teach about a genre.

What are the ANCHOR standards that the 10 Standards in the Writing strand are organized into?

-Text types and purposes: *Narratives *Informative/explanatory *Arguments -Production and Distribution of Writing *The writing process *Writing strategies *Writer's craft -Research to build and present knowledge *Conduct research projects by gathering information from print and digital sources *Assess the credibility and accuracy of the sources *Quote or paraphrase the data, listing sources -Range of writing *The scope of the writing projects, including both extended and short projects

What happens during brief conferences?

-The teacher circulates around the classroom, observing students and stopping to confer briefly with individual students. -What matters is that during these brief conferences is for teachers to listen as students read and talk about their writing. -During brief conferences, teachers listen carefully, react honestly, and then move on to the next student. -Conferences provide opportunities for teachers to clarify misunderstandings and nurture students.

How do teachers introduce Writing Workshop?

-When introducing writing workshop, teachers begin by teaching the writing process and modeling activities at each stage. -They arrange the classroom for workshop activities, create a community of writers, and differentiate instruction. -Writing workshop isn't easy to implement. -One things that makes writing workshop difficult to implement is that many teachers were not taught this way themselves, and they may not have seen other teachers use writing workshop effectively. -Another difficulty is that both students and teachers take on new roles in workshop: Students assume more ownership of their work, apply strategies to solve problems, and self-assess their writing, and teachers spend a great deal of their time conferencing with students, working one-on-one or in small groups rather than directing the whole class.

What components are included in the Writing Workshop?

-Writing -Sharing -Interactive Read-alouds -Minilessons

What activities are writers involved in?

-Writing a rough draft -Crafting leads

What are twelve strategies that writers use?

1. Elaborating 2. Evaluating 3. Formatting 4. Generating 5. Monitoring 6. Narrowing 7. Organizing 8. Proofreading 9. Questioning 10. Rereading 11. Revising 12. Setting Goals

What are the three management strategies that teachers use to monitor students' work?

1. Status of the class: At the beginning of the writing period, the teacher calls roll and students each respond with a word or a phrase about their progress on their writing project, such as "making my final copy", or "planning". The teacher writes a word or code number by each student's name on a chart. 2. The second way that teachers monitor progress is by Conferencing with students and making anecdotal notes. Many teachers use a clipboard with a page for each student. Teachers observe students, read their writing, and talk with them about their progress. 3. The third way to monitor progress is student driven. Students keep project checklists they mark as they move through each stage. Teachers use these checklists to monitor students' progress.

What happens during Prewriting?

During this time, writers participate in these activities: - Choosing a topic -Considering a purpose, audience, and form -Generating and organizing ideas for writing

Why is the Monitoring Process an essential component of writing workshop?

Monitoring Process is an essential component of writing workshop because students are working on different projects and moving through the writing process at different speeds. When teachers don't monitor students' learning, they often feel as though they are not in control, and students often feel that same loss of control.

Writing Process: The writing process is a way of looking at what writers THINK and DO as they write. The five stages include:

Prewriting Drafting Revising Editing Publishing

What is Rereading?

Rereading is one of the most commonly used writing strategies, but its importance is rarely emphasized. Writers stop writing periodically to read and review what they've written, they monitor their flow of ideas and sentence fluency, check that they are achieving their goals, and appreciate the voice they have crafted. Rereading is an effective problem-solving strategy whenever writers run out of ideas because it helps to generate more ideas and details.

What is Revising?

Revising isn't just the name of a stage in the writing process; it's also a strategy that writers use to improve the quality of their compositions. Students use the revising strategy throughout the writing process, but the strategy is more important during the revising stage. They make changes while they are gathering and organizing ideas during prewriting.

What do Strategic Writers do?

Strategic Writers take conscious and deliberate control of the process they use. They select appropriate strategies to organize ideas for writing, monitor and evaluate progress as they work, revise their meaning as they refine their writing, and identify spelling errors and other problems with conventions.

How are students encouraged to incorporate technology into writing?

Students are encouraged to incorporate technology into writing by using computers with word processing software and internet access.

What is Questioning?

Students ask self-questions to guide their thinking during writing. They construct questions to direct their thinking about the writing process. They pose self-questions about their use of writing process. Students also ask questions about the content of their compositions. Students ask questions as they set goals, monitor, and evaluate their writing.

What is the Writing Strand?

Students learn to use the writing process to compose texts representing a variety of genres: in particular arguments, informative texts, and narratives. They also write to respond to Literature and conduct Research projects related to content area study.

What is Setting Goals?

Students set goals when they begin a writing project, and these goals provide direction for the entire project. Goals are action oriented; they serve as a map from where students start to where they want to finish. It's essential that students' goals are reasonable, specific, and attainable, and that they reflect their purpose for writing, the genre they will use, and the audience who will read their writing.

What is Monitoring?

Students use monitoring to keep track of their progress, detect problems as they arise, and quickly take action to resolve them. This metacognitive strategy plays the role of supervisor. Writers use monitoring to regulate their application of the other strategies. Two strategies that students use in conjunction with monitoring are questioning and evaluating.

What is Generating?

Students use the generating strategy to gather ideas and collect words for writing. They activate their background knowledge as they consciously think about what they know about a topic. Writers use these activities to generate ideas: brainstorming, clustering, drawing, quickwriting, and talking.

TRUE or FALSE: The most remarkable difference between capable and less capable writers is that better writers are strategic.

TRUE

TRUE or FALSE: Stage 5, Publishing, is when students publish their writing and share it with an appropriate audience. Publishing motivates students to improve their writing because they know they will share it with a real audience.

TRUE

True or False: Stage 1, Prewriting is the getting ready to write stage. Writers begin tentatively, by talking, reading, and writing to see what they know and what direction the writing will take.

TRUE

TRUE or FALSE: Teachers use four levels of support as they teach writing strategies, moving from more to less guidance as students learn and assume more responsibility themselves.

TRUE! These levels are based on Vygotsky's notion of scaffolding and Pearson and Gallagher's Gradual Release of Responsibility model of reading comprehension.

TRUE or FALSE: As they teach students about a strategy, teachers follow the minilesson format.

TRUE! They begin by introducing the strategy and demonstrating it through a writing activity. Next, they provide guided practice through whole-class, small-group, and partner writing activities. Finally, they have students apply the newly learned strategy in authentic writing activities.

TRUE or FALSE: Donald Murray (1982) believes that 70% or more of writing time should be spent in prewriting.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE: Teachers teach students about writing strategies in minilessons.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE: Inexperienced writers lack knowledge about the writing process and have few problem-solving mechanisms that involve complex thinking processes available to use while they are writing.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE: Most of these strategies are cognitive strategies because they involve thought processes, but four are metacognitive strategies because they regulate thought processes.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE: Students use writing to extend learning in literature, social studies, or science units; they apply what they are learning by creating poems, reports, posters, and other projects.

TRUE.

True or False: Stage 1 is the most neglected stage; it's as crucial to writers, however, as a warm-up is to athletes.

TRUE.

TRUE or FALSE: Stage 4, Editing is when students put the piece of writing into its final form. In this stage, writers focus on writing conventions as they polish their writing.

TRUE. Conventions or mechanics, refers to the commonly accepted rules of written Standard English; they include Capitalization, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, grammar and usage, and formatting considerations specific to poems, letters and other genres.

TRUE or FALSE: According to Lucy Calkins (1994), students write during writing workshop about what's vital and real for them. They assume ownership of their learning and choose what and how they will write. At the same time, the teacher's role changes from being a provider of knowledge to serving as a guide.

TRUE. Students are active participants because they choose the direction their writing will take, consciously monitor their writing processes and turn to classmates and the teacher for guidance.

TRUE or FALSE: Writing is the heart of writing workshops.

TRUE. Students write independently or collaboratively on topics related to literature, social studies, or science, or they write about personal topics they've chosen themselves. Young children, especially, write about their pets and family events.

TRUE or FALSE: Stage 2, Drafting is when writers focus on getting their ideas down on paper. They begin with tentative ideas developed and organized through prewriting activities and elaborate on them as they work.

TRUE. The drafting stage is the time to pour out ideas, not to worry about fixing spelling, punctuation, grammar, and other errors.

TRUE or FALSE: It is not enough for students to apply some writing strategies; successful writing requires active and deliberate self-regulation of strategies.

TRUE. This is metacognitive because it involves the active control of thought processes, and for writers these processes are writing strategies.

TRUE or FALSE: Students also write about things they know well, often drawing topics from their lives.

TRUE. When students complain that they don't know what to write about, teachers often help them brainstorm lists of possible topics, including brothers and sisters, holidays, grandparents, pets, friends, and hobbies. Teachers also use trade books as writing models and students incorporate organizational patterns and language structures from favorite books into their writing.

TRUE or FALSE: Students use writing workshop to draft and refine writing projects during literature, social studies, and science units; they make projects to apply what they're learning.

TRUE. Sometimes students choose their own writing projects related to a particular unit, or they might work on a class project.

TRUE or FALSE: Stage 3, Revising is when writers clarify and refine ideas in their drafts during revising. Often novice writers terminate the writing process as soon as they complete a rough draft, believing that once their ideas have been written down, they are done. However, experienced writers know that they must turn to others for reactions and revise on the basis of these comments.

TRUE. The word revision means "seeing again" and in this stage writers see their compositions again with their classmates and the teacher helping them.

Writing Standards: The Common Core State Standards (CCSS)

The common core state standards initiative has identified the language arts and math knowledge students are expected to learn at each grade level, k-12. The standards do not delineate any recommended instructional or assessment approaches.

What activities are writers involved in during the revising process?

They are involved in: -Rereading the rough draft -Sharing the rough draft -Revising on the basis of feedback.

What is the purpose of Regulatory Language?

To control the behavior of others

What is the purpose of Informative language?

To convey information

What is the purpose of Interactional Language?

To establish and maintain Social Relationships

What is the purpose of Imaginative Language?

To express imagination and creativity

What is the purpose of Personal Language?

To express personal opinions

What is the purpose of Instrumental Language?

To satisfy needs

What is the purpose of Heuristic language?

To seek information and to find out about things

What is Proofreading?

Writers proofread to identify misspelled words, capitalization, and punctuation errors, and grammar mistakes in their rough drafts so they can correct them. It is a special kind of reading where the physical features of words are more important than their meaning.

What is Formatting?

Writers use the formatting strategy during the publishing stage to design the layout and prepare their final copies. They ensure that their handwriting is legible, the font used in the word processing program is appropriate, and titles and headings support the message; use white space to highlight the text; and add illustrations to extend the text because the presentation can either enhance or detract from a composition's readability.

What does Writing Strategies mean?

Writing Strategies are deliberate thinking procedures writers use to solve problems they encounter while writing.