The Power of Writing Formats

This semester, I am teaching a writing methods class. The students are learning different methods to get kids writing authentic pieces as well as design writing work that connects to other content areas. The topic of prior knowledge and background knowledge has been coming up quite frequently during class sessions. I am often asked how to help support kids’ background knowledge when teaching specific content. I decided to plan a writing activity that the students could complete that connected learning about kids’ prior knowledge and writing.

I split the class into four groups and gave each group the book Winter is Here by Kevin Henkes. The students I work with are currently teaching – so this activity was designed for them, but the goal was to give them ideas that they can use in their own teaching. They were asked to read the book – paying very close attention to the format of the writing. I asked them to finish reading the book with ideas about the format of the book. I also asked them to pay careful attention to the illustrations in the book because there are many details in the illustrations that connect to the text.

Each group noticed the format right away. The book begins with the sentence “Winter is here. It’s everywhere.” Then, there are descriptions of winter separated by the word and. For example, It’s falling from the sky and sitting on the houses and dripping from the roofs…” The book shows how winter stays for what feels like a long time, but begins to move into a new season – Spring! There was a lot of discussion on the format of the book and how it was very easy to visualize the words in the book – and learn content vocabulary associated with the season of winter!

The students were then asked to write their own book about spring using the opening sentences, “Spring is here. It’s everywhere.” I then gave them a graphic organizer with six boxes that they needed to fill with writing associated with spring. It was interesting to see how the students approached this writing work. Some groups started with a list of words connected to spring. Some of the words included: allergies, pollen, birds, fresh air, sunshine, outdoors, bugs, bees, blue sky, clouds. As a group, they were able to generate terminology associated with springtime. They then used the format from Winter is Here to craft their own sentences.

At the beginning of the lesson, the students did not think that they would be able to write a story in six boxes, but what happened is that most groups went past the six boxes! When I asked them to think about the writing and why they were able to complete the writing so efficiently and without many questions for me – they responded that they were able to use the format from the book and did not need to think about how to structure their writing. They also liked being able to use and multiple times in a sentence – something that they were not encouraged to do during high school and college in more formal writing. Some of the students shared that they could focus on what they knew about spring and wanted to share in their writing because they were not concerned with the formatting of the piece.

I asked each group to read their piece to the class. While there were similarities in the writing pieces, there were also many differences. The students noted how each group connected to what they knew about and liked about spring when writing their pieces. This showed how we can access students’ prior knowledge through more informal and collaborative writing tasks.

Sidenote: Kevin Henkes has books about spring, summer, and fall that are all great for getting kids writing. The book titles include: When Spring Comes, Summer Song, and In the Middle of Fall.