When You Get To Choose, Enjoy the Choice
Choice is a wonderful thing! Kids love to make choices – let’s be honest, so do adults! Kids are not always able to make too many choices during the day. For instance - they are told when they have to go to specials; they are told when it’s time for math; and they are even told when they need to eat their lunch and snack.
That’s one of the reasons that I love to teach writing to kids. It’s a time of the day when they are able to make some choices for themselves, and it’s an opportunity to learn more about who the kids are as individuals. Unfortunately, kids don’t always want to make choices when writing or they get frustrated and do not think that they have anything of value to say.
So, what do we do as teachers when kids do not think that they have any experiences to write about? Well, we model how we look to our lives for ideas. I have a few ideas – and, I’m sharing them with my students in class tonight! The following ideas are ones that I use to help students generate ideas and realize how wonderful it is to make choices about what you write about. I want them to learn that they have agency to write about topics that interest them and experiences that are meaningful.
The Blank Paper – This idea came from Megan Sloan’s book Into Writing. I highly recommend this book. She argues that it is essential to observe students as they are writing, particularly at the beginning of the school year. This activity is one that can be done at the beginning of the year, but I’ve used it throughout the school year. What you do is you give students a blank piece of paper and have them draw and/or write about anything. It can be something that is on their mind, something fun that they did, something they like doing (such as playing a sport). Really the possibilities are limitless! As the students are working on their writing, you are observing them. Some questions to ask are: is the student able to write about a topic? Does it take the student a long time to find a topic to write about? Can the student finish writing about the topic he chose? Does the child lose interest in her writing? This gives you insight into how the students approach their writing work, and can then help you as you are planning your writing instruction.
The Heart Map – Georgia Heard came up with this strategy. You take a heart (see image below) and fill it up with different things that are important to you. Kids love this. They can draw, write, or do a combination of both as they complete the heart map. I have the students add to it over time – because our interests change. One suggestion – I recommend modeling this to students – so, I fill it in and talk through what I am including into my heart map, so that they see how I approach this work. I find that modeling this helps the students and enables them to complete their own with fewer questions for me.
Heart Map Graphic Organizer
Chart Your Day! Next week, I have a great interview with the author and illustrator Amy Young She shared this great tool to get kids to see all the ideas that they have to write about – and they all come from daily life. What you do – write down something that you did, something that you heard, something that you saw, and then draw something. The students can draw anything - something that interests them, a friend or family member. Literally anything they choose! Once it is all filled-in, pick something and get writing! This is another tool that I would model with kids first before having them try it on their own. I would want them to see how I go through the process of filling out the graphic organizer and pull ideas from my daily life. Then, I want them to see how I take one of the ideas and begin writing.
Chart Your Day Graphic Organizer
Through each of these strategies, I want to show students that having choices is a powerful thing and see that they do have choices in their writing work. Kids can also learn that if they make a choice that they don’t like, it can easily be changed!
Stay tuned! I’m going to share how my students did with these strategies! So, there’s more coming.