DESCRIPTION: We are currently working on opinion essays in our writing unit. Students have been drafting book reviews over the past few weeks, focusing on finding evidence and using persuasive language. Today, I introduced the students to the second-to -last step in the writing process: Editing. We started on the rug, as I introduced the editing checklist. The checklist had four main points – it had students check for capitalization, punctuation, spelling and understanding. I used an exemplar of a book review, and modeled how an editor would read the piece once and then go down the checklist with a careful eye and mark up the paper. I started with capitalization, before moving down to punctuation, spelling and understanding. After I
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I wanted students to work together in a positive environment because a lot of times writing is an independent process. By having students work in groups it gave them a chance to do a couple of things. One, build a positive peer relationship class. I chose to partner up students who did not usually work together because I know that when students get free choice they tend to want to work with friends, and not get much work done. Second, writing is mostly an independent process. We do a shared writing piece for each unit, but it usually falls to the background after the first two writing sessions. By having the students work on their writing together as editing partners, it gives them a chance to share their work and get peer feedback. This leads me to my third point: Peer Feedback. As we teach writing, a lot of the times students do not get much feedback from their peers during the writing process even if they do get a chance to confer with my cooperating teacher or me. We also do not tend to let students give each other positive feedback, until they are done with their writing. This is a great model and has helped students build up a positive vocabulary, but the process of sitting down next to a friend and helping them navigate through their writing is a skill students need to
I wanted students to work together in a positive environment because a lot of times writing is an independent process. By having students work in groups it gave them a chance to do a couple of things. One, build a positive peer relationship class. I chose to partner up students who did not usually work together because I know that when students get free choice they tend to want to work with friends, and not get much work done. Second, writing is mostly an independent process. We do a shared writing piece for each unit, but it usually falls to the background after the first two writing sessions. By having the students work on their writing together as editing partners, it gives them a chance to share their work and get peer feedback. This leads me to my third point: Peer Feedback. As we teach writing, a lot of the times students do not get much feedback from their peers during the writing process even if they do get a chance to confer with my cooperating teacher or me. We also do not tend to let students give each other positive feedback, until they are done with their writing. This is a great model and has helped students build up a positive vocabulary, but the process of sitting down next to a friend and helping them navigate through their writing is a skill students need to