A Guide to the Common Core Writing Workshop

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Middle School Grades UoS (Calkins)

Shaelynn Farnsworth

@shfarnsworth

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Calkins

“Without care, the greatest curriculum in the world is only paper and a little dry ink.”

“A New Mission for Schools and Educators”

“The new mission… is to get all students to meet high standards of education and to provide them with a lifelong education that does not have built-in obsolescence of so much old-style curriculum but that equips them to be lifelong learners.” - Fullan, Hill, Crevola

Technoliteracies

The information age of today makes it imperative that young people, not just an elite few but all students, develop skills that are significantly more complex than those required in the past. (Calkins)

Why Teach Writing?

• All of us are writing more than ever
• Much of communication is in digital modes
• Increasingly important skills:
• synthesize
• organize
• reflect on and respond to data in their world

A Change in Thinking, The Mission for Schools….

Old…

provide universal access to basic education and then to provide a small, elite group entry into university education.

New…

all students to meet high standards of education and to provide them with lifelong education that does not have built-in obsolescence of so much old-style curriculum but that equips them to be lifelong learners.

Writing Workshop & Common Core Connection

• The Core gives as much attention to writing as reading.
• Students’ abilities to read will be assessed through their abilities to write.
• Can provide an infrastructure into which a curriculum can be developed.
• Vertical alignment to build off of skills students have, no more Lone Ranger.
• Writing skills need to be developed incrementally, standing on the shoulders of prior learning.
• Provides an invisible foundation to support students ability to demonstrate proficiency.

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(Calkins, UoS)

Why Reform Your Writing Curriculum?

The Core is the WRONG answer… instead,

• You believe in kids.
• You believe in democracy
• You believe in the right for all people’s voices to be heard.
• You believe that writers make choices for deliberate reasons.

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(Calkins, UoS)

Deep Understanding of the Core

• No single document has played a more influential role in the history of American Education.
• Influences what is taught, published, mandated, and tested in schools.
• Also, what is marginalized and neglected.
• Any educator who wants to play a role in shaping what happens in schools, therefore, needs a deep understanding of the standards.

The Emphasis on Writing Found in the Core

“Writing is assumed to be the vehicle through which a great deal of the critical thinking, reading work, and reading assessment will occur.”

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(Calkins, UoS)

The Standards Emphasis on 3 Types of Writing

• Narrative Writing
• Persuasive/Opinion/Argument Writing
• Informational and Functional/Procedural Writing

Narrative Writing

“Although the sequence of the first three anchor standards for writing starts with argument and ends with narrative, learners grow into these genres in just the opposite direction.”

Opinion/Argument Writing

• Big Deal in the CCSS
• Push for logical reasoning, analysis of claims, evidence and evaluation of sources

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Information Writing

The skills required to write information texts are not just writing skills, they are learning skills.

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The Writing Process in the Standards & UoS

There is a “near” universal agreement that writers engage in a process of collecting, drafting, revising, and editing.

The Essentials of Writing Instruction

“When a student enters your school, what promise do you make about the writing education he or she will receive?”

Standards-based Approach to Writing

• The whole school needs to be in on this work together.
• Writing, like reading and math, is one of those subjects that affect a learner’s ability to succeed in other subject.
• Shared commitment to teach writing, and some infrastructure that assures enough of a curriculum that teachers can build off of prior instruction.

Bottom-line Condition

• Writing needs to be taught like any other basic skill, with explicit instruction and ample opportunity for practice. Writing is equally as complicated and as important as reading, so it makes sense to start by assuming that language arts time is equally divided between instruction in writing and reading.

Bottom-line Condition

2. Writing, like reading and math, is a skill that develops over time. Because of this, more and more schools are recognizing that students deserve writing to be a subject that is taught and studied just like reading or math, In many middle schools, writing is taught as a subject, similarly to reading. In other schools, language arts is equally divided between reading and writing, with writing being taught approximately every other month (and relied upon during alternate months.)

Bottom-line Condition

3. Students deserve to write for real, to write the kinds of texts that they see in the world, and to write for an audience of readers, not just for the teacher’s red pen.

Bottom-line Condition

4. Writers write to put meaning onto the pages. Students deserve the opportunity to invest in themselves in their writing by choosing to write about subjects that are important to them.

Bottom-line Condition

5. Students deserve to be explicitly taught how to write. Instruction matters - and this includes instruction in spelling and conventions, as well as in the qualities and strategies of good writing.

Love this Quote

“Writing improves in a palpable, dramatic fashion when students are given explicit instruction, lots of time to write, clear goals, and powerful feedback.” UoS

Bottom-line Condition

6. Students deserve the opportunity and instruction necessary for them to cycle through the writing process as they write: rehearsing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their writing.

Bottom-line Condition

7. Students deserve opportunities to read and hear texts read, and to read as insiders, studying what other authors have done that they too could try.

Bottom-line Condition

8. Students deserve clear goals and frequent feedback. They need to hear ways their writing is getting better and to know what their next steps might be.

Bottom-line Conditions Recap

• Writing needs to be taught like any other basic skill, with explicit instruction and ample opportunity for practice.
• Aspiring writers deserve to write for real purposes, to write the kinds of texts that they see in the world, and to write for an audience of readers.
• Writers write to put meaning onto the page. Adolescents will invest themselves in their writing when they choose subjects and topics that are important to them.
• Young people deserve to be explicitly taught how to write, both the skills and strategies of writers as well as the conventions.
• Students deserve the opportunity and instruction to cycle through the writing process.
• To write well, adolescents need opportunities to read and to hear texts read, and to read as writers.
• Learners need clear goals and frequent feedback.

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