Growing Writers:
Everyone has a story to tell. My goal as a writing teacher is to help my students tell their stories. The help each writer needs depends on where they are on the writing continuum. I have taught kindergarten to college so I have worked with writers in all six stages of writing.
- Imitation (preschool to first grade)
- Graphic Presentation (first and second grade)
- Progressive Incorporation (late second to fourth grade)
- Automatization (fourth to seventh grade)
- Elaboration (seventh to ninth grade)
- Personalization-Diversification (ninth grade and beyond)
Although the mastery of the mechanics of language varies greatly from stage to stage, one thing remains the same: writers want to share their stories.
It’s how those stories are told that evolves. In the first three stages, young writers don’t plan ahead. They simply write down what comes to mind. Focusing on grammar, spelling, and punctuation at the start can turn storytelling into frustrating work, not personal expression. It’s all in the timing.
Allow young writers to express their ideas first, and save the final editing steps (grammar, spelling, and punctuation) for the very end. The first draft is called the sloppy copy for a reason. It’s NOT perfect — it’s ideas written down on a page.
If your young writers are in the last three developmental stages, they can go back to a sloppy copy and make it into a final copy. Writers in the very early stages, however, simply don’t think that way yet. Their first draft is their only draft. It is not until late second grade that young writers are ready to go back and make changes to their work — and that’s okay. Growing a writer takes time.
The Six Traits of Writing:
If you are working with writers who are old enough for you to begin helping them edit their own work, let the six traits of writing guide you. The six traits of writing were identified in the 1980s as a way to help young writers look at their own writing. They are:
- Ideas
- Organization
- Voice
- Word Choice
- Sentence Fluency
- Conventions (grammar, spelling, and punctuation)
When you give writing feedback to help your young writers edit their work, talk about ONE trait per editing session. Too much feedback at once can be overwhelming.
Read–Think–Write
When I teach a writing workshop for any age, I always begin with mentor texts. First we read, then we think about the text, and talk about it. Only after these reading and thinking and talking steps, will I ask my students to begin writing.
Writers grow from Imitation (in preschool) to Personalization (in high school and beyond). At each of the six stages of writing, reading and thinking and talking lead to writing. Skipping the prewriting step, the reading and thinking and talking steps of the writing process, leads to writer’s block. Why frustrate yourself?
words
lead to words
lead to words
Writers can’t tell a story without words. Begin your writing workshop with mentor texts. Then ask students to think about what they read. Ask them to think and talk about the story THEY want to tell with the writing prompt. Thinking out loud, talking to a peer about what you want to write, is a simple form of prewriting that even the youngest writer can use.
If your writers are in stage four and can revise their work with multiple drafts, they can share their first draft with a peer editor and talk about next steps. Peering editing gives both students the opportunity to act as editors as well. After both peer editors have written a new draft, they can “publish” their work by reading the final version in their notebooks to each other. In this way, writers in elementary school can experience all five steps of the writing process:
- Prewriting
- Drafting
- Revising
- Editing
- Publishing
I’ve used these steps with writers in elementary school, junior high, high school, college, and writing workshops for adults online and in bookstores, libraries, and conferences. These steps are classroom-tested! Now you can use them in your classroom or library, too.
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