The students are writing a mystery for our creative writing class. We are using a lesson I have really enjoyed doing in the past. I use the photos, titles, and captions from the book "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg.
I don't know if anyone else has these problems, but my students always think they write one draft, then the final! It can be very frustrating. I thought if they had a good visual to help them SEE the writing process it might help them realize how many steps it takes. So I came up with the following:
First, I had to decide what steps I wanted to check off before they could move on. I think this would differ depending on what the students were writing. I chose to use the following; brainstorm, lead, character web, setting map, rough draft, peer edit, rewrite, teacher conference, and final copy.
Next, I made each step a label and taped to the back of a Ziploc baggie (I also lined the baggie with black construction paper that I pre-cut so that the Ziploc logo would not show through).
Here is a close up of two of the steps. One is empty, as no students have gotten to that point in their writing yet. One you will see pencil cut outs in (after I have checked and approved one step, they move the pencil with their student number on it to the next step). Students like moving their pencils, and its a quick visual for me to see about how many students are in what step of the writing process.
At the last minute I decided to attach the baggies with Velcro squares. That way students can pull off the bag and get their pencil out to move it. I was worried if they weren't able to pull the bag off the bags would start ripping.
Here is a view of the window...don't I have a great view???
No comments:
Post a Comment