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Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Revising conferences in K

Today in my Kindergarten classroom, I had the kids get in pairs and they revised a piece of their writing. I'm taking my class through the writing process. Last week, my students picked their favorite book they have written (We have been writing books for the past 2 or 3 weeks-)After picking their favorite pieces, they spent a day or two revising their pieces on their own. Then, I took their writing and typed it, and today, they took their typed pieces, and revised with a partner.

Before the partners got together, I modeled what a typical revising conference would look like. I modeled questions. I modeled "I'm wondering...." type questions. When I thought I gave enough modeling and practice, I paired the kids off, and let them go. I walked around the room and I was honestly amazed at what I was hearing. I stopped at Ashley and Isabella. Ashley wrote about a birthday party she went to. Ashley was reading her writing piece to Isabella, and Isabella was asking Ashley lots of questions like "Were you playing with Barbies at the party?" What did the cake taste like?" "What was in your treat bag?" After Ashley's revision, Ashley included many more details about the birthday party. I loved that she even included eating the P of the birthday cake! Then Isabella read her story to Ashley- it was a story about a princess trapped in a tower. After her revision conference, Isabella included more details about why she was trapped in the tower, more details about the prince who saved her, and she even wrote that the horse the prince was riding on was a girl horse.

I walked around more, and I couldn't believe how the kids were suddenly all writing more. I never in my 17 years of teaching saw such a drastic improvement of writing in one Writer's Workshop lesson. It was simply amazing to listen to the dialogue, the excitement that was in the air, all the writing that was being added to their typed rough drafts, and again THE DIALOGUE! I absolutely loved the questions they asked one another. And the mutual respect they were giving one another.

Most of the kids later told me while we we sharing that they wanted to add even MORE details to their writing, and they wanted to revise more. So, I plan on handing out their rough drafts again tomorrow to see what happens. After we edit, I plan on publishing their stories into one big book and having an Author's Celebration. Each family will bring home a book of all the kids' stories.

I'm finding that this year's students love to write, and it's been a real fun year for me to do Writer's Workshop. Fun day for me today!

1 comment:

  1. What a great peek into your class! They were being productive and independent. That's amazing!

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