Write Your Own Ending

WOW!! This book has helped me to see writing with new eyes. I have already tried some of the writing practices and can see a difference in my students' writings. We share, talk, write, reread, revise, edit, publish and celebrate with much more enjoyment and enthusiasm. I will be rereading this book over and over - what a wealth of information. I see a lot of potential in me as a writer and teacher of writing. Let's keep the momentum going and see what our student's are capable of as writers!! It is really not the end, but just the beginning!

Make Every Moment Count

This was an uplifting and encouraging chapter! It is so important to make daily connections with our students and share our hearts and lives with them. I plan to model some of the secrets of good writers with my students and have them add to the list. This will also be a great resource to share with next year's students. The suggestions given by Regie on how to wisely use our time as teachers makes so much sense. Reduce the paper load, limit the work you take home, don't teach concepts in isolation and have a life outside of school. I think I will copy her top ten suggestions for fitting writing into the classroom and post it where I can see it everyday. As for now, I am going to follow Regie's advice to reduce stress and have more energy for teaching by having a life outside of school and taking time to see the light!
Thanks Regie!!

Build on Best Practice and Research

"Districts, too often send mixed messages, confounding teachers and adding confusion to their writing practices." Hasn't this happened to all of us at sometime? We attend several workshops and professional development days to learn about how to best teach something. Yet, we don't seem to have the adequate time to practice, revise and implement these best practices into our classrooms before we are off and running to the next set of workshops on something else. Regie says that it takes up to 3 years to truly implement change.

"We're told what to do, and mostly everyone's so stressed out that we just do it. We're worn out and discouraged."

How do we change this??
* "Trust your professional common sense and your own successful teaching experiences."
* Implement best writing practices.
* Have high expectations.
* Collaborate with your teaching peers.
Evaluate student writing samples together.
Observe other teachers' writing instruction.
Share successes.
Create writing guidelines.
* Include parents as writing partners. Appendix B & C - good ideas.
What about a writing journal between home and school?
* Write everyday, together and individually.
* Always celebrate writing!!!!

"Outstanding teachers analyze situations, know the research, rely on their heart and spirit as well as experience and professional knowledge, and make wise instructional decisions for their students. Such teachers do not discard what they know when a new mandate or program comes along. They find ways to ensure that their students are successful." I hope that I am one of these teachers.

Make Assessment Count

This chapter provided down to earth common sense about assessment of student's writing.
As teachers, we need to "put rubrics in perspective" and "be realistic and humane about grading". I know I have been guilty of grading too much. Routman stated that 80% of student writing needn't be graded. I know I could handle grading 20% of my students' writing, but is this enough to justify a grade on a report card? I guess my Big question to be answered is " do we need a writing grade on a primary report card? Time spent conferencing with students about their writing is what will make our student's better writers!! The Good Writing Rubric for Third Grade on page 241 is a good resource. I need to involve my students in the process of evaluating their writing. Page 253 provides numerous ways for students to do this and in turn improve their writing skills. Our time spent with Tamara has helped our grade level create our own writing guidelines and mini lessons. I would like to see us copy some of our student's work and create files of writing samples to use in our instruction. I also think it would be beneficial for us to all score the same writing samples and discuss our results.

Conferencing with Students

Overwhelmed - a word often associated with writing conferences with a classroom of students. Leave it to Regie to make this process very doable!!!! THANK YOU!! It was great to realize that I conference everyday with my students about their writing through whole-class shares, quickshares and roving, on-the-run conferences. I can be an effective teacher of writing without a formal one-to-one conference schedule with each student every week!! On page 216, she states to be flexible, the goal is to keep students writing. Conferencing is secondary. Excellent idea for your class to create guidelines to be accomplished before setting a one-to-one conference with the teacher.

So many useful strategies to aid in conferencing:
*frontloading - demonstrate, think alouds, shared writing, modeling
*What Makes a Productive Conference checklist - page 223
*Always put the writer first
*Author reads their writing aloud 2 times
*Focus first on the content, edit later!!!
* The Language of Helpful Response
*What to Focus on in a Content Conference


I agree that peer editing is important. It takes time to demonstrate and practice editing, but what a time saver when it comes to conferencing. "Only edit for the student what the student cannot do."

Regie Routman provides such "down to earth", easy to implement steps. Just like the teaching tip on page 233, "each editor, writer, peer editor and teacher all edit in a different color" and " use common sense with editing marks." Thanks again for showing us how to simplify writing conferences.

Organize for Daily Writing

I hope I am not the only who is willing to admit this, but I cringed as I read on page 174 what a writing workshop is NOT. Guilty of doing one or two of the items listed, but gaining wisdom chapter by chapter! Finding time for daily writing is a struggle, but as Regie reminds us throughout, " We make time for what we value". The teaching tip on page 175 to "keep the flow"- at least write on consecutive days was good advice, because we all have those hectic weeks when 3 days of writing is the best we can do.

Regie continues to emphasize what is required to have a classroom of excellent writers:
*always encourage your students in their writing
*students write for a purpose and an audience
*model model model
*focus on the Optimal Learning Model
*write across the curriculum

The two classroom schedules on pages 185-186 provided excellent food for thought in the continual quest for finding that optimal schedule for writing.

I loved the list of short writing projects on pages 198-199. Regie recommended that starting in second grade, students should publish at least one piece of writing a month. I appreciated finally having someone answer that question for me - how often should a student publish a writing.

Be Efficient and Integrate Basic skills

"A successful writing program requires a knowledgeable, organized teacher with excellent classroom management skills. Mostly students need lots of time in which to write, a say in what they write about, strategies that allow them to problem solve independently (plan, revise, edit), and helpful response." WOW!! What powerful statements - Regie's definition of a writing program. If I am to raise the expectations for my students' writings, I also need to set the bar high for myself in creating a successful writing program in my classroom!! I know this book will help me accomplish this.

Finally, someone in the know about teaching writing stated that writing has become too complicated. There has been an overfocus on teaching the standards, the 6 traits, rating, etc. It truly does sap the joy and fun out of writing!!


Thank goodness, Regie continually reminds us throughout this book to teach from whole to part and back to whole. Writing summaries or retellings is a difficult task for some third graders. In a small group, we brainstormed the main ideas of the story - we just focused on that task. Upon completion of that, then we went back and reread them and talked about sequence. It was like lightbulbs clicked on. They quickly numbered our sentences into the correct sequence. Then, we were able to talk about how all of the sentences together create a paragraph.

My grade level has created monthly math and reading goals, much like the Arapahoe Ridge 5th grade teachers' writing goals. We have already identified what our students need to accomplish in writing and even created mini lessons in our workshops with Tamara. Maybe our next step is to draft some monthly writing goals to help accomplish the essential skills we expect our students to have.

Several years ago, I bought a packaged Word Wall. It lasted one year. I created my own Word Wall. It takes up one bulletin board and consists of library pockets, one for each letter of the alphabet, with a note card in it. A student may get a card and bring it me for help with spelling a word. The card goes back in the pocket. It is rewarding as the year progresses, to see the word lists grow and students searching the cards for the correct spelling. They are becoming better spellers .

This chapter was chocked full of strategies and techniques and how to implement them. I am sure I will be returing to this chapter often. Thanks Regie!