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!

Capitalize on the Reading-Writing Connection

I enjoyed this chapter. It reinforced my belief in the power of reading and writing together. The different author quotes in this chapter adamantly stated that to be a good writer, one must read, read and then read even more. As teachers, we truly must protect our daily read- a- loud time with our students. The teaching opportunities from read-a-loud books are endless - author's purpose, predicting, sequence, figurative language, creating a shared writing about about what a character might do next.

Regie was right on about students desire and interest in rereading class published writing, present and past. Everyday someone is reading one of our class publication again. It is also easy to visualize how natural it would be to use your shared writing as a part of your daily reading, especially in a kindergarten or first grade.

This chapter made me realize that I definitely need to work with my students to do more expository writing. The Understanding Nonfiction guide sheet, found in Appendix D will help with this. The many suggestions for connecting writing during reading and the worthwhile questions listed on page 136 will be helpful in guiding my students to write in all subject areas.

Do More Shared Writing

Shared writing is something I have done quite often with my students. It is a great way to demonstrate the power of verbs and word choice and how to structure sentence fluency. A favorite shared writing is a class book we create called "How to Get to the Center of the Earth". It is an accumulation of our science unit on the layers of the Earth and rocks and minerals. Students also enjoy creating shared writings about field trip experiences. After reading this chapter, I now have a multitude of ideas that I can easily implement to create more shared writing opportunities for my students. I really liked the idea to create a shared writing about the classroom routines and procedures. What an excellent way to not only set the classroom standards, but to also get the class writing at the beginning of school. State Assessments are fast approaching. A shared writing about "How to Take a Test" or "Great Test Taking Tips" would be a timely writing activity. The next time we do a shared writing, my students will be using their dry erase boards to share their ideas. As this school year comes to a close, I believe that my students and I will create a shared writing on "What Every Third Grader Need to Know about 3rd Grade."

Raise Your Expectations

These are the main ideas that spoke to me in this chapter:

Raised expectations for student writing means that we need to explore writing in depth.

Raising writing expectations is a political issue as well as a school issue. When I thought about that, I had to agree. Don't we flinch when we see errors in the newspaper or in a club newsletter? We do need to be sticklers with any student work that goes public. ( As I write this, I am hoping that I have not posted anything with spelling errors, etc. : > ) )

As a school, we need to set school wide writing expectations. Raise the bar! The established writing expectations need to be shared with not only the students, but their parents as well.

The "What Makes Our Writing Interesting?" and "What Does It Mean To Write More/Tell More?" lists created by Gail Westbrook and Regie Routman were excellent. Simple, yet to the point. I especially liked Make sure to have a lot of sense and Tell more to make it BETTER, not just longer.

I am constantly pushing my students to read more to be better readers. So, I also need to be pushy about writing - creating more opportunities to write for my students.

I should expect both quality writing and legible handwriting. What is published should be perfect!

Like my grandmother always said, " You catch more flies with honey." Positive comments help and encourage a writer to improve their work.

Finally, Regie's statement on page 81, "Our decisions must be guided by 'What might help this writer?' rather than 'What might help this writing?'

Share Your Writing Life

After reading this chapter and reflecting on its content, I came to the realization that I am a writer! I make daily "to do lists", write notes to students on their papers, respond to email, create a weekly classroom newsletter, and add notes to cards I send to family and friends. The statements on page 47 about writing as a Recursive Process spoke to me. I am not comfortable composing or writing on the computer. My family pokes fun at me, because I write my ideas and thoughts on paper first, and then put it on the computer. My drafts are full of cross outs, arrows going here and there and items circled to rephrase or check spelling. It is just not the same on a computer for me. This newly discovered confidence as a writer led me to write "on the spot" in front of my class. My story focused on a special time in my life - a significant birthday. My efforts inspired my students to start writing about a special memory/time from their life. There were no webs, lists or graphic organizers. They had time to talk about their special memories at their table groups. The timer was then set for 10 minutes and away they went - putting their thoughts down on paper. I loved their stories! They were straight from the heart and very enjoyable to listen to and read. We are working together, using sticky notes, to make some changes. It has been fun!

Start with Celebration

I am ready to put the fun back in writing for my students!!! The statement on page 20, "Often we kill off their writing spirit and energy with all the stuff we give them, all the talk of requirements, the lack of choice, the overfocus on correctness, and the pressure on high-stakes tests." Isn't that the truth today!! As was stated on page 29, "As teachers, we need to view children's writing through a nurturing, positive lens and notice all the small and big things kids do well." Less rating and much more praising on any writing that is accomplished. I need to write more in front of my class. Let them see me think out loud about my topic and what details I want to include in this piece of writing. I used to share so many stories about my family and pets with my students, but the pressure of having more to do to teach all the standards for the state assessments has caused me to stop doing that very much. What a shame! I will be doing more of that sharing, not less in my classroom. So many writing topics could springboard from such a simple act as me telling about the time our dogs knocked the screen door onto the kitchen table, totally destroying the supper I had just put there!! I want my students to be excited about writing. At Christmas time we wrote about that one special gift. Their stories were from the heart. I plan to use the Valentine letters lesson with my class. I can't wait to see their writing about a special moment in their life. Who knows, we may even risk writing "the truths about third grade" one of these days!!!

Simplify the Teaching of Writing

As I started reading Chapter 1, I found myself empathizing with those teachers who shared with Regie Routman that the harder they worked at teaching writing, the more difficult it became and the less their students enjoyed writing. I must admit that I have experienced those same worries. Continuing on with my reading, I found hope that I can become a more confident writer. Gaining confidence in my skills as a writer will reflect in the way I teach. Sharing ideas and writing practices with my teaching peers can help foster changes in my writing instruction and also help me to clarify my beliefs. One of my goals towards improvement, is to BE EXPLICIT - think aloud more in writing and reading, write more with my students and definitely celebrate writing every day!
I look forward to reducing the clutter in my writing files and to simplify my teaching of writing.