Creating Space for Sharing in the Writing Circle
Jennifer,
the classroom teacher, was sitting on the floor of the classroom propped up
against a short table in the center of the room. The soft hum of children
talking filled the air. Jennifer was sitting between two boys listening
attentively to a heated discussion about the characteristics of “Pokemon”, a
new television series the boys had been watching on television the past few
days. Alex, one of the two boys, told Eddie that it was his story and that if
he wanted to give the character Pokemon extra powers he could, he was the
author. Eddie said, “Yeah, you’re the author but Pokemon can’t fly like that.”
Walking
past the computer station near the back of the room, between the refrigerator
and the toaster oven, Sofia, a young girl from Bosnia, was reading aloud from
the Dr. Seuss book, “Green Eggs and Ham”. She sees me (Frank) watching her and
looks up from her reading for a moment to smile at me and wave. Slowly, she
passes by, continuing to read from the book out loud and giggles as she goes,
“That Sam, I am. That Sam, I am. I do not like that Sam, I am”.
Behind me,
two boys are sitting at a table labeled the, “Illustrating Table”. They are
drawing with markers, practicing their illustrations for an upcoming picture
book they have decided to publish. Jose tells Billy, as he rummages through the
plastic box of markers, that none of the black markers are working. Upset, he
goes back to pawing through the box in order to find that one black marker with
some life left in it.
A young girl with long
dark hair, sits in the corner of the classroom library with a wooden “lap
board” in her lap. There are a few papers on the lap board and others scattered
around on the floor near her feet. She grabs a pillow and props her arm up as
she leans over to get a better look at one of the papers on the floor that she
is copying words from. Her eyes go back and forth from the paper on the floor
to the paper on her lap as she laboriously copies letter after letter onto the
new sheet.
At about
8:15, like most days when I stop by to visit this primary multi-age classroom,
Jennifer calls out, “Ok! Let’s wrap it up!” Students slowly get up and start
milling around in front of the writing cubbies, putting some of their papers
into their cubby drawers. Other students keep their papers in their hands and
walk over to the front of the room and find a spot on the perimeter of a
rectangular carpet that has been placed on top of the wall to wall carpet in
the room. After a few minutes, the children are sitting around the perimeter of
the rectangular carpet remnant and talking quietly as they wait for someone to
start. Jennifer calls over to one boy standing near the wastebasket, “Chris,
let’s go! We are waiting for you.”
Chris
throws some papers into the basket as he replies, “I’m coming!” He plops
himself down, squeezing in between two boys, grumbling as they make room for
the newcomer.
Jennifer, looking over at
the writer’s sign up sheet, says, “ OK. Jose you’re up next.”
Jose,
looking quite startled, replies, “ That must have been from a long time ago, I
don’t remember signing up, I don’t have anything I want to read today.”
Jennifer
says, “All right”, looking back at the sign up sheet, “Rebecca you’re up next.”
The class
giggles because Rebecca is already standing up holding her papers. Jennifer
turns to see her standing and says. “Oh, I guess you are ready. Good for you.”
The class laughs quietly as Rebecca waits for the group to settle down before
she begins to speak. She smiles and looks around at the group from over the top
of the wrinkled papers she holds firmly in her hand. Slowly, in a steady voice,
she tells the group, “Well, this story is about dogs. I am reading this because
I need more ideas.”
The
children are sitting quietly looking at Rebecca. They are sitting in what has
come to be known as the “writer’s circle”. She looks away from the group and
back down at her paper as she begins reading her story out loud to the group.
“There are
all kinds of dogs like a Chow, and a Golden retriever and a Labrador, or a
Poodle or a Sheepdog or a Chihuahua and Dalmatian...Bulldog... Pit bull...
Husky. Dogs like to chew on my shoes and many objects. Dogs bury bones. Some
dogs have long tails and some dogs have short tails. Puppies are cute but when
they get bigger they can make a mess. Only the girl dogs have babies.”
When she
finishes, she stares quietly at the class and slowly a smile spreads across her
face as the children begin to applaud. She looks around the circle to see if
anyone has raised their hand. One girl has raised her hand and Rebecca calls
out her name, “ McKenzie”.
McKenzie
says, “You should put in commas.”
From the
other side of the circle, one of the boys named Vince yells out, “You don’t
know if she put in commas or not.”
Jennifer
looks over at him with a stern look and he quickly stops and raises his hand,
but Rebecca is looking at, and listening to, McKenzie.
McKenzie
begins again, “ Jennifer told me how to put in commas last week, I can show
you.”
Jennifer
says “Ok, wait a second.” She stands up and walks over to the white board just
outside the circle of children. She pulls it over so that most of the children
can see the board and tells Rebecca to read her story exactly the way she wrote
it. Some of the children turn around so that they can see the board.
Jennifer
writes down what Rebecca dictates to her on the white board with a blue marker.
When Rebecca finishes, Jennifer asks McKenzie to come up to the white board.
The other students sit quietly and watch as McKenzie takes a red marker and
begins to make changes to the sentence, putting in several commas and taking
out some “and a”’s and a few “or a”’s. When she finishes making the changes to
the series of words, she adds a “and a” before the name of the last dog.
Jennifer
stands up and asks Rebecca to read the sentence on the white board with the
changes that McKenzie has made. Rebecca reads it out loud and begins to nod her
head up and down seeming to indicate that she understands and approves of the
changes.
Jennifer
turns to the group and says, “ Can anyone tell Rebecca why this sounds better.”
Armand raises his hand and Jennifer calls on him.
Armand
says, “ It sounds better ‘cause there aren’t so many ‘ands’.”
At this
point, Jennifer says that Armand is right and talks about this idea with the
class. She goes on to explain about how commas are used with words in a series.
When she is done explaining this concept, she turns to McKenzie and tells her,
“You remembered this from the time we spent working on it together. Good job”.
McKenzie smiles.
Rebecca
says, “I think I understand what to do now. I’ll work it some more when we have
writing tomorrow.”
Jennifer
says, “Great! That’s all we have time for today. Line up for recess please.”
The
children quickly jump up and form a line at the door, grabbing playground balls
and jump ropes as they file out the door.
The purpose
of the above vignette is to help the reader vicariously experience the
classroom environment that existed in the two primary, multi-age classrooms in
an inner-city elementary school in the Southwest United States. It was within
this classroom context that we began to focus our observations and discussions
on the talk and interactions that occurred during the writing circle.
The writing circle is an event, usually at the end of a block of time
designated for writing, where children come together to share their writing
with their peers. Questions arose about the purpose of having students share
their writing in the writing circle, the effects of these oral interactions on
the student’s writing and the effects of various teacher interventions intended
to support students in their writing. We came to realize that the interactions
during the writing circle were primarily oral in nature, rarely was any visual
information made available to the children in the circle. They listened to the
“author’s” story and responded orally to the student’s writing. It was the talk
that took place during these interactions that became the focus of our
investigation.
Jennifer and Rebecca, teachers in these multi-age classrooms, supported what may be described as a student-centered, whole language orientation (Edelsky, Altwerger & Flores, 1991). Students were involved in choosing their writing topics (Atwell, 1998), assumed responsibility for the direction of their writing projects (Calkins, 1994), and chose stories to publish (Harste, Short & Burke,1988). The teacher focused on a “process” approach to writing (Graves, 1983) and learning was viewed as a social, constructive process (Vygotsky, 1978). In these two classrooms, writing instruction was organized into a “workshop” approach, (Atwell, 1998), allowing students to choose their writing topics and proceed through the writing process to eventually publish their pieces of writing. At the end of these writing workshop time blocks, students gathered together to share their writing and receive feedback to their efforts, in a structure that came to be known as the “writing circle”.
Frank was the Title 1 teacher in this elementary school, where the Title 1 position had been re-organized to allow him to work in classrooms as a “collaborative consultant” (Jaeger,1996), rather than working in a “pull-out” model with individual students. In Frank’s position as collaborative consultant, he was able to spend at least an hour a day observing these writing circles. As classroom teachers, we believe that our own observations and reflections should be the basis of our decisions concerning curriculum. Because of this, we spent time collecting observations and discussing our notes in order to make decisions concerning the structure and processes of our writing circles.
Research
on the importance of teacher involvement in children’s literacy development,
the place of literature in the writing workshop and the importance of students
publishing their work, has taken prominence in the research literature. Until
recently, it was difficult to find research on the nature of talk and social interactions
in the primary classroom, however, research concerning “talk” in the writing
workshop has begun to find space in the professional journals.
In
this chapter we attempt to reveal some of the insights we have constructed
about the nature of teacher-student interactions during the writing circle. We
will focus on the oral interactions between teacher and student, the talk in
the writing circle, realizing of course that these oral interactions involves
more than just words to convey meaning. It is how things are said, one’s body
language, classroom context and mannerisms that carry meaning as well as the
oral “transcripts”. Our goal is to
provide classroom teachers with an understanding of the ways in which teachers
may use the oral interactions during writing circle to support individual
student’s writing processes.
Understanding
Children’s Oral Interactions
Due
to the contextual nature of the oral interactions during writing circle, more
formalized methods of assessment, such as standardized tests, are not
consistent with our needs as classroom teachers and purposes for understanding these
interactions. Because of the limitations of these standardized assessments we
looked to more authentic means of assessing student’s development as writers,
and the oral interactions that also supported this development. As classroom
teachers, we use observations, anecdotal records, and an occasional audio
recording to gather information to inform our practice.
Realizing that we needed a practical method
of assessing the growth of individual student’s writing, we struggled with developing
a form or checklist that would allow us to gather information and facilitate
the writing circle at the same time.
We have used observational (anecdotal) record-keeping as an instrument
for gathering information throughout our classrooms since we began
teaching. As children were sharing
their stories during the writing circle, Rebecca and Jennifer would keep a journal
available for recording their thoughts and observations. Because Frank was not
required to facilitate the discussions during the writing circle he was able to
take more elaborate notes and was also able to observe the teacher’s role in
the writing circle more closely.
We would use these journal notes and observational data as a launching
point for our discussions during our teacher dialogue groups. Reflecting on the
information we gathered and sharing these thoughts in our discussions helped us
to organize the writing circle and make changes that supported the interactions
between students and the development of their writing.
Theoretical
Foundations
Writing
circle has been referred to as share circle, author’s chair or publisher’s
chair depending upon the researcher or author doing the writing. The writing
circle, usually occurs at the end of the writing workshop, when children share
their writing and receive response to their efforts. The writing circle has been alleged to support student’s
writing, foster interactions between student writers, create classroom
community, allow teachers an opportunity to demonstrate writing techniques and
provide the necessary response for writers to improve their writing (Calkins,
1994). This “sharing” in writing circle is primarily oral in nature, where
students read their piece aloud and students respond orally.
Writer’s
workshop was first developed as a model that mirrored the way “real” writers
progressed through a piece of writing (Graves,1983). This model was then
redesigned to support teacher’s structure of the writing process in the
elementary writing classroom. One of the key components was the need for
writer’s to share their writing and to receive feedback on their efforts. This
sharing of student writing is done primarily through talk. Talk is a means for
sharing one’s writing and receiving feedback to said writing. It is this “talk”
that is the foundation for supporting student’s learning and sharing in the
writing circle.
Teacher-student
interactions can be represented and analyzed in various ways. We chose to focus
on the following assertions about teacher’s and student’s talk and the social
interactions that took place in the writing circle. Our assertions are grouped
into two categories, first, a focus on the teacher’s talk and second, a focus
on the student’s talk. Our observations and reflections led us to the following
assertions:
1. The teacher uses the oral and written interactions
during the writing circle to demonstrate the craft and mechanics of writing.
2. The teacher responds to the talk during the writing
circle to facilitate the discussion in the actual writing circle itself.
3. The teacher uses the interactions, primarily oral in
nature, during writing circle to help children understand the procedures of the
writing workshop and the steps in the writing process.
1. Students refer to literature and other classroom “texts”
when sharing and talking about their writing.
2. Students use talk during writing circle to create their
definitions of what it means to be a writer/author.
3.
Students
viewed the writing circle as an oral reading event, as well as a writing event.
4.
There
were noticeable differences between the type of talk concerning the actual
content of the story, as compared to the talk that focused on the mechanics of
the story.
Teachers Use the Oral and Written
Interactions During Writing Circle to Demonstrate Craft
and Mechanics of Writing
The
assertion that teachers use the writing circle to teach craft and mechanics in
writing is based on the premise that teaching in writing workshop is more of a
response to student’s efforts than an activity pre-planned and directed by the
teacher. In this sense, the teacher observes what happens in the writing circle
and based on their knowledge of the writing process, they intervene to directly
explain, or bring to the student’s conscious awareness, a writing concept. This
is done primarily through oral conversation.
Students in writing
workshop work on pieces of writing at their own level, at their own pace and on
topics they choose for themselves. Because of this, the teacher needs to
understand the writing process itself, and the individual student’s writing
abilities, in order to decide when to intervene and when to stay out of the
discussion. In the following excerpt from an interview with one of the teachers
in the study, the teacher discusses her use of the interactions during the
writing circle to support the teaching of a specific craft of writing.
The
vignette written at the beginning of this chapter was written to help the
reader understand one of the types of interaction that took place between the
teacher and the students during the writing circle. The following quote from an
interview with one of the teachers (Jennifer) also helps to warrant this
assertion. Jennifer is referring
to the episode described in the opening vignette. She began by discussing the
need for students to share their writing and how she decides when and why to
intervene in the writing circle. A portion of the interview is contained below.
“Another
purpose I have [for intervening] is the idea that through the writing circle,
students are able to share their ideas about what sounds like proper sentence
structure or grammar. [For example] “Ain’t” isn't a word, you can use the
phrase ‘went' on the elevator’ instead of ‘goed [sic] on the elevator”. So in a
way they become more critical of each other in ‘that just didn't sound right’. This falls in line with
basically sentence structure, rules of grammar, but yet, its not being taught
“directly”, where at times it is. At times when there is an opportunity for me
to interject, I’ll say “Ok, you noticed that something doesn't sound quite
right and you seem to be struggling with ways to make it sound right, here's
some ideas”. [For Example] in our language, when we have four names in a row,
instead of saying and Chelsea and Zachary and Nick and so and so, we just use
commas to separate those and so that's when it becomes an opportunity for a
"mini-lesson" to teach some of the rules of the [English] language,
but that really only comes out when it’s needed in the writer's circle. And
that's a fine line for me as a teacher to walk as to when do I interject and
impose the rules of the language and when do I allow them to discover and
inquire with one another about "You know I goed on the elevator doesn't
sound right" and even if they don't know what word does go in there, they
know I ‘goed' doesn't sound right.
In
this transcript, the classroom teacher is making conscious decisions about when
to interject and when not to interject. She is also trying to decide which
grammar elements and elements of writing craft she wants to teach or bring to
conscious attention. This is an example of the classroom teacher using the
writing circle to help children understand the structures of the English
language and the craft of writing. It is a deliberate intervention on her part,
based on her perceived needs of the children and her understanding of written
language and the writing process.
The
teacher and students are focusing on the conventions of “talk”, that they know
from being speakers in our version of the English language. Students and the
teacher are referring to the implicitly held understandings about the syntactic
nature of oral language and how it connects to our written language. They are
using this form of talk to support their writing.
Here is
another quote from that same interview that helps to explain why the teacher
chose to intervene when she did. This quote is also directly related to the
opening vignette. I asked Jennifer why she chose to intervene when she did in
the opening vignette about Rebecca.
“I chose
that one [intervention or mini-lesson] with Rebecca, because of where she is
‘at’ in her development, she needs to know how to put commas in her stories. I
might not expect someone else to understand how to use commas yet. I would
expect them to have the ‘ands’, because that is where they are at [referring to
an individual child’s language or writing development). But she [Rebecca] has
had enough exposure to commas and used commas in other places, that I felt that
was something that she needed to come around to... and the other part of it was
there are other children that are going through that "comma thing"
right now and I thought that this would reinforce them. Sometimes, I am the one
up there [in front of the group] showing them how it works on the white board,
but knowing that McKenzie had just done that [worked on commas in a series of
words], I thought it would be good to have one of Rebecca’s peers explain
that... and I wanted her [McKenzie] to verbalize it because I think it is
important for the children to be able to explain themselves and to hear
explanations from each other, because they are often times different or they
connect in a different way to when I am speaking to them. So I just saw that as
an opportunity to bring her in, but I chose to stop there because I knew that
Rebecca needed to be moving on to that [referring to commas in her writing] and
there were enough others right now that have been '”toying" with commas
and I thought that was a good thing to go with.
In this
quote, the teacher is explaining why she intervened and how she chooses when to
do so. These are conscious decisions made on the part of the teacher in order
to use the writing circle to teach the mechanics and craft of writing. It is
intentional, and based on her perceived needs of the students. These
interventions are done in the context of the writing circle and are a
calculated response to the writing of the students. The classroom teacher has
different expectations for each child and makes decisions about when to
directly “teach” some aspect of writing and when not to intervene. In this way,
the question is not about direct or indirect instruction, but about when to
“directly” teach and when to let children come to the ideas on their own. These
decisions are based on the teachers knowledge of the children in her class and
her knowledge of the writing process. This infers that teachers need to have
first-hand knowledge of the craft of writing and a comprehensive understanding
of the abilities and needs of each student in their classroom.
In
the context of the writing circle, the teachers in this study intervened to
help students understand particular aspects of the craft of writing and
mechanics after they had shared a piece of writing in the writing circle. This
intervention was primarily oral in nature and became a specific type of “talk”
that teachers use to promote writing and understanding of language conventions.
This type of talk does not ordinarily take place in other settings during the
day, but is primarily focused on the connections between written language and
oral language conventions. The teachers used these opportunities to demonstrate
to the whole group concepts or conventions that they chose to introduce. This
type of teacher intervention is a response to a perceived need that the teacher
identifies and then acts upon.
The Teacher Responds to the Talk During the
Writing Circle to Facilitate the Discussion in
the Actual Writing Circle Itself
The
assertion that the teacher facilitates discussion and has expectations that she
shares with her students, originally came to our attention because of the
continued use of the phrase, “I expect…” and “You know it is your
responsibility to…” kept coming up in interviews and field observations. It
became quite clear that there were certain expectations for social
interactions, for classroom behavior and for the procedures used during the
writing workshop, in particular the writing circle, that the teachers in this
study communicated to their students. These expectations were conveyed
primarily through teacher “talk” and became another type of discourse that the
teacher drew from to support student writing and classroom interactions. These
expectations developed over the course of the year and the teachers seemed to
be the principal “enforcers” of these expectations. The writing circle was the
primary context for communicating these expectations.
For
example, the two teachers expected that students would sit and listen to the
speaker during the writing circle. In order to facilitate this expectation, the
teachers would often intervene and explain what they felt the appropriate
behavior should be during writing circle. These expectations were usually
discussed in the context in which they appeared and were clearly and directly
articulated to the students.
The Teacher Uses the Interactions, Primarily
Oral in Nature, During Writing Circle to Help Children Understand the
Procedures of the Writing Workshop and the Steps in the Writing Process
The
assertion that the teacher used the writing circle to reinforce and explain the
procedures of the writing process and writing workshop became apparent because
of the constant referrals to what the student was expected to do next after
they shared their stories. The teachers on many occasions asked the students
what they planned to do next with their piece, and when it was appropriate to
go back later in the day, or the next day, and work on their piece of writing.
Instead of explaining to each child individually what they needed to do next,
these teachers would often use the context of the writing circle to intervene
and explain what was expected. The teachers often called on individual students
in the group to help explain to the other students what they should do next.
The
following transcript from one of the writing circle episodes, illustrates an
interaction between the group and one individual student. In this vignette, the
student is not as prepared as the group and the teacher expects. What ensues is
an interesting example of the “high” level of expectations in these classrooms.
Teacher
(Jennifer): Billy isn’t here today (reading from the writer circle sign up
list) so..... Christopher, you’re next.
Christopher: I lost mine.
Shane (to
Christopher): Then what did you sign up for then?
Jennifer: Please
raise your hand if you have something you want to say. (The group was starting
to all talk at once to Christopher)
Shane:
I can see a lot of writing in your cubby.....I see it! What is that?
Christopher stands
and does not answer and looks down at his shoes. He seems reticent to look at
anyone.
Jennifer (to
Christopher and the group): Christopher, Shane is asking you a question.
Christopher,
pauses a long time, stares at the wall. It seems like he is trying to avoid
Shane’s question.
Shane : I
am expecting an answer.
Jennifer: Christopher
answer him! Yes or no? Is that your story in your cubby?
Christopher (after
a long pause): That’s my old story. I lost my rewrite.
5 people raise
their hands at the same time. Christopher calls on Vince
Vince (to
Christopher): Read your old story.
Christopher stands
and shakes his head back and forth to indicate “no”.
Jennifer (to
Christopher): You may not shake your head at me. I am talking to you in words.
Do you understand me? (Christopher nods) Yes? OK, then answer me.
Christopher
reluctantly pulls out the old story from his cubby and slowly unrolls it. Vince
and Christopher talk back and forth about something to each other.
Jennifer ( to the
group): Does anyone know what is happening here? (calling on Amber who has
raised her hand).
Amber (To
Christopher): He (Shane) wants you to go check the paper that McKenzie threw
away in the trash and see if it has the same title (as the one Christopher is
looking for).
At
this point, Jennifer demanded that Christopher stand up and call on people by
name to tell him why they have a problem with his standing up and doing nothing
in writing circle. Christopher has obviously done no writing this day. There
are very high expectations for writers here. You’d better be ready when you
sign up. Students have high expectations for the writer to be prepared and for
their writing. But Jennifer has expectations that seem to be for each
individual student. How she talks and what she expects from each child is
different. There still was a very challenging tone to writing circle today and
for Christopher it didn’t seem like much fun.
Afterwards,
the students had a discussion
about their feelings and why they were upset with Christopher. They said that
they gave him a lot of ideas yesterday, and that he didn’t use any of them
[Ideas about how to fix the fact that he lost his paper]. All of the ideas they
gave seemed to indicate that they were upset with him for wasting their time in
writing circle.
Students Refer to Literature and Other
Classroom “Texts” When Sharing and Talking About
Their Writing
The
assertion that students refer to literature and other classroom “texts” in
talking about their writing became apparent from looking at the topics,
structures and titles of student pieces of writing, and the talk that ensued
around these pieces. There were striking similarities between “formally” published pieces of writing,
children’s picture books for example, and the student’s writing. Students
borrowed ideas constantly and used the “texts” that were made available to them
to support their writing. This concept has been called “intertextuality”, and
refers to the idea that all texts are understood or interpreted in relation to
other experienced texts (Barthes, 1979).
We noticed during the writing circle, when children were asked where
they got their ideas for their stories, they often referred to the authors of
the books that were read aloud and discussed in class. Not only were the topics similar but
the language used in their stories, and the structures of these stories, showed
remarkable similarities. For example, students would often begin their stories
with the opening, “Once Upon a Time…” or include specific characters like
“Rainbow Fish”, “Big Al” and “Winnie the Pooh”.
The following vignette illustrates the talk that took place concerning
one student’s piece of writing. Tiffany, a seven year old girl in Rebecca’s
classroom, had signed up to read her piece of writing entitled, “The Very Small
Lamb.” This was a story about a little lamb that was constantly being pushed around
by the flock because of her size.
Every time this would happen the mother lamb would tell her that she loved her no matter
her size. It had a section of the
text that was repeated throughout the piece, “No matter how small you are, I’ll
still love you.”
Tiffany finished reading her story in the writing circle. Jessica,
another student, asked her what it was that she needed help with on this
day. Tiffany told the students
that she wanted some help to add more ideas into her story and that she also wanted
ideas for an ending. Tiffany began
to call on children to listen to
their comments. The following narrative illustrates the student’s knowledge of
one of the authors discussed in our classroom, that she used to support her
style of writing and choice of language.
Emma began to describe the
picture that Tiffany’s writing created in her head. She then explained that she lost her picture [in her head]
because Tiffany had not finished the story. She suggested that Tiffany take more time and finish telling
the class what happened to the little lamb. Tiffany’s response was short and to the point as she stated,
“He walked for awhile and then they went home. That’s all I’ll
tell you for now.”
I (Rebecca) interjected and asked Emma to explain what gave her the
“picture in her head”. Emma
explained that it was the words that made her think about the green grass and
the hot sun, and she felt sorry for the little lamb. Tiffany was smiling and nodding in agreement. I turned to Tiffany and asked her how she
chose the words to “paint such a picture”.
Tiffany
began explaining her thought process to the class. “First, I thought of the title. Then I thought of something
really nice, and then just thought of nice words.”
I
asked what she was thinking about when she was writing these words. She said, “I was thinking of Time
for Bed and Koala
Lou. The repeating parts are from Koala
Lou and the
little lamb part is from Time for Bed.”
Another child spoke out and said, “It is
kind of like Koala Lou because of the ‘No matter
how small you are, I still love you’” [part].
During
the weeks preceding this discussion in the writing circle, we had been doing an
author study on the writings of Mem Fox.
The children had been
involved in choosing the stories to read and developed an admiration for her stories. The children began to attend to
specific components of her stories, like the repetition in Koala Lou and the illustrations in Time for Bed. Different children in the classroom,
Tiffany in particular, used various author’s styles to support their writing.
Tiffany drew from the writings of Mem Fox to support her story, borrowing
specific structures and language from the author. This is another example of
intertextuality.
Exposing the children to a wide variety of genres throughout the year,
the children became aware of different elements of each genre. Through class discussions, and the
creation of charts that listed components of a specific genre, the children were able to identify
various types of stories when we read and discussed them. They were able to
incorporate these specific elements into their writing. The following dialogue is an example of how children use their knowledge
of genres to incorporate specific elements of writing into their stories.
Emma
was writing a story about a prince and princess. Her story began with “Once upon a time…”. After reading her piece to the class,
the following discussion took place:
Rosa:
Your story sounded like a fairy tale.
Pete: No
because she needs magic and a bad guy.
Fairy tales always have magic and bad guys. How about a dragon?
Emma: I
think it should be a person.
Devon:
Add the prince “fighted”
the bad guys.
Vern: Put
the bad guys fight the evil.
Emma:
I’ll add that.
Lydia:
The prince can get hurt.
Emma: He
doesn’t have to get hurt.
Manuel:
You could put somebody was trying to get the princess.
Devon:
The bad guys were all dead.
The prince was mad ‘cause he didn’t have anybody to fight.
Emma:
That doesn’t happen.
Tiffany:
In a fairy tale there has to be a happy ending. You could put the prince saves the
princess from the bad guys or the dragon.
Whatever.
Manuel:
What is the King and Queen’s name?
Emma: It
doesn’t matter. But maybe I’ll add
that.
Ed: The
princess should be called Emma and the prince called Larry.
(Laughter breaks out. Larry is another child in the class.)
Emma:
Okay. I like that.
Devon:
Are you going to add an ending?
Emma:
When I get there.
Kent: It has to have an ending. All stories have an ending and it should
be happy. Most fairy tales have
happy endings. If you are writing
a fairy tale you have to have a happy ending.
Pete: Could the dragon scorch
the princess?
Emma: No. I won’t put that.
Besides, there is no dragon.
It’s an evil person.
Manuel: There
could be some magic powder.
Emma: I’ll think about that.
Teacher (Rebecca): What is your plan?
Are you going to use some of these ideas?
Emma: My mouth is zipped. It’s a secret.
You have to wait until I publish.
Not
only did students refer to specific pieces of literature, their talk focused on
the specific elements of particular genres. Fairy tales were a genre that we had discussed at length and
created “charts” to contain our ideas as they evolved over the course of our
discussions. It became obvious
that the literature being read in the class had an influence on the writing of
the students. The structures and style of writing of various authors, supported
the efforts of students throughout the writing process.
Students Use
Talk During Writing Circle to Create Their Definitions of What it Means to be a
Writer / Author
During
writing circle, children constructed individual and group definitions of what
it means to be a writer and what a writer does. The talk in writing circle often focused on children
describing their perspective about being a writer. The definition of a writer was not given to the students by
the teacher, rather it was constructed over the course of the year through the
children’s talk. Even though there
were common threads that ran through the various definitions each child
created, each child also had their
individual perspective about authorship. In this sense, it was talk, the actual
student discourse that played a prominent role in developing the student’s
sense of being a writer.
The
first month of school seems to be the appropriate time for talk about “What is
a writer?” and “What does a writer do?”, however, these questions continued to
be revisited throughout the children’s journey’s of creating and sharing stories.
Through
the talk during the writer’s circle, the students redefined their
understandings of what it means to be a writer and what writers do. Children come to the writing circle
with a novice understanding of what it means to be a writer and this
understanding develops into a more sophisticated understanding as the year
progresses. The following
transcript is used to illustrate this assertion.
Katy (Stands up): I need more ideas.
(It is Katy’s turn today to read her story aloud to the class. She
begins by calling on students with their hands raised for comments and ideas.)
Jed:
There’s a lot of details! [referring to her story]
Katy:
What are details?
Jed: They
tell a lot and make you a good person.
Teacher (Jennifer) (Interrupting): A good person or a
good writer?
Jed: A
good writer.
Teacher (Jennifer): So what does it [a good writer] look like?
Jed: They
write good because…(pauses) it’s like if somebody…(wrinkles forehead and stops)
Teacher (Jennifer): How do you learn to write?
Class (in unison): By a teacher.
Jed: By someone who’s already written.
Zane: By
your mind. Like your brain’s
figuring it out, you can look at the alphabet to figure out the letter of the
sound.
Shane: What if you’re writing a word and you
don’t know what comes next?
Rachel: Maybe
you can …
Shane: You
can learn it out of a book.
Jed: Like Shakespeare!
Shane: Well
I was thinking about the book Jennifer (teacher) read yesterday, Amber on
the Mountain.
Jed: But that one had a lot of experienced
writers. Young writers have to
think more than old writers because they’ve [old writers] done it so long.
Shane: They’re
professionals.
Teacher (Jennifer): So how do you get to be a professional writer?
Jed: You
have to practice and practice and practice.
Shane: Until
you know every letter in every word or copy it out of a book.
Tony: Or
by just sounding it out.
Teacher (Jennifer): Do we always know every word or copy it?
Shane: No, I was just thinking of … you know
the blue book we use? (points to large blue dictionary on the library
bookshelves)
Rachel: The
dictionary?
Shane: Yeah.
The
discussion faded and the teacher asked, “Would it help us when we get stuck if
we had a chart of ‘What a Writer Does’?”
The class agreed that they should write their ideas down and display the
chart on the classroom wall. The following items were listed on the chart that
day:
*
Sounds out words
*
Uses the alphabet
*
Uses the dictionary
*
Asks friends
*
Uses other books / stories
*
Uses the library and student “research”
*
Gets ideas from things you know a lot about
As
shown in this example, there were many times when the student talk would take a
different road other than the one intended by the student “author”. It was during these “side trips” that
the group was able to share their opinions and ideas from their personal or
shared experiences of what a writer does. In this sense, talk was used to share
as well as develop understanding about the nature of writing and being a
writer. I (Jennifer) noticed that
the students often focused on an element of writing, in this example it was
Jed’s idea of “detail” that led the class to a deeper discussion of
writing. Although the teacher
interjected and posed the question “What does a good writer look like”, the
students were in charge of constructing their definition through talk. At the beginning of the year, the
children were prepared with a commonly heard answer concerning how you learn to
write. They would answer, “A teacher”.
Through these discussions, students came to realise that not only did
teachers support students as writers, but the students themselves supported and
affected each other’s definition of what it means to be a writer. As the year
progressed, the children referred to themselves more as writers, however,
references to “becoming a writer” or “professional writer” continued to come up
in their discussions.
Students Viewed the Writing Circle As an
Oral Reading Event As Well As a Writing Event
Our
focus on the writing circle, as primarily a “writing event”, shifted during the
interviews conducted with our students.
The students referred again and again to their concerns about reading
their writing pieces aloud. They discussed their preparations for their upcoming
turn in the writing circle, when they would get to read their pieces of writing
aloud. Although we focused on the
writing circle as primarily a writing event, the children also viewed the
writing circle as an oral reading event, often preparing at length for their
“presentations”. Students would gather together to offer each other advice
about reading aloud and give each other suggestions during the actual
reading. It became obvious that
reading their stories aloud with confidence and fluency was an important
expectation of the group during the writing circle.
In
order to get a better understanding of what the children perceived was the
function of the writing circle, we held a discussion during one particular
writing circle where Frank asked Jennifer’s class questions about their role in
the writing circle.
Frank
began with the question, “Why do you sign up for writing circle?” The responses
to this question varied from issues about the specific content of the piece of
writing to the procedures of the writing process. Though the interview contained
responses that referred to other items, the following refer to the assertion
that the writing circle is also a reading “event” These responses were selected
to represent the student’s concerns over the reading aloud of their pieces of
writing. One student replied, “it [reading to the class] helps you to read your
story better, keep on reading” , while another said, “everyone helps you to learn to read and write”.
Another
question Frank asked was “What does it feel like when you are the writer who is
sharing?” One child responded, “I get nervous when I read,” and another said,
“nervous, there are a lot of people when you are reading, they are watching
you”. Still another replied, “Nervous, when people can’t hear me and they tell
me to speak louder”. We found that many of the responses related to the reading
aloud of the piece, not the piece of writing being shared.
This
interview revealed a perspective that we had not focused on, namely, the
writing circle as an oral reading event.
The focus of our project had been the student talk about writing during
the writer’s circle, but this interview along with things said during the daily
classroom discussions such as “you need to practice reading before you come to
the circle again” or “you need to use a playground voice when you read so we
can understand what you are saying”, broadened our understanding of the
student’s perspective concerning the writing circle.
Students were expected to read fluently
if they were sharing their stories during the writing circle. The class seemed
almost unwilling to help with the piece of writing, if the author could not
read it well enough to be understood.
Some students would spend an entire week practicing reading their story,
in order to prepare for sharing during the writer’s circle. These observations
forced us to consider the implications of the writing circle being an oral
performance, as much as a writing event.
There Were Noticeable Differences Between
the Type of Talk Concerning the
Actual
Content of the Story, As Compared to the
Talk that Focused on the Mechanics of the Story
During
the writing circle, the talk concerning a child’s piece of writing, would
usually focus on either the content of the story or the how the story was
written. In the beginning of the year, students would often ask for ideas about
what else to include in their stories.
As the year progressed, the focus of the talk would shift from the
content of the story, to the mechanics of the story, when students perceived a
discrepancy between what the child wanted to say and how it was written or
told. The discussions would shift
back and forth between the content and the mechanics depending on the person
sharing the piece of writing, the writer’s level of expertise, and the group’s
expectations for that writer.
The
following example illustrates how the grammatical errors in a piece of writing
kept the students from being able to focus on the content of the story during
the discussion in the writing circle.
The discussion never got to what “Larry” asked from the group because
they were focused on the grammatical inconsistencies apparent to them in his
piece of writing.
Larry
read his story entitled Our Class, that contained several grammatical
inconsistencies to the class. The
story was about what people in the classroom do when they are at school. Before Larry read the story, one
student asked, “ What are we listening for?” We continue with the transcript at the point where Larry is
answering that student’s question.
Larry( responding
to the student’s question): An
ending. (Larry reads his story)
Jack: What
are you reading?
Larry: Our
School. I need an ending!
Tiffany: How
about ‘School is where I like to be.’
Larry: That’s
closer.
Ed: ‘I like school.’
Larry: (Nods and smiles)
Kent: You
said… Read that first part again.
Larry (rereads from his story): ‘Kyle go to lunch.’
Kent: That
doesn’t sound right. It should be
‘He GOES to lunch, not he GO.’ It’s the same for ‘Mrs. Willey GOES to lunch.’
Larry: I get it.
Manuel: When
you said, ‘Manuel go to the playground.’ It doesn’t make sense.
Emma: It should be ‘Manuel GOES to the
playground.’
Larry: OK. I’ll fix it!
Teacher (Rebecca): It sounds like you need to fix some things before we can
help you with your ending. Let’s
talk about something for a moment.
(Larry sits down, somewhat frustrated)
Larry
grew frustrated with the discussion after he realized his mistake concerning
verb usage. As obvious from the
transcript, he never received the help he asked for. The class could not help with his ending because they were
hung up on the grammatical inconsistencies in his piece of writing. As the teacher, I (Rebecca) allowed the
discussion to proceed hoping that it would provide an opportunity to
demonstrate the proper grammatical structure for his piece.
Following
the discussion during the writing circle mentioned above, I (Rebecca) took the
opportunity to teach a mini-lesson to the entire class about the use of verbs
in a story. We also discussed how
to make a story sound like it happened in the past, present, or future, by
changing the tense of the verbs.
This was not a planned lesson.
It came about as a response to the interactions that occurred in the
writing circle. Sometimes this is referred to as a ”teachable moment”.
The writing circle offers both students
and teachers the opportunity to interact with each other about their writing,
support each other as writers and receive feedback to one’s efforts. The
writing circle is also an opportunity for teachers to listen to the voices of
the student writers in their class, and use the information gained through
listening and careful observations to teach the elements and craft of writing,
procedures for the writing workshop, and how to successfully interact in the
writing circle itself. The teaching that occurs in the writing circle, occurs
in an authentic, social context, that is supported by the interactions between
students and teachers.
Though
students did not refer to “talk” using that term, talk became synonymous with
sharing. For the students, talking became the primary vehicle for sharing and responding to a
classmates writing. Talk was the medium of teaching and learning and changed as
the context and the participants changed.
Just
as reading and writing are now seen by us as inseparable, talk is the third
component that is involved in this interaction. Reading and writing are not
“silent” events. Talk is the medium we use to share our ideas, concerns and
expectations about our development as literate human beings.
We
became better listeners as we focused on the interactions during our writing
circle. We also came to know our children better and felt more confident in our
abilities to support their writing. We worked hard to create a safe and
supportive environment where children could grow as writers, yet still maintain
high expectations for our students, challenging them at times to try harder and
accept more responsibility for their learning.
We
realized our original perspective and purposes for the writing circle had
changed. We came to understand that the children needed to be intimately
involved in the decisions made about the writing workshop, as we created “space”
for their talk and their writing. The students in our classes held high
expectations for themselves as writers and these expectations were shared in
the writing circle. We came to understand that there is more to these
interactions than the sharing of pieces of writing. Students shared their
lives, their experiences and their understandings, while they created a vision
of what it means to be a writer.
References
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About Writing, Reading, and Learning. Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.
Barthes,R.(1979) The
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Calkins,L.M.(1994)
The Art of Teaching Writing. Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.
Edelsky,C.,Altwerger,B.,
& Flores,B.(1991) Whole Language: What’s the Difference? Portsmouth,NH: Heinemann.
Graves,D.(1983)
Writing: Teachers and Children at Work. Portsmouth,NH:Heinemann.
Harste,J.,Short,K.
& Burke,C.(1988) Creating Classrooms for Authors. Portsmouth, NH:Heinemann.
Jaeger,E.L.(1996) The
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Vygotsky,L.(1979) Mind
in Society:The Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.