The writer's craft and digital writing

I have always loved to read, which I’m certain has contributed to my skills as a writer today. By reading quality literature, I can increase my vocabulary, expand my knowledge, (or in the case of fiction) expand my creativity and imagination. However, I can’t say that I have consciously recognized the elements of writer's craft in my reading. I need to learn to read with a critical eye so that I can help students recognize the elements of good literature.

Hicks quotes the work of Fletcher and Portalupi (1998): “When we help students get a feel for the setting, voice, tension, inner story, or recurring detail, we are helping them develop new lenses with which to develop their own writing. Such lenses are critical if they are going to develop into the writers they want to be (cited in Hicks, p. 12).”

In order to create better writers, we need to teach readers to identify what matters in a text, and how the author uses the elements of craft to communicate this message. Looking at my bookshelf, my favorite reads are the ones where the author has a strong voice—whether given to the protagonist in a first-person narrative (The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb) or by the author in a biography (Bossy Pants by Tina Fey and Yes, Please by Amy Poehler). While I’m not consciously seeking it, I now recognize that voice plays a strong role in my favorite reads.

Tompkins identifies six elements of writer’s craft: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation (p. 71). While I don’t consciously consider these while reading traditional or digital texts, I definitely consider these when writing. My ideas flow naturally into my composition’s organization, and through consistent writing, I have developed my writer’s voice. I choose precise words to communicate meaning, and will often go back through my work during the editing/revising stage and substitute words or phrases to emphasize what I want my reader to know. Sentence fluency is a natural part of this process, followed by use of proper conventions (also a focus during editing/revising). The sixth trait, presentation, comes earlier in my process if I’m writing for digital communication. When I was writing a blog on wedding planning for the Democrat and Chronicle, I sometimes located photos and videos that would accompany my text before or during the writing process. While I couldn’t place them until the writing was complete, presentation wasn’t an afterthought of my process, but (as Hicks says) an intentional part of the writing process.

Following this week’s readings, my understanding of the author’s craft has changed. Tompkins' six traits are the ones I remember learning in school, but Hicks has expanded on this principle in writing for digital communication. No longer are students expected to write all stories by hand as word processing is an expected part of the elementary curriculum. Even the youngest digital writers today will learn about selecting legible fonts, choosing font sizes, and adding spacing between lines and paragraphs when typing their stories. Furthermore, they are introduced to other digital storytelling tools like video and audio at an earlier age. As a future library media specialist, I would thrive on the opportunity to work with students on how to use digital resources and/or best practices for using them to tell compelling stories.

References (outside class textbooks)
Fletcher, R., and J. Portalupi. 1998. Craft Lessons: Teaching Writing K-8. Portland, ME.
   Steinhouse Publishers.

The importance of interactive read-alouds and learning how to design a writing workshop

While I believe all students should have a chance to write about their interests so that they can find joy in writing, it’s important to guide students to become better writers. Teachers use interactive read-alouds to give students examples of good writing and to introduce various genres (Tompkins, 27). In my library, I would choose both fiction and nonfiction high-quality books to read to my students. Exposing them to a wide variety of literature in different genres would open their eyes to the many styles of writing. Once exposed to these texts, we could discuss what makes them unique and then students (working with their classroom teacher) could create their own stories using the elements they learned about from the mentor texts.

Tompkins references Heffernan’s research (2004)which found that young students needed guidance to write about topics beyond the superficial. While students may initially delight in writing about their loved ones and pets, he noticed the essays began to lack passion and students were bored with writing. However, they didn’t know what to write about next. Heffernan successfully used mentor texts to introduce students to social issues. These issues were reflected in their writings (as cited in Tompkins, p. 26).

When thinking about encouraging students to write, my inclination would be to let them write about their passions. It surprised me that even a favorite topic could grow stale, but it surprised me even more that young children could be influenced to write about deeper issues based on age-appropriate mentor texts for interactive read-alouds. Using these mentor texts appropriately would help develop young writers into critical thinkers. I also had not considered that any example of writing could be a mentor text, including, as Tompkins states, “poems, magazines, Internet articles, email messages, newspapers, and instructions manuals. (p. 27) The modern school library media specialist is expected to embrace all modes of text, including those beyond the library shelf. It would be interesting to see how I could use texts to share examples of different kinds of writing with my students.

While I haven’t led a reading/writing workshop, I believe it would be relatively easy to set up my library or classroom for optimal learning and lay the groundwork to establish a community of learners. As an adult, I have attended several writing workshops. The best ones had the students arranged in a way that allowed for easy collaboration, such as facing each other around a table even though we were focused on individual writing projects. Even better ones allowed time to share our works and receive compliments and light feedback from our peers.

What would be challenging is learning how to differentiate instruction, especially when working with struggling and advanced students in the same grade. I’m not sure yet how a librarian may need to differentiate instruction, but I do believe that all teachers (including the librarian) need to know how to meet the needs of all their students.

Tompkins provides some useful tips for differentiating instruction, including the use of tiered writing projects (p. 36) in a writing workshop. She explains that in tiered writing projects, “teachers create several tiered or related activities that focus on the same essential knowledge but vary in complexity (36).” Students work on projects with various levels of complexity, and use different mediums (create posters, write reports, etc.) to achieve their goals. Like all means of differentiating instruction, it’s important that tiering be made invisible so that students don’t make comparisons between one another.

I look forward to learning more about how to tier reading/writing workshop and differentiate instruction so that all students can be successful.