FAIRVIEW Elementary Fox Chapel Area School District Improve Student - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

FAIRVIEW Elementary

Fox Chapel Area School District

Improve Student Writing Through a Systematic, Progressive K-5 Writing Plan

Governor’s Expanding Excellence Grant 2014 Fox Chapel Area School District; Dr. Gene Freeman, Superintendent Fairview Elementary; Mrs. Rebecca Stephan, Principal

SPP Indicator:

Writing

Implement teaching of writing strategies built upon grade appropriate techniques and school-wide expectations.

Key strategy

Systematic Progressive K-5 Writing Plan

The key strategy is teaching defined progressive grade level writing skills supported by communicating clear expectations, utilizing tools for organization, teaching the writing process, and administering common assessments.

Clear and high Expectations

• Clear and High Expectations were vital in eliciting the

best writing from students

• A fundamental commitment to a “You Can Do It!”

attitude

• A cultural shift in thinking for professional staff as to

what was needed and what could be accomplished by each student

Clear and high Expectations

• Clear expectations in every grade level focused on

consistency of implementation, teacher modeling, teacher-student writing conferences, examples of exemplar writing, and student accountability and independence as they write every day.

• Collaboration among specials teachers, support

teachers and staff, and classroom teachers ensured that students received the support that they needed to achieve these high goals.

Clear and high Expectations

Tools: Rubrics

• Rubrics stated the expectation of the quality elements
• f writing. The quality elements included Focus,

Content, Organization, Style, and Conventions. Reviewing the rubrics with the students assured that the students realized what they must include in their writing to achieve a score of 4. Posted rubrics allowed the children to read the rubrics each time they wrote and to self assess as they write.

Clear and high Expectations

Tools: Checklists

• Teachers gave students checklists so that they could

review their writing “to check” that they had included what was necessary for quality writing. Checklists made the expectations more clear and concise for the

• students. For example, students could look for number
• f details, transitions, punctuation, capital letters, a

hook, number of paragraphs, and a thesis sentence.

Clear and high Expectations

Tools: Exemplars

• Exemplars showed students exactly what high quality

writing looks like at a level 4, a level 3, a level 2, and a level 1. Teachers concentrated on the exemplars at a level 4 so that the children could see and hear good

• writing. The quality elements of writing; Focus,

Content, Organization, Style, and Conventions, were highlighted and discussed to demonstrate to students that they, too, could write at this level. Each year exemplars were collected from the district writing assessment.

Clear and high Expectations

Tools: Peer Editing Checklists

• Peer editing checklists gave students specific elements

to look for when they were editing another student’s

• writing. For example, they could look for misspelled

words, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, descriptive words, a thesis sentence, an introduction, and a conclusion.

Clear and high Expectations

Tools: Graphic Organizer

• Students used graphic organizers throughout the grade

levels for pre-writing.

• The most crucial tool to simplify the clear and high

expectations.

Graphic Organizers

• The use of graphic organizers enabled writers to
• rganize material logically.
• This purposeful, spatial arrangement enabled essential

information to be structured; therefore, a very important tool for successful writing.

• This prewriting tool facilitated the communication of

thoughts and ideas effectively and efficiently.

The writing process

• Each teacher had to be committed to following the

same writing process outline so that students were given a consistent approach from year to year. By breaking down the major task of writing into simple, attainable steps, students could find success in their

• writing. As the students practiced and applied these

steps throughout the year, the process became automatic for the summative assessment.

The writing process

• 1. Read and Understand the Prompt
• Reading and understanding the prompt or directions to

an assignment was a crucial starting point to the

• process. The student had to determine the genre of

writing (informational, opinion, or narrative) and took into consideration what specific tasks must be accomplished for that specific genre. Students were taught to go back to the prompt to read it multiple times, highlighting or underlining the important words

• r phrases.

The writing process

• 2. Brainstorming
• Brainstorming took on many different forms. Some

students preferred to make a list; others preferred to make a web. There truly wasn’t a wrong way to brainstorm as long as students were letting the free flow of thoughts make it onto their paper. It was important to remind students that having more thoughts than needed was always better. Pairing down, or finding a way to combine ideas, could be done in the prewriting process. In writing informational pieces or works that were connected to a text, note-taking was a form of brainstorming for the students.

The writing process

• 3. Prewriting
• The use of a graphic organizer helped students
• rganize their thoughts from the brainstorming
• process. We used a five-paragraph graphic organizer

that the students were taught in third and fourth grade. At the fifth grade level, our goal was to develop more mature writers, so some subtle nuances were added to the overall organizer. The graphic organizer laid out the introductory paragraph, with a hook to engage the reader, followed by two to three detail sentences, and then was finished with a thesis statement

The writing process

Prewriting continued

• The thesis statement simply stated what the three body

paragraphs would be. The student then wrote their main idea sentences for each of the three body paragraphs, as well as bullet pointed notes in phrase form on what the three supporting details for each of those paragraphs would

• be. The first and second body paragraph ended with a

transition sentence that led the reader into the next body

• paragraph. The final body paragraph should have one

additional detail since there wouldn’t be a need for a transition into the concluding paragraph. The concluding paragraph should restate the thesis and should wrap up the writing piece with an additional 3-4 sentences.

The writing process

• 4. Rough Draft
• The graphic organizer was created in the prewriting

step to flow right into the rough draft. Students could seamlessly transition their work from the graphic

• rganizer into complete thoughts and sentences in

their rough drafts. We often discussed how easy the rough draft was to write due to the attention that was given to the prewriting process. Students often had the

• pportunity to type their rough draft in order to save

time and effort in the final product phase of our writing process.

The writing process

• 5. Revise/Edit
• Students first needed to revise for themselves.

Following the checklist or rubric as a guide kept the revision process flowing smoothly. Students could then revise with peers following the same pattern. Multiple clean copies using the word processing program were encouraged once the paper got “inked up.”

The writing process

Revise/Edit continued

• Throughout the process students were encouraged to

read their work out loud in order to catch mistakes their eyes missed. Reading to their locker, an iPod/iPad, or a video program were options. Once major structural improvements were made, then the students were ready to edit their work. Looking for conventions mistakes was the intended work. The major focus throughout this step was to improve the written piece more by content than by perfect spelling.

The writing process

• 6. Final Draft
• After the editing process, students made the necessary

revisions to their work. (Not all suggestions from peers had to be made… it was still that individual student’s work.) This led to the finalized version of their

• writing. The final piece was almost always in word-

processed form.

The writing process

• 7. Read/Revise/Edit
• A final read, revision and edit proved very beneficial.

Finding errors in homophones and homographs, spelling and conventions, helped a writing piece turn from good to great. This last step was often most beneficial after a break in time.

The writing process

Assessments

• Diagnostic: Students responded to a district created

prompt at the end of the school year. District grade level teachers scored and analyzed the student writing to plan instruction.

• Formative: Teacher-teacher coaching through critique
• f student work during the writing process, peer

editing and critiquing among students and teacher- student writing conferences evaluated writing and guided instruction.

The writing process

Assessments

• Benchmarking: Teacher-teacher coaching through

critique of student work for each genre and teacher- held writing conferences with students evaluated writing and guided instruction. Teachers and administrators conducted gallery walks in the building to critique student work and guide instruction.

• Summative: Students responded to a district created

prompt at the end of the school year. These prompts were scored by all grade level teachers.

Professional development Day 1

• 1. Introduction: History and Context
• 2. Strategy: Overview
• Clear Expectations
• The Writing Process
• Tools for Organization
• Assessments
• 3. Foundation: Accomplish and Change

Professional development Day 1

• 4. Components: PP/Video
• 5. Group Interaction: Organizational framework,

examples, and characteristics of quality writing

• 6. Gallery Walk: Building/Whole Group Critique
• 7. Professional Reflection Journal:
• What am I learning?
• How will I apply this information inside my classroom to

improve student writing?

Professional development Day 2

• 1. Gallery Walk: Building/Whole Group Critique
• 2. Writing Round Table: Looking at Student Work
• 3. Encouragement of Student Writers
• 4. Grades 3-5 Writing Expectations for Writing within

the ELA PSSA

• 5. Approach to Different Genres; Writing Across the

Curriculum

Professional development Day 2

• 6. Assessment Design
• 7. Action Plan: Debrief and Plan for Next Steps
• 8. Reflection

Current STatus

• The commitment to the continued improvement of student

writing in all grade levels and maintaining high expectations is at the core of our success and remains a focus at Fairview Elementary.

• Since 2013, the district administers one district writing

assessment at the end of the year, rather than two writing assessments, one at the beginning and one at the end of the school year.

Current STatus

• The graphic organizers have evolved over time with grades

3-5 students writing out the organization structure on their paper rather than folding the paper, or grade levels using designed graphic organizers that still maintain the necessary

• rganizational structure.
• The number of expected details within a paragraph has also

increased.

Current STatus

Our next steps are to align our instruction and expectations to the new format of the ELA PSSA connected to writing in grades three through five while continuing to increase the achievement and depth of growth of our students in writing.