The Writing Process

In my role as a small group student support specialist, I typically work with groups of 4-5 students at a time, primarily on math and reading instruction. Recently, I worked with my 4th grade small group on writing essays. This assignment not only led to student growth in writing, it also improved reading comprehension through providing students with an engaging and meaningful way to compare and synthesize ideas across texts.

Students started by reading three different non-fiction texts, all related to the topic of food inventions. We read one article about the inventor of bubble gum, one article about the inventor of modern ice cream and ice cream trucks, and one article about the inventor of chocolate chip cookies. It was fascinating to learn more about these (yummy) foods that we eat all the time!

As they read each text, students annotated the text. This means that they underlined key details, circled (and defined) unknown words, and “jotted down” important understandings. These strategies support students in monitoring their own comprehension as they read. After reading the texts, given that they had similar ideas and topics, I really wanted students to synthesize the key themes and lessons from across the texts.

Students moved through all five steps of the writing process in order to answer the question: What themes, lessons, or big ideas can we learn from the three texts about food inventors?

Students started by planning their writing. They determined two lessons that they wanted to write about, by comparing and synthesizing ideas and themes across texts. They also re-read the texts to plan which evidence they would use to support their answers.

Once students were done planning, they wrote a rough draft. This allowed them to follow an outline and to take their ideas and draw them out into full, complete thoughts, sentences, and paragraphs. In addition to two “body paragraphs”, students also learned about crafting and writing meaningful and engaging introduction and conclusion paragraphs.

Once students were finished drafting, they revised and edited their writing using checklists and other resources. This allowed them to fix any errors, make sure their writing “makes sense”, and check that they had completed all steps correctly. After editing and revising alone and with a peer, students conferenced with me. I was able to provide one-on-one feedback to strengthen their writing even further.

Once all of these steps were completed, students published the final, high-quality version of their writing by typing it up on the computer. Once it was typed up and printed, the “publishing” step was complete! I displayed all student writing (along with their planning and drafts) on a display board in the hallway. In this way, we can celebrate student writers, their final products, and all of the effort that goes into the writing process along the way.