Day 4...And Write Some More

I have not been sad to see a Friday come since I was in Grade 2 or 3. But I am getting used to spending my afternoons (and evenings!) writing and I am feeling a little blue that tomorrow is our last day. I had not realized how much I missed kids noticing my earrings and giving me pictures.

But don't worry, this is not going to be a mournful tale. Today was absolute joy. Let me tell you about it.

Grade 2
If I am really honest, I was a little worried after yesterday. I was concerned that free verse was just too big a change for such young writers. I fretted that perhaps I had not done enough modelling and shared writing, that I had moved to the "you do it" too quickly. Today I am reminded of one of the biggest lessons I learned in the years I worked with Sandra Herbst:

Trust the process.

And so I did. As the teachers and I looked at the writing yesterday and observed the children having some difficulty in starting their poems and even more difficulty in keeping themselves writing, we decided that they needed more modelling on how to make your writing look like a poem and how to stretch out those juicy words so you could use them in your writing. This is assessment FOR learning, not failure. The students had shown us what we needed to do.

We had thirteen writers left to celebrate so I celebrated six of them, really concentrating on the lines and how you decided where to make a line break and how it sounded different when you did so.
Then they stood up and faced a new direction on the carpet and sat down to watch me model another poem. This time I wrote in "kid writing", showing them how I stretched out the words so that I could write my message. I also suggested they circle a word if they thought it didn't look right, and then to move on with the important job of getting their wonderful poems onto the paper. Another quick movement break and we were able to celebrate seven more poets and their poems.

Off they went to write, this time with blank paper and greater confidence. Every writer started to write immediately. The dictionaries did not come out, words were stretched and circled and writers kept themselves writing. All over the room. It was a thing of beauty.


Grade 3
As I walked into the room a student asked if we were going to celebrate more of their book reviews today. When I nodded, he cheered. As we sat together on the carpet and later, when the students had moved to their desks to write, the atmosphere in the room was truly joyful. They enthusiastically appreciated each other's writing and their commitment to writing more reviews was genuine. These kids kept themselves reading and writing for the entire workshop.

Tomorrow our goal is to maintain the joy and ... do just a little bit of editing.

I was reminded of the importance and power of celebration today by an eight year old writer. As he was moving into the seat beside me so that we could celebrate his writing, I said that I had thought we had celebrated already but that I realized I had done a public conference with him the day before and not a celebration. And he said, "Yeah and this is the most important part." He's in great company. Regie Routman just might agree with him.