Kelly Williams
Coach, St. Mary's Magnet Academy
Muscogee, AL

Johnnie Tankersley
Literacy Fellow, Cornerstone

 

It was August, still hot and steamy in Columbus, Georgia, and school had been in session for two weeks. St. Mary’s coaches were meeting with their principal and literacy fellow to set the tone and focus for the year’s work. The focus will be writing; they were inspired by the Cornerstone Summer Institute that revolved around writing historical fiction and by the Southern Regional meeting in Horry County.

When I attended my first winter meeting in Horry County, I was awestruck by the writing in the lower grades. I could not imagine what the teachers did to enable their first graders to think and WRITE with such insight. I couldn’t get my kids to write sentences with correct conventions, never mind writing with voice and thought that was so evident!

I wanted, for the children at St. Marys, what I witnessed in Horry County. I wanted our kids to be able to express their thoughts, views and opinions in the same manner. I knew they had the potential, but I honestly didn’t know how to get them (or myself!) there!

Our visit to Horry County was like planting a seed. Granted, it was a very slowwwww growing seed, (one that is just beginning to sprout!) but it was the “push” we needed to begin the journey of becoming writers. Maybe we will be a tree some day, but right now we are enjoying the process of growing! (Kelly Williams, coach)

But more background was needed to begin the process:

Remember:
‘You need this much talk (----------------------------------------------) for this much writing (---).”

So we started with “Text Talk”, a professional paper by Isabel Beck, Ph.D., and Margaret G McKeown, Ph.D. which appeared in The Reading Teacher in September of 2001. During two video conferences we unpacked the article to see how the components of “Text Talk” could help our teachers and students to talk about texts in different and expanded ways. The article deals with six components of reading aloud that are handled in Text Talk: selection of texts, initial questions, follow-up questions, pictures, background knowledge, and vocabulary.

We next tackled the Reading and Writing Connection. Researchers from the 1980’s, through the 1990’s, and into our present decade have connected reading and writing in five ways: Meaning, Language, Form, Conventions, and Writing – Pulling the Instructional Components Together. Their research shows that children who read more extensively are better writers. Summaries of the research and activities to support each area of the Reading/Writing Connection were gleaned from Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray (National Council of Teachers of English, 1999), Word Journeys by Kathy Ganske (The Guilford Press, 2000), Write Where You Are by Rick Shelton (Minuteman Press, 2002), The Alabama Reading Initiative, and Put Reading First, a publication from the Educational Research and Development Center of the U.S. Department of Education, 2001. (A power Point Presentation, “Reading/Writing Connection,” that we used in our study is included with this article).

Our work so far has been primarily with the coaches at St. Mary’s. Beginning with our November video conferences, other teachers in the school will be brought into the mix. We will spend two conferences discussing Writers’ Notebooks. Our talk will be based on “The Writer’s Notebook: Not Just for Kids,” which is Chapter Two of In The Company Of Children by Joanne Hindley (Stenhouse Publishers, 1996), and on Notebook Know How: Strategies for the Writer’s Notebook, Aimee Buckner (Stenhouse Publishers, 2005). We will explore the processes of launching writer’s notebooks, writing every day, what to put in a writer’s notebook, and how to use what children have written in their notebooks to improve their writing and to teach other students better writing techniques.

Our December conferences will concentrate on the Writing Process and how to move children through the tasks of pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing.

In January, we will center our conferences on The Writer’s Workshop.
We will discuss crafting and mini-lessons in writing, writing conferences, mentoring our students to authors, time for students to write, and reflection possibilities. We will also use these discussions to connect reading and writing.

At the end of our time together in January, we will determine “What Now, What Next.” As we continue to learn more about writing instruction, the students of St. Mary’s will be the winners. We look forward to seeing the progress they make, and the pieces of writing they produce.