Coach B. often asks "What makes teaching writing so hard?" I have to agree with the sentiment. I still struggle with teaching my 2nd graders writing. Our district uses Lucy Calkins and I love parts of it but I still have a hard time making sure that we cover all the essentials including punctuation, capitalization, and adding details to their writing. One part of the solution is oral writing from whole brain teaching. I love oral writing because it gives the students lots and lots of practice before they actually put a pencil on their papers.
It works like this. The teacher starts by asking a question and then the students give an answer. It can be done either individually or I like to pair up my students and they practice answering the question using brainies - particularly capital letters and punctuation.The teacher quickly goes around the room and listens in to answers and reminds them to use their gestures. The next step is to add detail sentences. The teacher uses the gesture for adders and asks the students for adder sentences and then she has them share detail sentences about the question with each other.She quickly walks around again and check their answers. Finally, the teacher asks the students to add a conclusion. I tell my students that using "In conclusion", makes them very smart because not many 2nd graders use it.
I think it is such a great idea to use oral writing because it gives students much needed practice before the actual writing. I need to do it more often. It helps my struggling writers get ideas and it helps my ELL learners practice vocabulary. You can check out more about oral writing at www.wholebrainteaching.com and check out webcast #502.
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This is perfect for students. All research I ever read on writing talks about the importance of verbally speaking your writing before you write, rehearsing. Writing is a tough thing to teach, but has always been one of my favorites.
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