Teacher Note:

Teachers, you can help your students think carefully about each stage of their writing by guiding them through the writing process. A major part in the success of a writer is their attitude towards writing. If we show struggling writers that there is a process to make their writing better and teachers dont try to cram all 5 steps into one 50 min session then our writers may be less intimidated by writing. One of the things I hear the most from students is wait I didnt finish yet or Can I finish it later? That is what was so great about tutoring one student. We had the time to go back and finish our steps from a previous session. One can only hope that students take the strategies they learn from us, their tutors and take it back into their classroom. As a teacher I would rather have two pieces of well-written items rather than five mediocre writings.

Resources:
readwritethink.org writingfix.org Tompkins, G. E. . Literacy for the 21st century, a balanced approach. Allyn & Bacon, 2010. print.

The Writing Process

Brochure by: Shawntel Davis

Common Core State Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 13 above.) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, and editing. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1-3 up to and including grade 4 here.) CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.6 With some guidance and support from adults, use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.

Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted Jules Renard

Implementing the Writing Process

Why use the writing process?
Using the Writing Process in my tutoring sessions was ideal for my smart yet unorganized writer. According to Tompkins (pg. 53), Many struggling writers dont like to write, and they avoid writing whenever possible because they dont know what to do. The writing process prewriting, drafting, revising and editing, rewriting, and publishing reflect the way skilled writers write (Readwritethink.org). When teachers introduce the writing process into their daily writing activities, students will be able to use the writing process over time. Teachers may choose to focus on one stage a day at a time or even a week at a time. This is more practicable for students to produce well-written activities. Stage 5, publishing, ensures that students have an audience. The final stage for my student was creating a Prezi with his four best writing samples.

My Experience
My experience with the writing process was with a struggling fourth grade writer. The writing process was a new concept to my tutee. First, I started some sort of prompt or topic. Then we created a brainstorm using a graphic organizer. Then he wrote a rough draft using his brainstorm. For our tutoring sessions I felt that it was necessary to combine stage 3 revising and stage 4 editing. At this stage we would reread and edit the writing sample. During this part we would go back to our vocabulary that we collected from each reading and add this vocabulary to the writing. This step was encouraging to my student because some of the vocabulary was quite unusual (ex. Crustaceans, venom). Our final step was towards the end of our sessions and this step involved choosing four edited writing samples to put in a Prezi to share with his family.

(Tompkins pg.52 Student Progress: Before I introduced the writing process to my student he ) would rarely write more than three sentences and even that was a struggle. By the end of our sessions he was writing seven to eight sentences and brainstorming on his own. I was so proud of how much more organized he was in his writing. The writing process can really open struggling writers up to a whole new exciting world of writing.