resources from one of my trainings: Explicitly Teaching Pre-Writing and Revision

I am guilty of it too. I've asked my student writers to go through the motions of the writing process without really teaching them the hows and the whys of that process.

I'm a much better writing teacher now, but still I am amazed at how I used to do things back when I was still a novice to the idea of explicitly teaching writing as a process.

Back then, I made my kids keep journals that they hated; on the last day of class, I watched them drop their spiral-bound journals in the trash can in front of my desk. I had failed to teach them the purpose of maintaining a journal or writer's notebook.

Back then, I put them into response groups to read one another's drafts, and I actually heard them say things like, "Your paper's good; don't change a thing." I had failed to give them the ability to talk about writing in a constructive, productive way.

Back then, I thought revision actually meant "Check your spelling and re-write it so it's neater," because that's what my own teachers had taught me to do during revision. I had failed to teach my students to create much more than polished rough drafts, and I know I did a disservice to those kids that I taught during my novice teaching years.

I've long ago forgiven myself for those years when I taught writing terribly. In college, we had talked about the writing process more theoretically than practically. You really can't learn about the importance of the writing process until you get your hands dirty with it, which requires you to go through it yourself (which I somehow managed to not really do for my college papers) so that you can be a model writer for your own students. My summer workshop with the Northern Nevada Writing Project in 1996 taught me this, and it completely changed me as a teacher.

I had to learn the writing process by actually doing it, and I needed to stop being too self-conscious to do it in front of my students. That simple philosophy changed the nature of my classroom.

I. Showing my Students my own Writing

In the fall of 1996, I returned to my classroom a changed teacher. I had a brand new car with both lots of horsepower and an electric sunroof--a personal dream fulfilled! I had been given two really cool new elective classes by my department head: mythology and poetry. And most importantly, I had a new outlook. I had spent five weeks that summer enrolled in an institute sponsored by the Northern Nevada Writing Project, and it had changed everything I knew about teaching students to write. For the first time ever, I wanted to teach writing. The institute had given me the motivation and several new "tricks," shared with me by seasoned teachers.

The most important trick learned was this: be a writer too. During those first five years of teaching, I had assigned a lot of writing but never once had I written something I intended to show my students.

I have to tell you it was amazingly hard, but I did it. I wrote my first something to show them. And that task became easier with each attempt. And it's so easy today that I hardly even think about it anymore.

As teachers, we're funny; we model reading strategies, and that's not hard for us. We model mathematical problem solving, and that's not hard for (most of) us either. But ask us to show a piece of writing we're working on, and suddenly we close ourselves off from our students. It can't be that way, and that was the lesson I had to learn.

At right, you will find the first piece of writing that I shared with my new poetry elective class that Fall. To this day, I don't think it's that great a poem, but it did two things well: 1) it captured a moment in time about me and my connection to the world; and 2) it made my kids want to talk about the personal purpose of poetry. I started a real community of writers that day, which I had always intended to do when I taught, but this felt different.

That summer institute I took back in 1996 actually started my path to my Master's Degree. The evening classes I was taking required me to write papers, and I started sharing those assignments with my students. I learned the value of showing all steps of my process to my writers, not just final drafts. My own college papers became valuable mini-lessons. I welcomed my students' constructive criticism, and the critiques they later gave each other were better and more helpful because they'd practiced on me.

For that mythology elective, I had my best experience with sharing writing I was doing for my Master's Program. I wanted to show my students how ancient mythological concepts can still be intelligently applied to modern times, and I wanted them to write about that idea. I asked them to connect with a myth we'd studied that they could apply to something real in their own lives. When I saw many of them struggling with this sophisticated idea, I decided to go through the task myself with an upcoming writing assignment I had been given for a graduate class. So I applied the myth of Hercules and his 13 "impossible labors" to an educational concept I was researching for an essay. I began and ended that college paper with a reference to that myth, and my students actually helped me shape those two pieces of my essay. I held an extra-credit contest for the student who designed for me an illustrated cover page for my essay. When my mythology students read my final draft a few days before I turned it in, I heard many of them say, "I helped with that part!" It became the most authentic experience I've ever had as a teacher, and those kids were so excited when "we" earned an 'A' on that paper; to this day, I am convinced many of those kids (who wouldn't have) decided to actually give college a try because I showed them they could help me to think (and write) in ways that are respected at the university level.

There's such simple power in sharing your own writing with your students. For me, it began the process of truly teaching my students to go through the writing process and to value it as an experience.

II. How C-SPAN and Mr. Stick Transformed Pre-Writing in my Classroom

While the NNWP's Summer Institute began my Master's Program in 1996, the independent credits I earned from a summer fellowship at C-SPAN completed it. In January of 1998, working with the Cable in the Classroom Program, my students did a group project about the power of the media. I sent our project to C-SPAN, and I was rewarded with a four-week fellowship in Washington, D.C., working on one of C-SPAN's educational projects that summer. It became another amazing summer of learning for me, and the best thing that came out of it was my Mr. Stick journal.

C-SPAN happened two years after I first shared my own writing with my kids, and at that point, I had gotten pretty good at sharing my rough, revised, and final drafts with my students. Pre-writing, however, proved harder for me to demonstrate. I was still asking my kids to cluster mostly, but I don't cluster personally; I've always found it messy and un-helpful, so I didn't model it for my writers. To this day, my preferred method of pre-writing is talking out loud to myself on my forty-five minute commute to work. How do you model that in class? You don't.

I had been hoping the journals/learning logs that I required my kids to keep would increase their options for pre-writing, but my students didn't like keeping journals. Many of them threw them away on the last day of class. And so, when I arrived at C-SPAN and they asked if I would mind keeping a journal during my month with them, I saw an opportunity. I ended up creating an awesome journal that summer, and I fully intended to share it with my students in September.

I had never much liked journals myself, and I needed a gimmick to make me love the one I kept for C-SPAN. After tossing ideas around, I decided that illustrations would be the element that would help me get past a page filled with nothing but words. Unfortunately, I didn't draw anything more than stick people. And so, I worked hard to make the best stickman drawings my pencil could sketch. Each day, I journaled for C-SPAN about what I had done, what I had learned, what I wanted to do next, and "Mr. Stick" made an appearance somewhere on every page. He became my "Margin Mascot," and on the day before I left Washington, D.C., the C-SPAN staff poured over my journal's pages, making Xeroxes and laughing. You can see a few more of my Mr. Stick pages from this journal at My Personal Writing Page here at my website. I returned to Northern Nevada with an example journal that I was very proud of.

That September, there was a new "Journal Sheriff" in town, and his name was Mr. Stick. I spent the first week teaching them some basic Mr. Stick expectations, and then he took over our journals. For the first time in all my years teaching, my kids found ways to love their journal pages. They saved room for Mr. Stick while they wrote, they laughed while they added him, and they laughed harder as they shared their drawings with each other.

On Writer's Workshop day, which was usually every Friday, when I invited them to look back through their journals to find for ideas for their next rough drafts, they poured through their own writing just as the C-SPAN staff had done with my journal. The simple illustrations invited them back in to previous thinking they had done, and that thinking was exactly what they needed to re-connect with as they decided on topics for papers they wanted to write.

I knew it had been a successful change when they began asking me if they could include Mr. Stick somewhere in their final drafts too. And he began finding his way into assignments we didn't do for writer's workshop. And when I asked if I could borrow their journals to show-off in a class for teachers I was asked to coordinate, they were hesitant; that hesitation meant they were nervous I might lose them, and they couldn't bear that idea. I'm pretty sure no students threw their journals away that year.

Below, you can click on some of my high school students' Mr. Stick journal pages, and you can click on the final drafts of some of the stories they wrote. Over the years, I have successfully used Mr. Stick with almost every grade level, and I have inspired hundreds of other teachers to use him in their classrooms as well.

Mr. Stick Journal Page Examples from my Mythology Students click on an image to see it in larger form
The Cave-Wall Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	The Silent Storyboard Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	The Haiku-Summary Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	Illustrated Notes Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.
An Empty Box Before Writing Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	Illustrated Vocabulary Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	Board Game Story Summary Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.	Seeking Sets of Three Journal Assignment Click here to access my write-up about this pre-writing task at WritingFix.

If you cannot attend this writing process or my writing trait trainings, you can now purchase my 504 Journal Prompts 30-page Document Price: $5.04 The very first page I built for the WritingFix website was its collection of Random Daily Writing Prompts for Writers. It remains one of the most popular pages at the WritingFix website; in fact, in 2010, that single page was accessed over half a million times from computers around the globe. In Northern Nevada, where many teachers use journal writing in their classrooms, I distribute a thirty-page document at all my Writer's Workshop Trainings. This document features my favorite of the 504 writing prompts you can access at WritingFix all in one self-contained document. I currently can only accept payments from PayPal to purchase these resources. PayPal remains a safe and easy-to-use Internet service that allows you to send money to anyone, even without signing up for an account. Click the button above. Paypal will have you securely enter your credit card information, and the payment will be sent to me. Important...Please read carefully: Once I have been notified by PayPal that the money has arrived in my account (which can take anywhere between 2-12 hours), I will electronically send you my packet as a PDF file, which requires the free program Adobe Reader to open and print, and my 20-slide PowerPoint presentation. If you have questions about this specific product, please feel free to contact me at Corbett@CorbettHarrison.com.

III. Modeling Pre-Writing: The Writer's Notebook Option

After I left my classroom to become a full-time teacher trainer, Mr. Stick went into hibernation for a few years. Then in 2010, as I helped coordinate WritingFix's "Year of Writer's Notebooks" Project, he returned. In full force.

A writer's notebook is a bit different than a journal. While journals are mostly teacher-assigned, prompt-driven writing, a writer's notebook is a pre-writing tool that asks students to independently collect ideas in independent ways. Just as a painter will pencil-sketch in a notebook long before committing images in paint, a writer should explore ideas in a notebook long before those ideas become rough drafts. When you ask students to keep writer's notebooks, you prompt them less, but you continue to expect them to write weekly (if not daily). You teach them to seek out their own topics and their own styles as they prepare for designated writing times in class.

Ralph Fletcher's A Writer's Notebook: Unlocking the Writer in You is a marvelous explanatory text from an actual author on using a notebook as a pre-writing tool. In addition, The Amelia's Notebook Series by Marissa Moss provides a ready-to-go student model that your students will love to look through.

Many students aren't quite ready to independently seek out ideas for writing, and so the journal option is an important tool to have at the ready. When those students become ready, they can learn to keep a more independent writer's notebook for themselves. In addition, I have come to see the importance, when preparing students to be independent notebook keepers, of having engaging lesson that ask students to create notebook pages that are a celebration of ideas. To do this, it is critical to have a teacher model of a notebook page that embraces the ideals found in Ralph Fletcher and Marissa Moss's excellent mentor texts.

Below is a sampling of pages from my own writer's notebook that I created in 2010 as part of my work at WritingFix. I hope you'll notice the re-emergence of Mr. Stick in these notebook page samples. If you click the link below each notebook page, you will be taken to WritingFix, where the entire writer's notebook lesson that I created is posted.

My Teacher Model Writer's Notebook Pages and Lessons click on an image to see it in larger form
My Fierce Wonderings Notebook Page Click here to access my write-up about this page WritingFix.	My Reuben Bright Notebook Page Click here to access my write-up about this page WritingFix.	My Fortune Cookie Notebook Page Click here to access my write-up about this page WritingFix.	My Tom Swiftie Notebook Page Click here to access my write-up about this page WritingFix.	My Tasting Oxymorons Notebook Page Click here to access my write-up about this page WritingFix.

IV. Comparing & Contrasting Student Models during Pre-Writing and Revision

During the 2007-2008 school year, I assigned myself an action research project. We had been busily adding student samples to the lessons at the WritingFix website, and I kept asking myself, "If I was teaching this lesson, when would I show this sample? Before they wrote a draft? While they wrote? Before they revised?" I was convinced that discussing student samples would improve the quality of the lesson being taught, but I wanted to know where it would have the most power, during pre-writing or during revision. I discovered that adding discussions about student samples in both places improved the writing tremendously, and it engaged the students more deeply with the writing process.

As part of my teacher workshop on the writing process, we investigate multiple uses of student samples. One of my favorite techniques involves having student compare and contrast finished pieces of writing. During both pre-writing and and revision, this push for deeper student thinking both educates and inspires your students.

The handout seen here (at right), which contains two published student samples, is based on one of my favorite personal lessons that I've posted at WritingFix: Start With What Isn't There, which is inspired by the opening two pages of Stephen Kramer's Caves. The lesson teaches students how to add mood to a piece of writing, which is a skill from the voice trait.

The handout has student writers analyze two fifth graders' published writing with a compare and contrast Venn diagram. The students aren't allowed to compare and contrast just anything they discover; they have to specifically look for voice techniques used by one writer or by both. There is a "mini script" on the handout, right next to the Venn, reminding students of specific skills that build voice in writing; this keeps the conversations focused on the lesson's focus trait.

After comparing and contrasting with a partner, I have student writers switch partners to compare and contrast answers again; the conversations that occur around this handout are rich and delightful to listen to. I've used this technique during the pre-writing portion of the lesson, and I've also used it during the revision portion of the lesson. Once, I even used it during both portions because the conversation truly was rich and inspiring.

I have come to believe that having students compare and contrast more while explicitly teaching pre-writing and revision is an amazing technique for getting them to think about writing at a deeper level of Bloom's taxonomy. When good conversations about good writing happen, students launch better pre-writes for and add better revisions to their own drafts.

One of the goals I ask teachers to set after my training is to find new ways to push students to analyze and evaluate as they learn to write.

V. Introducing Revision with Metaphor/Simile Cards

Creating an original metaphor isn't easy for many kids. I think our students become too comfortable being pushed to--at the most--the application level of Bloom's taxonomy on typical school days; creating a metaphor requires the analysis level, and that's hard for them. Does that mean they shouldn't be expected to create metaphors? Heck no! To me, it means they should be asked to do it more, so they have more practice. And there's nothing wrong with having them create practice metaphors with partners or in small groups.

One of my favorite tools for practicing this type of thinking is WritingFix's 80-card Metaphor/Simile Deck (8 cards from it are pictured at left). While learning about any topic of study, throw a student group 6-12 of these laminated cards and have them spread them out where they all can see them. If your topic of study is, let's say, our right to vote, pose this task: "When I say, 'Go,' I want you to each choose one picture from the assortment of cards and pick it up. You're choosing based on the topic I am just about to announce. 'Our right to vote is kind of like [one of these pictures] because [create an explanation that makes sense].'" Model an answer with a card you've saved for yourself, and then say, "Go!" Students think, take cards, then share their answers with the small group. The group votes on one answer that was the most thoughtful, and those are shared whole class. The class can then vote for the one or two ideas that showed the best comparative thinking.

There are several variations for using this metaphor deck that we explore during my workshop. This type of thinking is the practice my students need to create their own original metaphors, which is one of my goals when teaching them to think critically.

When teaching revision skills to students, my class created our own deck of revision metaphor cards. To do this, we used this unique set of metaphor cards, which was inspired by one of my Northern Nevada Writing Project colleagues. On a day my students all came to class with a rough draft written, they would each grab a card. I would say, "Today we're going to revise our drafts, which means we're going to re-see its words, sentences, paragraphs, or--perhaps--the entire thing. Writing can always be improved upon, so that our message is better received by our audience. The card you grabbed is a revision riddle for you to solve. The picture represents something you might consider doing to make your draft better. You have a few minutes to work with a partner to try and solve the riddle. What is your picture telling you to do to make your writing better?"

The students' discussions show me what they know and don't know about revision. Many come from previous classrooms where revision meant "Check your spelling" and "Write it neater." Those two tasks are not revision. I want students to discuss the picture of--let's say--the garlic and come up with ideas like these past students:

• "The garlic represents a place in your writing that stinks when compared to the rest of the writing. The picture is telling me to fix the stinky part."
• "When you peel the skin off garlic, you find something powerful. I need to find some place in my writing where I haven't peeled the skin away enough."
• "Some people are allergic to garlic, so the picture is telling me to get rid of any writing that might give my reader a bad reaction."

Of course there's an answer key I keep for my deck of cards, but I find my students generate better answers than those found on my key. Once we've shared original interpretations of the cards as well as my answers, the students have a choice. They can make a revision plan for their paper based on their original answer or the one from my key. They are also allowed to trade cards with each other so long as everyone eventually has a revision plan he/she can articulate to me.

After using my original deck of fifteen cards two or three times, I invite the students to each create an original revision card for the class deck. To do this, they can draw original pictures, use clip art, or paste images from magazine onto index cards. Before any student-made card can officially become part of the classroom deck, the whole group has to be able to come up with--at least--three good revision ideas suggested by the picture, and the best idea gets recorded on the class's answer key.

You'll have some students who continue to make cards for the class "revision metaphor deck" for the entire school year.

VI. Teaching Students to Self-Evaluate their Writing for Revision

I used to throw my kids into writing response groups way too fast. They weren't ready to provide critical thought for one another. I shouldn't have been surprised at all when they said to each other, "I like your paper, so don't change a thing." To really teaching revision skills to my writers, I needed to develop tools that helped them self-evaluate their own writing. Until they could show me they had the ability to think critically about their own drafts, they weren't ready to be in response groups. I wanted my students to be in functioning response groups some time between Halloween and Thanksgiving, and that meant we did a lot of self-evaluation every fall.

During my teacher workshop on the writing process, we practice with tools like the Revision Sprint (at right), which I designed to push students to use analysis and evaluation skills as they looked at their own drafts. I also designed this tool to be similar to a 5-point rubric, which is the type of rubric used on our state's writing exam. I believe the more tools that you can introduce to your students that will eventually help them to be able to read and understand a rubric, the better. But you can't just throw a rubric at your kids too early on; you have to ease them into being able to make sense of teacher tools like that.

By far, the best success I've ever had while teaching revision was the one I experienced with the revision Post-its I created for my students. Using the trait language embedded on these Post-its, like in the three examples below, students learn to self-evaluate their own writing skills by ranking them against each other. Rank is an important verb to understand when you use these Post-its. When ranking the skills (unlike simply rating them), students can only use each number once. They had to determine which was their "5 skill," which was their "4 skill," etc. Once they'd created the ranking, it was fairly easy to have them make a skill-specific revision plan. I never made them revise for their "1 skill" simply because it was the lowest; I had my students make the choice to revise for any of the lower numbers.

I also use variations of these Post-its during my Critical Thinking Using the Writing Traits Workshop, and my Comparing the Genres of Writing Workshop.

Just of Few of the Trait-Specific Post-its I've Designed for Students' Self-Evaluation of their Writing

I hope you have enjoyed and learned from the materials I have presented on this page.