Procedures and Expectations

I decided to combine yesterdays and todays focus into one entry since I wrote and introduction yesterday.  The two topics blur together in my mind anyway.  The first was on procedures and the second on expectations.

My writing is set up in a writer's workshop format.  At least that is my goal.  The general structure is for me to read a mentor text, do a mini-lesson on a skill or strategy from that text, and then send students off to work independently.  My goal is to end the workshop with a whole group share but that seems to be the part that usually gets cheated out. I often find I have my students turn to share with someone rather than do a whole group and for that reason I think they lose some of the accountability piece or engagement that sharing brings.  But I will get to that in a moment.

My general procedures is for students to work at their desks or somewhere comfortable around the room.  They are to write in the writing spiral which I have separated from their other spirals with read tape on the spiral.  I expect students to date each day and to fill the pages of the journal from page to page (no skipping pages). At times, I give a writing assignment that I collect and they have to write on a separate piece of paper.  I consider the writing notebook a practice book.  A place to journal and sketch and try out the strategies from our lessons.  My goal is to collect 6 students spirals a day to review their work and plan for instruction.

My non-negotiables  are that students write every day, that they self select topics, and that they try new things with their writing. I am planning on having my students create a list of expectations tomorrow for our lesson.

My greatest concern for my students right now is that they do not write.  I am amazed that they can sit for an entire 20 minutes and merely get two or three sentences down.  I have focused a lot in the beginning of the school year on how to develop topics but I think at this point they do not understand the expectations.  I am hoping that focusing on expectations will help them to put pencil to paper more readily.