Today was the first day of the year where I will be allowing two people to write a story together. I wait until October to allow this because many students need to get into a rhythm with writing on their own before working with a partner. Even now, I only allow this on Tuesdays and Thursdays because while there are many benefits to writing with a partner, there are also a few things that can be less than beneficial to help each child progress.
Some of the benefits include watching students bounce ideas off one another and making a deeper connection through writing than they would have without that opportunity. I also noticed today that one student is using quotations in his individual story while his partner was not ready for that yet. While writing their new story together, the student who knew how to use them properly showed the other student how to use them. Research says that when students are able to teach other students how to do something they have reached the deepest level of understanding of that concept. I love seeing peer tutoring going on inside the classroom. It's great.
A difficult part about partner writing, however, can be when one student dominates the writing process and doesn't allow the other student to write any of the story. This can occur with physically writing the story or accepting of ideas. I carefully monitor each group's progress and continually ask them what's happening in the story, where it's headed, etc. If I receive a shared response about where it's headed I'm happy, but if it sounds as if one student knows and the other is in the dark, we've got a problem. I can also look at their journal to make sure they are both writing equally.
Lucy Caulkins (the creator of the Writer's Workshop philosophy) believes that writing should be a social experience. I agree with her on this, but I also like to make sure that I'm building independent writers as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment