Why guided writing is good

Guided writing is a powerful part of the guided reading lesson. Guided writing can help students integrate what they have been taught in word study by giving them the opportunity to utilize what they have learned.

To illustrate this, I am sharing here a video of a Literacy Footprints guided writing lesson that Jan Richardson did with a group of students in Virginia. Errors and mistakes are an integral part of the learning process. Through practice with feedback, students learn to correct errors or mistakes and master a skill or concept.

Players of any given sport play practice games, tournaments or races, and the coach provides feedback to participants. So must teachers provide opportunities for students to practice a skill and provide targeted feedback to students so that they can progress. Madeline Hunter spoke of the importance of guided practice in the s. It has since been entrenched in lesson plans and discussions about teaching. We know that practice builds fluency; in order for students to learn to read or write, they must participate in the act of reading and writing.

Reading and writing must be incorporated often in each of the content areas we are teaching so that students can learn about the topic and express their thinking. Similarly, by adding student discourse, we help students to solidify their thinking, gain ideas and thoughts from others and become more articulate.

What does guided practice look like in the classroom? Many teachers are familiar with the phrase "I do, we do, you do," or the gradual release of responsibility. The idea here is that the learning and cognitive load should be shifted to students over time through teacher modeling, collaborative practice and individual application. The release can occur over a short time frame, such as within a class period, or over longer periods of time, depending on the complexity of the skill or concept.

At times, however, we see an instant release of responsibility, wherein students are immediately asked to apply a skill or concept independently, sometimes after little or no modeling.

Consider the following scenario, all too common in classrooms today: The teacher asks the students to read specific pages in the textbook and take notes on what they are reading. The teacher might point out to students that it is important to pay attention to the headings, bolded words, graphics, italicized portions of the text, etc. After they have read and taken notes, the students then are asked to answer questions based on the reading, referring back to their notes.

The teacher instructs the students that they can either answer the questions independently or in small groups. This scenario provides little to no practice for students before moving to independent practice. The teacher will not necessarily be able to determine areas of misunderstanding or needed additional instruction until students have turned in the work.

Even when teachers are cognizant of the gradual release and begin to implement it in their lessons, we often see a dominance of teacher-student interactions. For example, the teacher may model solving a math problem, using a whiteboard, interactive whiteboard, overhead or document camera.

From there, the teacher guides the students through a discussion, potentially calling on students to share what the next step is, or having individual students come to the front of the room to help work through the problem. They then could talk through these in English for support with the language needed in writing the report.

While conventions correct spelling and grammar are very important for all language users, they are a vehicle for content and creativity. The teacher needs to be aware of common strengths and needs the students currently possess, and form groups accordingly. Recording notes and observations during the session allows the teacher to identity areas of strength as well provide guidance for future teaching focuses.

In the session, the teacher might actually engage students in some writing while supervised, or ask students to review what they have written prior to the session. In any case, the teacher should — as always — affirm what has been attempted and build skills and understandings from there.

For guidance to be successful, the teacher determines what learners can or cannot do, before, during, or as a result of instruction. Discussing concepts and processes around writing using English can sometimes be very complex and the information may not always be available in dictionaries nor easy to find online.

According to Hattie , 'the power of teaching is in the art of listening'. Peer and teacher feedback on any writing attempt needs to honour the genuine communicative attempt that has been made, and suggestions should be offered in positive and constructive ways. The teacher could:. The first language users of English may want to 'fix up' the writing themselves rather than provide feedback. In these instances, the teacher provides a structure for the interaction between the students.

Once the content of the piece is established, then general feedback can be given that would apply to all learners in the class. It may be possible to provide translations of key support materials in the most commonly spoken languages in the school. Department of Education, Western Australia Subscribe to receive teaching ideas, inspiration, and free resources.

Guided Writing. The opportunities students have to receive feedback in our Writing Workshop classroom include the following:. Students begin talking in the conference, and we look at their writing before I choose a line of thinking to follow and pursue for the remainder of the conference. To see past blog posts I have written about writing conferences click here. Students take the last five minutes of class on Writing Workshop days and share out what they have done and learned as writers that day through whole group, small group, and partner shares.

While sharing, I will often put up focus questions for students to self-reflect on or give feedback to each other on. When I teach a genre of writing, I will have students begin by studying mentor texts and getting background on the genre and then begin to draft a Discovery Draft. Reading the Discovery Drafts is what drives my instruction for the minilessons to follow.

This is a great way to get feedback from students about what they perceive they need to know. The rest of my blog post is going to focus in on this teaching practice. Guided writing is when you are working with a small group of two to six writers on a specific focus lesson. The groups are made from heterogeneous groups of students and are always changing and flexible depending on need.