Teaching writing authentically: the WHAT, the WHY, & the HOW

This post was written collaboratively by elementary teachers enrolled in the Alternative Pathway To Teaching program at the University of Minnesota in partnership with Teach For America. The post was edited & stitched together by Ryan Higbea, one of their instructors. As part of CI 5214: Elementary Education Content and Pedagogy IV, teachers are working to understand writing and genre instruction in the elementary school. This post is a synthesis of chapters 1, 2, 4 & 6 of Reading and Writing Genre with Purpose in K-8 Classrooms by Duke, Caughlan, Juzwik, and Martin. Page references throughout the post refer to this text.

Introductory Thoughts

by Gwen

Teaching writing with purpose allows students to see connections between the writing they are learning and their daily lives, while explicitly learning key skills. Genres are not taught in a specific sequence but rather reflect the mixture of text types they’ll see in their daily lives. Writing with purpose allows students to become motivated to write and will engage students to work hard and become more curious about their writing.

The 5 principles (p. 3) that help guide writing instruction are:

• Create an environment that welcomes all communication
• Introduce, through exposure, different types of text
• Explicitly teach genre features.
• Explicitly teach genre-specific or genre-sensitive strategies
• Offer ongoing coaching and feedback

These principles are designed to engage students at different levels to learn these main types of texts: narrative, informative/exclamatory, and persuasive.

What are narrative texts?

by Hannah Bates

Narrative texts share stories about a variety of experiences, for a variety of reasons. Narrative writing is authored by people who have knowledge about a particular experience and can be fiction or nonfiction. It's important to teach narrative writing to empower students to write about their own lived experiences, or historical experiences that have affected them.

When teaching narrative writing, create meaningful assignments that are "larger" than the students themselves. Make them collaborate about something meaningful that will allow them to truly engage authentically. Use mentor texts and modeling to expose students to the components of narrative. Teach genre features, such as setting, plot, details, language, etc. Teach strategies for effectively making sense of narrative texts, like visualizing or rereading for clarity, (p. 22-51).

In the Minnesota Academic Standards for English Language Arts (ELA) K-12, the third benchmark in the writing strand (x.6.3.3) is related to narrative writing.

Narrative – the HOW

by Sarah Ehlen

In my own classroom, after explaining the “what” of narrative, using mentor texts in a variety of narrative types has been crucial in teaching the “HOW.” Young students are natural storytellers, filled with experiences and stories to share. By reading mentor texts and highlighting published authors' “craft moves,” students are able to see different methods of bringing stories to life on the page.

Exemplar mentor texts (like On My Way to Buy Eggs by Chih-Yuan Chen) exposes students to different aspects of narrative writing and gives them an anchor when they want to try a new element of narrative writing themselves. A set of mentor texts is necessary, as well as a variety of paper choices, illustration tools and writing instruments. Students of all stages of writing development should have access to writing materials that allow them to test out craft moves and tell their own stories. Older students, should also use different forms of technology.

Once students begin reading, publishing and sharing their writing, other ELA benchmarks are addressed (x.8.1.1 for example).

The WHAT of Informative/Explanatory

by Callea

“Informational and explanatory” is a broad genre that consists of many sub genres, including but not limited to:

• Textbooks
• Newspaper articles
• Magazines
• Journals
• Websites
• Letters
• Informational pamphlets

Authors of these texts use strategies that we should teach students to use:

• Research by reading texts, interviewing and observing
• Preview texts by skimming and scanning
• Make clear and concise notes
• Summarize
• Capture the gist
• Organize information

The intended audience should be the driving force behind deciding what type of informational text the author will create.

• A textbook for children?
• An informational pamphlet for parents?
• A guidebook for visitors?

Students should get exposure to the text types they are creating and take note of the text features that are predominantly used. These text features can include:

• Information boxes
• Pictures
• Graphics
• Graphs and data
• Paragraphs carefully organized by topic

MN ELA benchmarks related to reading and writing information texts are:

• Informational text benchmarks:
• x.2.1.1
• x.2.1.2
• x.2.5.5
• x.2.6.6
• Writing:
• x.6.2.2
• x.6.4.4
• x.6.8.8

The “How” of Informational Writing

by Will McDuffie

There are five “principles” for teaching informational writing to students (p. 84-108):

• Create a compelling, meaningful environment 
• Introduce interesting topics and graphics
• Design projects around pressing issues
• Provide a real audience
• Follow through (i.e. if you tell students you’re sending their writing to the president, really send it)
• Provide exposure and experience
• Give kids either a teacher model or a mentor text
• Explicitly teach the features of informational texts
• Examples of these features:
• Table of contents, headings/subheadings, index
• Final summary and closing statement
• Frequent repetition of the topic of the text
• Technical vocabulary
• Graphical devices like timelines, diagrams, and flowcharts
• Be influenced by the students’ writing, the needs of their audience, and state benchmarks - not the sequence of mini-lessons from the published curriculum.
• Explicitly teach genre-specific or genre-sensitive strategies
• Strategies for reading and listening
• Strategies for writing and speaking
• Researching
• Planning
• Revising
• Offer Ongoing Coaching and Feedback
• Small group and one-on-one settings

The WHAT of Persuasive

by Freda

The purpose of persuasive text is to influence the reader’s opinion - either subtly or blatantly. Persuasive text is found in many different types in our daily life:

• Editorials
• Blogs
• Magazine articles
• Pamphlets
• Literary essays
• Poetry
• Letters
• Speeches
• Surveys
• Commercials
• Grocery flier
• Campaign flier

Persuasive assignments are often given to students without any real purpose or audience. If students feel their writing has a legitimate purpose and an audience beyond simply the teacher for a grade, they are more likely to be passionate, excited and highly involved in the actual writing because it matters.

Years ago, my son’s teacher challenged her second graders to think of their favorite restaurant and the reasons why it is their favorite (related MN ELA related benchmark: 2.6.1.1). Students wrote a persuasive piece attempting to influence one of their classmates. My son was so excited about this assignment. 

My son picked Smashburger. Students got to share their essays with one another, they were posted in the classroom and copies were mailed to the local restaurants.

Weeks later, my son asked if I would take him to Smashburger for dinner. Upon receipt of my son’s work, the local Smashburger sent coupons to the school as a way of thanking him for his writing. When we redeemed the coupon, I thanked the cashier and she thanked my son for his writing sample!

Now that I am a teacher myself, I think of the extra effort that my son’s teacher went to for this persuasive writing piece to ensure that the assignment had actual purpose to increase student involvement and passion about the writing.

Features that we should teach include:

• Knowing your audience
• Using vocabulary 
• Being creative with arguments
• Beginning with a great launch or “hook” 
• Including rebuttal responses 
• Ending with a strong conclusion

The HOW of Persuasive

by Colin

Several actions MUST be done to teach students HOW to write with persuasion and to support them in their knowledge of a persuasive text. Finding a situation that engages students is essential and once the problem has been identified, find something your students can do to contribute to a solution (p. 142). To identify those problems, think global, act local; in other words, address a real need in their community.

Provide

• Access to resources
• reading texts, watching videos, listening to others’ experiences
• Opportunities to collaborate
• get students talking so they can communicate thoughts and opinions
• Modeling
• model texts from the teacher or the students to show what their work could look like. This will help students produce quality work and meet expected outcomes
• Opportunities to practice
• Give students the chance to communicate effectively, construct arguments with purpose and reasoning, and connect with their audience
• Supports
• graphic organizers (like this one or a bubble map) and support systems can help students structure their arguments

Concluding Thoughts

by Katie

Teachers should keep in mind what being authentic looks like in practice. We may teach the same benchmarks, but we do not use the same goal posts. The needs of students are not necessarily equal. The innately personal aspect of writing necessitates careful contemplation of the needs of our specific students, and just as students must think of their audience when writing, so too should us teachers when planning a project.

The more impassioned by the topic students are, the closer we inch to true engagement. Conversely, without analysis of what an authentic topic means to our specific students, the amount of engagement plummets.

“Children aren’t born knowing”, (p 94), but what they are born with is a need to express, and teaching writing authentically does just that.

I used to think ... Now I think ...

"I used to think ... Now I think ..." is a thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible (Ritchhart, Church, Morrison) that helps students reflect on how their thinking has shifted and changed over time. On March 20, 2014, I wrote about how this thinking routine could be used with Kindergarteners to show their thinking about cycles.

One of the advantages of thinking routines from Making Thinking Visible is that they can be used in a variety of contexts with a variety of topics over and over again. All teachers can use them, because all students need to think.

Recently, an English Language teacher proved the flexible nature of the thinking strategies when she adapted this thinking routine to fit her content and context. She had asked me if I would suggest a thinking routine that would help her small group of English Learners reflect on their writing and how they had improved during the academic year. After working with her students on this routine, I received the following e-mail:

"I took the 'I used to think' activity and turned it into a “We used to write…” for my small group of 4th grade girls. Since they hadn't done anything like that before, we did it as a group and I recorded their statements. It went well and I think I’ll keep using it in various forms. The girls had a lot of “Oooohhhhh yeah,” and, “AAAhhhhhh,” moments. It was great to witness. What made it even better is that we were sitting right underneath the sign of 'Reflective Alley'."

She also shared their thoughts she had recorded:

We used to write…

• We used to repeat words over and over in our writing: and, and then, then, he said, she said.
• We didn’t use “juicy” words at first. 
• We didn’t really really describe things.
• We used periods sometimes.
• We wrote short, simple sentences.
• Our writing was boring.
• We used too much dialogue sometimes.
• We used a little bit of expression or no expression at all.
• We felt that writing was boring. 

But now we write…

• We write in longer, expanded sentences.
• We write with more expression.
• We use more accurate punctuation.
• We can write in paragraph form.
• We use similes and metaphors.
• We have a balance of dialogue.
• We have a stronger author’s voice.
• We feel more satisfied with our writing--we feel like real authors now. 
• We feel like writing is not as hard as it used to be.
• We can write for a longer amount of time.
• We are more excited about writing projects.
• We write multiple drafts and do peer editing and revising, and we still do editing and revising with a teacher.
• We celebrate our writing.
• We talk about our writing and reflect on it.
• We share our writing by reading it to our peers and teachers. 
• We use our typing skills more.

After reading about how English Learners used the Visible Thinking Routine "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." to reflect on how their understanding, knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding writing had changed over the academic year, how could you use "I Used to Think ..., Now I Think ..." in your instructional practice?

Using Google Docs to provide feedback on students’ writing

Fourth graders in one classroom are writing personal narratives using Google Docs, which they have electronically shared with their classroom teacher and other support teachers with whom they work. Drafting in Docs meets 4th grade ELA benchmarks:

• 4.6.5.5 With guidance and support from peers and adults, use a writing process to develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, drafting, revising, and editing.

• 4.6.6.6 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.

More importantly though, it allows teachers to comment on student work through the shared document, which encourages and challenges learners to continually improve their writing. Students read these comments, reply to them, revise and edit their narratives accordingly, without ever having to meet one-on-one with the teacher.


Professor John Hattie researched different influences and measured their effectiveness on student achievement (for a summary of his findings, check out this infographic). He found that providing students with effective feedback has high influence over student achievement. In order for feedback to be effective and useful though, three conditions have to be met: “the learner needs the feedback; the learner receives the feedback and has time to use it; and the learner is willing and is able to use the feedback,” (Sadler in Hattie, p. 153, Visible Learning for Teachers; Maximizing impact on learning, 2012, New York: Routledge).


Here's another powerful example on the effectiveness of critiquing and feedback on student performance: Austin’s Butterfly.

Based on these different stories, ask:

• How do you use feedback with your students?

• Do you find it is effective?

• How could you reexamine your practice on giving students feedback to have a greater impact on their learning?

Share your thoughts and ideas by commenting on this post.