5 Ways To Engage and Motivate Student Writers

Have you ever been in the presence of teacher that you could spend all day listening to and wish he/she worked at your school and that you could be him/her when you grew up, all at the same time? Well, that is how I feel about Adrienne Gear. She is a teacher, author, speaker, new book smeller (her #reallife confession) and motivator. She has written 4 books, Reading Power, Reading Power for Non-Fiction, Writing Power and Writing Power for Non Fiction and she travels around and shares her reading and writing methods. She is AWESOME and so real and down to earth! Oh! and she fuels my obsession with children's literature and I buy so many books because of her!  I have been to many of her workshops and will continue to go for as long as I can. Every time I go I learn new things, and get inspired to teach reading and writing ALL DAY LONG!  I know, that's not possible but if it was I would be on board! 

Okay, enough gushing, here are some of the things I learned in her Writing Power workshop on Friday (and yes I know it's the middle of summer, but it doesn't matter, it was SO WORTH IT!). 

1. I re-learned that the process of writing is more important than the cute products we find on Pinterest. (although these have their place). For every 10 or so pieces of writing, only one should be taken to the publishing level. We want student's to practice how to be writers, and not everything a writer writes will be published. That's real life! 

2. I learned that to motivate students to write, they need to have a reason to write. That reason is their reader. They write so a reader will read their writing. They have a purpose when they write, to engage their reader. To entertain, to instruct, to tell a story, to inform or share knowledge, to connect, empower, impact, to persuade or share opinions, to describe an event. THIS IS KEY! Students need to know that what they write is important and that someone wants to read what they write. She uses the line with her kids, "You don't have to write, you GET to write!" 

3. I re-learned that students should have two goals as writers. Their goals should be to not bore their readers or confuse them. I love how simple these goals are and yet they encompass everything that students need to be taught in order to have effective writing. To engage readers writers should have: interesting details, interesting words, similes and other literary techniques, engage their readers five senses, and have a writer's voice. This will ensure that their writing is not boring. To make sure they aren't confusing their readers,writers watch out for spelling errors, they use proper punctuation, they use correct spacing, they organize their writing and they stay on topic. I have these goals in my room as an anchor chart and I refer to it A LOT! I love that it is broken down in a way that makes it easy for all students to understand. 

3a. I learned an new acronym for those students who constantly have their hand in the air during writing, waiting for you to spell a word for them ( I had one child who wanted every word spelled for her, ain't nobody got time for that!). You simply tell them to G.U.M it! Give it a try, Underline the word, and Move on! When I heard this, it was like a Hallelujah moment let me tell you! I will be making this into a anchor chart ASAP, believe me! 

4. I re-learned that having a writing routine is important so kids know what to expect (this is true of teaching in general, but I loved how she broke this down in an easy to follow way). 
           Day 1: Kids plan to write about a topic that they are given by the teacher who is using an anchor book as the model. Their plan can be a web, list,  or a drawing with labels.  
           Day 2: Write: kids share their plan with a partner, you teach a mini lesson referring back to the anchor book from day 1 and then kids use their plan to write. 
            Day 3: Conferencing and Editing. Kids share and edit with a peer, and the teacher takes 3-4 students and conferences about their writing. 
            Day 4: Have 2 or 3 students share their writing. (Author's Chair type idea)
Repeat!

5. I  learned some technique lessons that  I will share with my students during our mini lesson time. I will share more about them here as I do them with my class, but one that really was an "ah-ha moment" for me was her mini lesson on Robot Writing. Sounds fun right? Robot writing is not fun, they are sentences that go: I like my mom, I like pizza,  I like hockey and I like summer. "I like" over and over again (read them with a robot voice, it's fun and makes a point).  No details, no voice, no connections being formed.  Big ol' BORING! So we tell our students that they need to add in detail and we get, " I like summer because it's fun" ARGH! So what can we do???  I learned that using the word"and" or "because" to add detail to writing, will never produce an interesting sentence! Instead teaching students to use these 4 magic words will take that robot writing and turn it into effective writing. Are you ready for the words? they are.... when, sometimes, once, if.  Use those words and you get: I love my mom when she.... I like pizza, once I had.... I like hockey, sometimes I...  See? MAGIC! I think that introducing these words to students in a Hogwarts cloak and using a wand would be really cool! (But that's just me). Using those 4 words will set up your students for successful writing that will engage their reader and will banish the robotic sentences to Azkaban. 

So if you haven't checked out her books and are wondering how to set up and engage your students to become better and more effective writers, check out the link at the top of this post or here: http://www.readingpowergear.com and remember, this is not a program, it can be used with any literature, any program, and anywhere! She also has a blog, and it has lesson plans and great resources as well. https://readingpowergear.wordpress.com