K-5 Writers

Working with Elementary school teachers and students, the emphasis is on genre. Students learn how to carefully analyze reading and writing tasks in order to carefully determine the writing purpose, the genre, and the elements that will lead them to planning, drafting, and evaluating to revise their work.

In this process, students are introduced to the Writing Purposes’ PIE that makes Writing a P.I.E.C.E. OF P.I.E. Students are explained that writers write in order to persuade, inform, entertain and convey an experience.  It is important for students to understand that within each purpose there are several different genres that are written. If students have this understanding, it is easier for teachers to explain that fables are meant to entertain and they share the elements of stories; however, they include talking animals and a moral at the end. Such discussions are important for students to understand that books have authors and writers have readers, who share a common understanding about the purposes and genre.

Students are taught the Writing Strategy Ladder and the importance of always applying the components of the ladder to complete a written response or composition.

Initially, they complete the process of “task analysis” using the FTAAP acronym (Form, Topic, Audience, Author, Purpose). Once they determine the writing purpose, they can select the genre that satisfies this purpose and proceed considering its elements.  

Those elements will be the foundation for their planning and for their drafting. As students draft and transfer their ideas from the Graphic Organizer to their draft, they are guided to use transition words and sentence frames.

Once their paper is completed, students will then evaluate their work using the elements of the genre that now become evaluation criteria and will be assigned a score of a zero, one, or two (for absence, need for improvement, or clarity, respectively).

The process is authentic, it requires critical thinking, and supports students strategic selections. Students are Strategic Learners who actively think about the writing tasks!

“Break a Pencil!”