Getting Middle-School Students to Write Their Hearts Out

“Writing is an activity in which students frequently show little engagement and motivation,” say Kristine Pytash and Denise Morgan (Kent State University) in this Middle School Journal article. School writing, that is. But in their real lives, middle-school students are writing all the time: “They text, pass notes, send e-mails, blog, and post updates on Facebook. At the center of students’ non-academic writing are their day-to-day thoughts, stories, and encounters that define them as individuals finding their way in the world.” 

How can teachers bring that energy and passion into school writing? How can students be empowered to use topics of personal importance to grow as writers? By using the “unit of study” framework, say Pytash and Morgan. This inquiry-oriented approach gets students to look closely at the kinds of writing they will eventually do and pick topics with personal meaning. “Often writing activities are assigned, not taught,” say the authors. In a well-crafted unit of study, students study a genre of writing, hone their skills, select a meaningful topic, and then get to work. “In this way, writing builds bridges between students’ out-of-school lives and interests and their in-school learning experiences,” say Pytash and Morgan. “This approach closely mirrors what professional authors do,” and students find that writing is “easier than I thought.”

Pytash and Morgan give a step-by-step description of how two Ohio teachers worked with them to implement an English language arts unit on memoir:

• Gathering texts – The goal was to find examples of memoirs that weren’t too long and would lead students to think that writing their own was within reach. “Above all, these examples have to be of high-quality, able to withstand close scrutiny, and offer numerous possibilities and crafting techniques for students,” say Pytash and Morgan. Students also got involved in searching for appropriate material.

• Setting the stage – To build foundational knowledge among students and prevent the dreaded I don’t know what to write about reaction, teachers got students brainstorming and jotting notes on questions like these:

• At family gatherings and holidays, what story gets told repeatedly about you?
• What is your earliest memory?
• What is the most important thing that has ever happened to you?
• What is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?
• What is something you’ll never forget?
• Makes lists of what you remember about people, places, and objects – the births of siblings, getting a new pet, winning or losing a contest, the loss of something special, a courageous moment, etc.

“This work helped students find a memory worth capturing and polishing on paper,” say Pytash and Morgan. Having chosen a specific topic, students then decided whether there was enough detail to write about. Some students found it helpful to create a visual “tellingboard” by drawing pictures and jotting words on sticky-notes and putting them on a larger piece of paper.

• Immersion – The teacher then had students read several memoirs and read some passages aloud, drawing attention to common characteristics and the authors’ use of language. One student remarked that “reading helps because, as you’re reading someone else’s ideas, you’re coming up with ideas of your own. The reading will inspire you.”

• Close study and mini-lessons – Close study means getting students to name what authors do in their writing, making explicit what they have already begun to notice in the exemplar texts. It’s helpful for students to mark up and annotate a text and then discuss common insights – for example,  the way an author uses repetition to draw attention to an important point in the story. Mini-lessons can be used to teach specific aspects of the genre – for example, beginnings that hook the reader and endings that close the loop. 

• Writing under the influence – As students drafted their memoirs, teachers held small-group and individual conferences. “We avoided good/bad conversations by asking students to pose specific questions about their drafts,” say Pytash and Morgan. “We also worked with students to see how they incorporated specific techniques in their drafts and discussed the rationales for doing so.” 

• Sharing – At the end of the unit, teachers had students share their writing from the class “author’s chair”, in small groups, on the class website, and collected in a class book. Some were hesitant at first, but peer reactions created momentum and sharing spread through the class. 

“A Unit of Study Approach for Teaching Common Core State Standards for Writing” by Kristine Pytash and Denise Morgan in Middle School Journal, January 2013 (Vol. 44, #3, p. 44-51), www.amle.org; the authors are at kpytash@kent.edu and dmorgan2@kent.edu. 

From the Marshall Memo #469