The Writing Process: Supporting Student Choice and Bridging Balanced Literacy with the Science of Reading

Understanding the Writing Process

It’s important to start by saying that writing isn’t a rigid, step-by-step process but rather a dynamic and recursive one. In this article, and in my embedded video , I aim to show how we can empower student choice within this process.

Here’s a common framework for the classroom writing process:

The Role of Mentor Texts

Mentor texts are exemplary pieces of writing that serve as models for student writers. Students analyze these texts to study the author’s craft—how the author uses language and structures their writing. The goal is to provide students with models they can emulate in their own writing.

A strong mentor text should:

• Show, rather than tell, students how to write effectively.
• Enable students to identify and understand the author’s techniques.
• Encourage students to integrate these techniques into their own writing.
• Help students envision themselves as capable writers.

Some of my favorite resources for using mentor texts include Matt Glover’s Craft and Process Studies and Projecting Possibilities for Writers. You can find more information at https://www.authortoauthor.org/.

As Matt Glover and Mary Alice Berry state:

“When you create a unit of study, it’s tempting to think you know exactly what will happen on day 5, 13, or 18. But you can’t know. As soon as a unit starts, we begin making adjustments. This book shares a process for projecting a unit of study so you can make decisions as you respond to students each day.”

Key Principles of Writing Instruction

Lucy Calkins offered some powerful insights that remain relevant:

• Writing instruction should cultivate lifelong writers.
• Focus on teaching the writer, not just the writing itself.
• Writers develop their skills by writing.
• Effective writing instruction relies on teachers, not programs.
• Writing instruction should emphasize the writing process, shifting the focus from the final product to the writer’s thinking and actions.
• Writing is a linear, recursive process, not a series of rigid stages.
• Teachers are essential in building a community of writers.

The Importance of Choice

Calkins reminds us that student engagement in writing increases when they can choose topics that are meaningful to them and write for an audience that matters. A writing workshop environment supports students in developing choice and independence, which are crucial for setting a positive tone.

Using Mini-Lessons Effectively

Mini-lessons are crucial for explicitly teaching students what to look for in a mentor text. For instance, if students are unfamiliar with figurative language, they may struggle to identify and analyze it in a text.

Here’s a suggested approach for mini-lessons:

1. Direct Instruction: Introduce the specific element of author’s craft (e.g., figurative language). Provide a clear definition and simple examples.
2. Mentor Text Reading: Read the mentor text with students. The method (reading aloud, small groups, or individual reading) will depend on students’ age and experience.
3. Discussion and Analysis: Discuss the text, focusing on the targeted technique.
   • Begin by ensuring students understand the text’s basic meaning.
   • Guide students to identify where and how the author used the technique.
   • Model your own thinking process (think-aloud) to demonstrate how you analyze the author’s choices.
   • Encourage students to explain why the author’s use of the technique was effective.
   • Analyze specific words, sentences, and paragraphs to understand how they contribute to the overall meaning.
   • Discuss the author’s decisions and their impact on the reader.
4. Student Writing: Provide time for students to apply what they’ve learned by writing their own pieces, focusing on emulating the mentor text’s techniques. Model how to adapt examples from the mentor text.
5. Assessment and Feedback: Assess students’ writing, providing specific praise and constructive feedback. Offer suggestions for revision to improve their use of the targeted techniques. Peer feedback can also be valuable in a workshop or small-group setting.

Benefits of Using Mentor Texts

Mentor texts offer numerous advantages for both students and teachers:

• Provide Concrete Examples: They illustrate effective writing techniques, such as using vivid language and varying sentence structure.
• Expose Students to Diverse Writing Styles: Students encounter a range of voices and approaches, helping them develop their own unique writing style.
• Improve Understanding of Genres: Studying mentor texts from different genres deepens students’ understanding of genre conventions and characteristics.
• Facilitate Skill Development: Mentor texts can be used to teach specific writing skills, such as using strong verbs, writing effective leads, and incorporating dialogue.
• Encourage Risk-Taking: Seeing how authors experiment with language and structure can encourage students to take creative risks in their own writing.

Bridging Balanced Literacy and the Science of Reading

The “science of reading” is a body of research that has brought renewed attention to how children learn to read. It emphasizes foundational skills like phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency. It’s important to consider how we can integrate these findings into a balanced literacy classroom.

Shifting the Balance

The book Shifting the Balance: 6 Ways to Bring the Science of Reading into the Balanced Literacy Classroom by Jan Burkins and Kari Yates, offers a valuable framework for incorporating the science of reading into balanced literacy instruction.

The book outlines six key shifts for K-2 teachers:

1. Rethinking How Reading Comprehension Begins: Emphasizing the importance of background knowledge.
2. Recommitting to Phonemic Awareness Instruction: Ensuring systematic and explicit phonemic awareness instruction.
3. Reimagining Ways to Teach Phonics: Providing explicit and systematic phonics instruction.
4. Revisiting High-Frequency Word Instruction: Teaching high-frequency words in a way that emphasizes phonics patterns.
5. Reinventing the Ways We Use MSV (Multisensory Verification) or Cueing Systems: Reducing reliance on the three-cueing system and emphasizing decoding.
6. Reconsidering Texts for Beginning Readers: Using decodable texts to support early reading development.

By incorporating these shifts, teachers can strengthen their balanced literacy approach with the research-backed principles of the science of reading, creating a more effective and comprehensive literacy program.