"One day I read my class a story about my visit to my sister the previous weekend. I described my sister's new puppy, Rambo. The students were so interested that I made it a practice to share my journal writing with them after that whenever I visited my sister. As soon as the children knew that my story was going to be about a visit to my sister's, they would begin predicting Rambo's size and asking me questions that would help me to improve my story. I would add the new details and then read them my new draft. This was a really concrete way for them to understand the writing process."
- a Saskatchewan teacher

Daily Writing

• A well-equipped, well-maintained writing center⁴¹

  A well-stocked writing center would contain many of the following items and materials: a variety of materials to write on and with which to write variety of papers for making book covers art materials for illustrations pictionaries staplers and hole punches twine, ribbon, and string letter templates for tracing computer and appropriate software for supporting writers in the emerging phase of literacy.

• Individual journals, notebooks, chalkboards, and Big Books for Writing (teacher-prepared large books for drawing and writing)
• Magnetic letters and magnetic boards
• Magic slates.

1. Introduce your routine of writing daily within the first week of school using a strategy such as the one described previously (Writing Samples) to create a comfortable and positive environment in which all children can explore writing options, purposes, and procedures.
2. Demonstrate one aspect of the writing process at least once a week using a "thinking aloud" strategy as you compose your piece of writing on chart, chalkboard, or overhead transparency while students watch and make suggestions. Even very young learners can develop their understanding of audience, purpose, style, spelling strategies, and editing for content and forms if they meet these ideas regularly within concrete demonstrations. For example, you can:
   1. Draft a message for a Mother's Day card as students listen and observe you discussing the audience for the card. I want to make a Mother's Day card for an older friend of mine who has always been just like a mother to me. She listens when I have a problem and tells me I'm a good person when I'm feeling down in the dumps. You can send Mother's Day cards to your real mother and to other people who act like a mother to you. Some people send Mother's Day cards to their grandmothers.
   2. Draft a list of reminders to yourself of things to do on the weekend and invite children's ideas about the form/format for the list. Which paper do you think I should use for my list of things I need to remember to do this weekend (holding up scrap paper, good stationery, and a blank book)? I probably don't need to write complete sentences--I'll remember what I mean if I just put down 'laundry' and 'library books' and things like that. My husband wouldn't know that I want to get some books about First Nations' cultures at the library for the unit we are starting, but this list is for me.
   3. Put the beginning of a story on an overhead and ask, What else might people want to know about my adventure in a canoe? I don't want to give away the ending just yet.
3. Help children find purposes for writing by:
   • noting ideas as they arise (e.g., maybe we could write a note to Mr. D. telling him about the slivers you can get from the merry-go-round)
   • modeling different purposes for writing
   • exposing them to a variety of genres and types of writing
   • incorporating writing as an important aspect of learning centers, structured play centers (p. 116), co-operative group activities, and writing in other subject areas.
4. Provide a time for writing each day, and choices in terms of the purposes, formats, and materials for the writing. You might include an uninterrupted, silent, sustained writing once a week while the rest of the week would include some time for peers talking with others about their writing, problems they are having, ideas they have, etc.
5. Involve students in a writing process such as the one described in English Language Arts: A Curriculum Guide for the Elementary Level (1992).
6. Read your own writing to children from time to time.

   Other Activities that Support Writing Development

   Class Post Office. Materials that are useful for establishing a post office include many of the same materials you would already have in your Writing Center such as a variety of things to write on and with which to write. Other important additions could include some of the following:
   • a phone book with the pages giving postal codes marked with a tab
   • a class address book
   • a variety of stickers to use as stamps
   • a stamp pad and stamps such as a date stamp
   • a variety of envelopes and stationery
   • postcards
   • a cardboard postal box for mailing letters
   • a tray with compartments for sorting letters
   • a bag for letter carriers.

   Encourage students to write to each other, to parents, to volunteers, older reading buddies, the school principal, secretary, nutritionist, etc. As well, when a real need arises, write joint letters to town/city/municipal councillors, the mayor, chairperson of the local school board, or others in positions of authority. This would be a good way to integrate the taking social action aspect of the Social Studies curriculum.

   Establish procedures for mail delivery and a schedule for class letter carriers.

   Remind your students that words on paper, just like spoken words, can help or harm. Establish a rule that no one can send unkind messages through your classroom postal system and of the other ways to solve disputes.

   Other strategies in this resource that support young writers include:

7.   Read, Talk, Act, Draw, Write (p. 63)
8.   Incorporating Literacy into Social Dramatic Play (p. 116)
9.   Mini-units Using Predictable Books (p. 142).

   See also the descriptions of the following writing strategies in English Language Arts: A Curriculum Guide for the Elementary Level (1992): Creating Text (p. 98) Daily Records (p. 99) Journal Writing (p. 107).

An important part of interactive writing is the way it makes visible to children how written language works. A neat, totally accurate product is not the goal, although the writing should be very readable, since it will be the basis of future shared or independent reading. (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996, p. 34)

Interactive Writing⁴²

Interactive writing is a whole class or small group activity in which the teacher and the children share the responsibility for recording a negotiated text--i.e., a text they compose together. The teacher and the children take turns writing the text on the experience chart as it is being developed. In the Emerging Phase, the teacher would write more than the children, but would pass the pen to a child from time to time to write a familiar letter or word. This activity is especially useful to help learners in the emerging phase: make connections between oral and written language concentrate on sounds in words note spelling patterns view themselves as writers.

Materials

• Books that have been read recently, favourite books, poems, or songs (optional)
• Experience chart paper and felt pen.

1. Establish a reason for writing with the children. Some purposes might be to send a letter to a classmate who is ill, make a list of things to bring for a field trip, add a new verse to a favourite song, or retell a favourite story to be duplicated for "take home" reading.

   See also the descriptions of the following writing strategies in English Language Arts: A Curriculum Guide for the Elementary Level (1992) which lend themselves well to the interactive writing process: Letter Writing (p. 109) Making Books and Charts (p. 112).

2. Begin creating the text. Support the children through your comments and questions in composing the first sentence. When everyone has agreed on the best wording for this sentence, say it aloud slowly as you write it on the chart, noting capital letters, familiar words, etc. as you write. For example, Once upon a time, ... that's how all fairy tales start, isn't it? We need a capital "O" in "Once" because it is the first word in our sentence (pausing after saying "once upon"). Who thinks they know how to write "a"? It's the word that comes next.
3. In order to maintain the flow of meaning and assist children in sound-print matching, reread the text from the beginning each time a child has added a new word.
4. Different children might contribute a letter, several letters, or a whole word. When appropriate, invite the children to say the wordslowly to listen for the sounds it contains. Other times, you might simply remind a child that s/he has that letter in her/his name.
5. As you continue to negotiate and record the text, pause from time to time to draw children's attention to:
   • familiar or new spelling patterns
   • concepts of print such as the spaces between words
   • other features of the writing such as, the special format of a letter or a list.
6. The length of interactive writing sessions will vary according to the developmental ages of the children. A session might be as short as five minutes or as long as thirty minutes. Stop before the children tire. It is not important to complete a text in one sitting. You might work on the same text for a short period over several days.
7. When you have completed your text, ask for suggestions from the children about ideas for its use. For example, would they like to make illustrations to accompany it and post it in the hallway for others to read? Would they like you to make a smaller version to duplicate for "take home" reading? Whatever follow-up activities they choose, do not forget to read the text with the children many more times over the coming weeks.