Literacy, Week 5, Shared Writing

Writing Essentials Chapter 5:
What is shared writing, how is it used, and for what purposes? How does shared writing fit into the optimal learning model? Deconstruct one of Routman's shared writing lesson examples (starting pp. 99 or 105). What does she do that makes it "shared" writing? What is the potential impact on students? How does this lesson compare to writing instruction in your field experiences or past schooling?

The chapter on Shared Writing, chapter 5 in Writing Essentials, was not only very interesting to me but also very helpful. I am interested in ways to teach our English Language Learners (ELL) and appreciate each time the author, Regie Routman, points out the possible uses in this area for her teaching approaches. As I read this chapter, I realized, also, that my cooperative teachers have been incorporating shared writing in their teaching.

My Main placement is in a Kindergarten class. The teacher has incorporated elements from Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) strategies to literacy learning in her classroom. An approach used for ELL students, this teacher explained to me that GLAD has many helpful elements for the general classroom. One element that I witnessed her teaching appears to be a form of shared writing.

On Monday, this particular week our theme was apples and our letter was a, the teacher put a sheet of chart paper on the whiteboard in front of the class. The sheet had been folded into quarters so that when unfolded, there were four distinct sections of the paper. We had been having a group discussion about apples and had decided that apples were hard and round. Starting in the upper left square, she drew an apple, wrote the word apple underneath and then the words hard and round. The a was then traced over in a different color.

The next day, after reading a factual book about apples, we added to the chart. After some discussion, Flowers bloom on trees became the text for the upper left quarter. Throughout the week, Blossoms turn into apples and Apples fall to the ground were added to the text. Each day the students reread their text before moving on to the next square. The teacher continued to trace over the first letter in each sentence; as I think on it now, I'm not sure why. It will be interesting for me to return to her classroom and observe again her teaching this literacy approach. This time I will have more questions.