Once again we gathered as a group to explore the writing process.
Some things we tackled this time:
- how to create colour coded folders and move our google documents into those folders (AAAhh, you can just feel the sigh of relief with this organizational structure)
- how to use the revision history as a way to keep track of all the draft revisions
- how to get back to revisions that you liked and write from there (*this one is good when writing starts wandering away from the thesis topic)
- how to attach specific areas of performance standards to the writing for students to self-assess and for teachers to support writing
- how to organize our mini lessons (*Yes they are mini-10 minutes) in response to reviewing the students’ docs
We did some unpacking from the book, Digital Writing Workshop by Troy Hicks and shared ideas
that resonated in chapter 3. One thing out of the many that leapt off the pages was around the notion of ‘conferring’.
” Writers talk in order to rehearse language that will go into what they write and conversation often provides an impetus or occasion for writing. “
We need to give ourselves the freedom to allow our students to talk to each other about their writing and to stretch those ideas into something deeper than when they started. As a group we did that ourselves and afterwards, we entered our comments into our Session 2 Post. In this way, we were able not only hear each other, but to return to those written words and further reflect.
Homework:
- refine our mini lessons
start the process with our students in January (get those technical setups completed and dive into writing) - Read another chapter (eg. Chapter 6, “Enabling Assessment over Time with Digital Writing Tools”)
- Please take the opportunity to response to any of the following:
- What do you wonder about?
- What resonates with you?
- What questions do you still have?