Chapter 5 Assisted Writing

            Assisted Writing involves a knowledgeable teacher who is able to provide guided opportunities for students to learn how to use things they know such as skills, strategies and facts to initiate problem-solving activities in different situations (p. 56).  Children are able to apply their personal knowledge to independent work, and then with practice they soon take the responsibility of writing as they move to higher levels of intellectual development.  Explicit clear demonstrations and guided practice are imperative.  The authors call this validation and activation to help children acquire higher-level understanding. The continuum of assisted writing includes:  interactive writing, writing aloud, revising and editing; the focus always being that students are working to convey their message.

             In the examples given for interactive writing with emergent readers and early writers, I saw my classroom during writing time.  It was great to see I was on the right track.  We would look for chunks and stretch words out to hear the sounds to talk about beginning, middle, and ending sounds.  The missing piece was the use of magnetic letters and individual dry-erase boards.  These materials add variety and stimulate motivation to write.

            As children become more competent writers they transition to Writing Aloud.  The teacher is the main scribe and writes with explicit attention to the forming of words based on what the students know which incorporates problem-solving strategies.  During this social dialogue the teacher prompts the children to assume responsibility for parts of the writing process they are able to control.  This is the “sloppy copy.”  Revising and editing involves solving words through teacher demonstrations of problem solving always keeping the focus on composing meaningful text.  The authors call this moving from interpsychological plan (group problem-solving) to the intrapsychological plan (individual problem-solving) as he/she internalizes generative processes for moving his/her development forward (p. 67).  This process is accomplished with a knowledgeable teacher in a supportive environment and aligns with self-regulatory learning. 

            Another part of Writing Aloud would be to assist students who are willing to share their writing piece with help from the class in revising and editing.  The class helps the individual student through collaborative approach to revision while rules of ownership are honored as each new suggestion is presented to the author for his/her approval (p. 70).  This helps students move toward independent writing through collaborative revising and editing as well as holding more individual conferences with the teacher.

            After reading this chapter about writing I went back to my kinder class.  In my class after observing students who could begin to write independently I assumed that they were on their way to becoming better writers on their own with little help from teacher.  This assumption probably hindered their progress as I spent more time with struggling writers than my proficient writers.  So I saw myself as Jeremy and Rachael’s teacher in writing

            “A common characteristic of struggling writers is their reluctance to take risks with their writing; their stories are often controlled by the words and letters they know, rather than the message they want to share” (p. 58).  This made me think of some of my students in my Kindergarten class last year.  I praised them for using words they knew but they would be stuck on unknown words and not use problem-solving strategies demonstrated to them.  I sound like Jeremy and Rachael’s teacher again. 

            Our classes are so diverse in terms of ability so we have to use our time wisely in order to facilitate learners with scaffold activities and interactions to promote higher levels of learning as they strengthen their secondary discourses in literacy.  All learners deserve the opportunity to excel.  This chapter touched on the framing question of what is the difference between writing to communicate and writing to learn.  These involve secondary discourse with different genre within the writing discourse.  And it also helps students to develop meta-knowledge of writing in all subject areas.