Writing Video Response

I wanted a video on a class of 2nd grade students who were going through a "writing adventure" or the writers workshop.  This program has a tight link between writing and reading, and also making writing real for the students. This teacher talks about how a lot of teachers weren't teaching writers, but the teachers that were teaching writing had students who had better writers.  The students start out by planning their writing, by asking questions about what they want to write about.  They then move onto the next step which is drafting.  The students sit by themselves and begin their own stories, most kids work alone but their teacher is always there to help and move them towards the next step of writing, revising.  The examples of student writing was awesome, it was so advanced for students their age and it is great that they are able to share their writing with their teacher aloud and then have her comment back on what they were writing about.  Some examples sounded somewhat poetic which I thought was great.  Their teacher gives them lots of ways to edit their writing (the last stage of writing). Literature comes in at this point too, and they learn different ways to write words so that they aren't using "tired" words.  These tired words are words like pretty when they could be using better words like beautiful, etc.  She tells her students that if they really feel they need to use a tired word they better have thought about every other option!  The part the student's love most about their writers workshop is sharing with their stories.  Research shows that peer discussion helps them to become better writers too, which I think is so interesting because I know as a student I was always so scared to share my writing with my classmates but these students are so confident in reading what they wrote and it is awesome to know that this helps them to become better writers in the long run.  Writing is hard for students regardless, especially these 2nd grade students,  it is new to them and a process they are learning but writers workshop helps this process become easier for them.  It has a structured approach and a great teacher to help them, so in this process they are learning the skills and seeing that learning is fun!  This helps them become life-long writers in the words of their teacher, it helps them become comfortable with writing.  I think overall this program is really nice, instead of just sending kids off to write and never really talking about it with them these students are able to discuss their work with both their teacher and their peers and get feedback and become comfortable with writing.  Not only that, they begin to enjoy writing and see it as something that is fun and exciting.  I love that when students become better writers they also become better readers, this makes me realize how much I have to focus on writing when I am teaching so that my students can be both great writers and great readers!  

Video:
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/descriptive_writing/