The room seemed to ache with loneliness… and an ardent desire to participate…

 

 

One of the most powerful things we can do in classrooms is to allow for frequent formative writing… and in fact to make formative writing a routine for students. Especially when we make it a routine to write formatively in response to rich content.

I want to share a beautiful video of the why and how of that idea from Jaime Johnson’s classroom at Bay Creek Middle School in Gwinnett County, Georgia.

But first let me define the term ‘formative writing.’

Formative writing is where students use writing to discover and develop what they think. You might think of it in contrast to “summative writing” in which students explain what they think. The key difference is that in formative writing, you don’t know for sure before you start writing. The purpose of the writing is to discover, to think slowly and deeply about an idea you’ve just encountered.

If we can do that frequently—throughout class in short bursts—we can cause students to think expand and deepen their own nascent ideas.

In this video, then, it’s important that the writing happens in the midst of reading.

 

Jaime is reading Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon with her students.

“Suddenly,” the passage reads, describing the protagonist’s Minli’s point of view “the room seemed to ache with loneliness.”

Jaime’s pauses. “Will you take about 60 seconds,” she says just after they read this line, “Silent solo….everybody writing… Why might she feel this way?”

There are a couple of really important details to observe here.

The writing is midstream. Just a few seconds after they’ve been immersed in the story everyone is reflecting on it in writing. The speed of this transition is important because all of the thoughts in students’ working memory as they read remain available to them as they begin writing. It takes just 15-20 seconds for the typical person to lose ideas that are in working memory. So writing right away, before those 15-20 seconds have elapsed, is important to harvest the richest thinking. Jaime does that brilliantly here.For this reason it’s critical that this process be a habit. They do this over and over—Jaime cues the routine… reminds her students that this is a familiar procedure by calling it “Silent Solo.” Again this ensures that everyone is writing within seconds with their full array of thoughts still available to them.Jaimie lowers the stakes beautifully to make it safe to think in writing. She asks why Minli might feel as she does. That word might is so powerful! Students don’t need to know for sure. It is enough for now merely reflect on the possibilities. And Jaime’s tone of voice–thoughtful, inquisitive, slow—intimates the sort of thinking environment she wants.

 

And off they go…

Well, almost everyone. A+ to Jaime for spotting one student a little slow to start. He’s ding something else at first. “DJ,” she whispers and offers a nonverbal reminder. Within a second or two, he too is writing away. (You can read more about the power of whisper corrections in this recent post).

After a minute or so Jaime asks for responses. Again her demeanor is open, exploratory. “We don’t need to know for sure yet” she seems to say.  There are lots of hands but in a lovely detail, she calls first on DJ, to whom she gave the reminder, and he thoughtfully begins his reflection on the question.

Hats off to Jaime who’s built and installed a powerful routine to cause students to engage in brief bouts of reflective writing while they read. This will enrich the experience for them bringing it depth and making it safe for them to think deeply in a range of ways.

 

The post The Room Seemed to Ache with Loneliness: Jaime Johnson’s Formative Writing Routine appeared first on Teach Like a Champion.