Morning, all. Will try to wrap this up this morning. Thank you for your patience.

Due Draft

I don’t call last drafts, “final drafts.” I call them “due drafts,” honoring the notion that writing is never done, only due. We just run out of time, and we have to prepare our last draft as best we can for the purpose it serves. And that purpose varies. In person, I try to create publishing opportunities.

Whenever possible, I ask kids to share their writing, to read it aloud to the class (or at least parts of it). I have found that this makes them care more authentically about their writing than just turning it in to me for a grade. But I also try to find writing opportunities for them to publish writing that moves beyond trite, transactional school writing. They don’t want to share that type of writing, and frankly, we don’t want to hear that type of writing. Again, the emphasis is on the writer, not the writing, and if the writer is going to engage in the writing, then I believe we have to give them some choice. So, I do.

But what about the standards? You mean focus/purpose, organization, and elaboration? They’re there. They’re always there. And that is where we meet and learn. And when I give kids choice and purpose (publish to peers), I find they are more engaged in their growth as writers. We also publish “Classroom Anthologies.” By the way, for kids who are too anxious to share aloud with the entire class, they share with me and a few of their peers. They select their peers. But with the intentional work that I put in to building our classroom community with daily Smiles and Frowns, etc., most kids are comfortable enough to share with the entire class, buying my pitch, “it’s just us.”

Of course, in our distance-reality, this is really not an option for many reasons. Things are just a little different this year–socially and academically, and so, I am trying to find ways to publish writing. But, the focus on the writer has not changed; it’s still about the process, not the product. Last quarter, I only glanced at their due drafts to note completion of the process. But I did read–carefully–their required reflections. That’s right, I didn’t read their final drafts. Didn’t need to. The process had come to an end. I did my looking along the way, engaging with them in the feedback/response process. To help frame this, I called our writing experience, “Project Writer,” telling kids that we were in the process of building writers, not making products. As such, in the end, their self-assessment of and reflection on the process is what got my attention. I can’t tell them it’s about the writer only to look at the writing in the end. The writing is done; it stays. The writer will move forward, and before she goes, I want her to capture her experience for a moment. She is not done. And I want her to know that.

So much more to say about all of this, and I never did get to how I “grade” writing in my feed-back focused classroom, but that may be a good thing (it’d likely only make more murky already muddy waters). So, I will just end by going back to my original point: there is a danger in done. It takes away from the opportunity to honor the process and the learner. It places the focus on the product and too often the grade, both of which stay static as the dynamic doers move along. So, I focus on the doers, who are never done.

Happy Tuesday, all. Gonna move along from here. Sorry I lingered as long as I did.

Do. Reflect. Do Better.