Years ago, we used PTO money to hire a colorful young woman with coke bottle glasses and red frizzy hair to come and write a collaborative story with our second grade students. The finished product (Warthogs Eat Pizza!) was in great demand in our classroom library for years. Glen Bledsoe has inspired me to attempt collaborative writing with my students once again. I love the idea of engaging students in shared writing (a practice I used to do on the overhead) while modeling the mechanics of word processing: spaces, indentations, quotation marks... (I noticed that Bledsoe's teacher page highly recommends The Writing Project).
One of the challenges of collaborative writing with a large group: hearing ideas from all students. I wonder if it might be more effective to start with smaller groups: 6-8. Or give students some think time on the topic to allow the introverts and thinkers to come up with some ideas to contribute.
The closest I've come to collaborative writing: students used Think.com as a tool for responding to mystery novels. Students chose 1 of 4 novels, read, discussed in small group with me, and wrote responses on the blog. On their pages, they wrote a summary and a prediction or wondering question each day. Students responded to the questions of their peers, but I don't think that's really collaborative writing. Perhaps to encourage collaborative writing, students have to work together on one single piece of writing. I'm not sure how that would work as we have just 4 student computers in our room.
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Thanks for posting the link to Glenn Bledsoe's site. There's some really good stuff there! I loved the idea of making DOL sentences part of an ongoing story instead one isolated sentence after another. I know that doesn't have anything to do with collaborative writing, but I thought it was a great idea :) Actually, it could be collaborative if we assigned students to the job of creating sentences for an ongoing story each week. Just another random thought from me :O) (how in the world will I ever keep track of all these random thoughts?)
ReplyDeleteWhat a great way to use THink.com for quick sharing, accountability for doing the reading and responding to others! For a collaborative writing piece, could the same groups of students write another ending for their story or a simulated character interview? I'm not exactly sure how your day/week looks but could this writing at least partially happen within your flex group rotations?
ReplyDeleteYes, writing a new ending or a short sequel to a book could be a next step. Yes, we do Think.com in flex rotations. It takes about an hour to rotate everyone through.
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