One of my favorite teaching methods for the writing process for K-2 teachers, is Interactive Writing. This is step three in an article series. Here you will learn how to choose a writing topic from everyday classroom experiences and share the pen with students.
I like to think of choosing a topic for Interactive Writing as talking about an experience that our class has had together. Anything that you do in the classroom can be written about and used to share the pen. Some examples are:
- In the beginning of the school year you may have a newcomer to the classroom. Write about how that happened. This will also help the new student to feel welcome.
- Labeling the classroom is another great Interactive Writing activity.
- A list of "The School Supplies We Use" or "Specials We Go To" or "People in our Classroom" are others.
- Most especially, I like to write about our classroom procedures (please refer to my article about classroom procedures. for more information about classroom routines). For example, we list the steps to starting Reading and Writing Workshop. These make great posters for the whole school year, because they also remind students of procedures to follow in the classroom, and often just takes the teacher to reread to reinforce the routine.
- Another one of my favorite topics for Interactive Writing is to post a chart on the classroom door that reads, "Classroom News", or "Kindergarten is Fun," because interactive writing is constructing text about everyday happenings in the classroom, students write a sentence (or more at the end of the year or for higher grades) about the classroom happenings. This could be as simple as, "We have gym today." It could also be just descriptive words. This is a great weekly project for small group instruction. Split the class into rotating groups to update the door. Simply ask the students, "What have we been doing in the classroom?" Students with learning disabilities may especially benefit from the individualized writing time. As with any interactive writing piece, make sure the students illustrate.
- Share the pen with students about a book they are reading in shared reading, a recipe or even how to solve a math problem.
Interactive Writing can be integrated into any content area. I live in a region where we had a severe ice storm in early fall (October eleventh to be exact). The students were unexpectedly off of school for one week as the number of power outages and downed trees was widespread. When we came back to school we spent time talking about the storm, and did a large Interactive Writing piece which made a beautiful mural in the hallway. The storm became known as "The October Storm" so that was the title of our display. We also integrated this into our science unit about trees and collected some broken branches to enhance our work. This was a social and scientific documentation of our experiences.
