Student Choice in the Classroom -- Join Michele & Lisa in this discussion... - 41 views
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#12 Lisa Keeler on 15 Apr 13I'm thinking a lot about student choice and where it is and isn't present in our writing curriculum. I know we have room for growth with regard to student choice in writing workshop, but I also know that we are already incorporating choice. I've seen many examples of this. We teach a mini lesson focused on a particular writer's technique and Fourth graders choose whether or not to experiment with that technique. First graders choose the kind of paper they will use to publish their "how to' books. They choose which pages to illustrate and where to have only text. While there may be some non negotiables, they choose whether to include other elements of an "all about book,' like glossaries and dedications. Second graders choose how to lay out an iBook, knowing that their page breaks will be meaningful. Students in a particular class may all be focusing on the same genre but they choose their topic. We don't use writing prompts and we don't tell our writers how long their piece needs to be. They choose their ideas and they determine what and how much they need to write about a given idea.
