[LIT] Quickwrites, l. rief

[bmaddox at comcast.net]

I haven't read all the posts on Literacy Workshop for the past 8 days since I've been on vacation, but I just have to share a great little find I made in Powell's Bookstore in Portland, Oregon on Saturday.  It is a used copy of _100 Quickwrites: Fast and Effective Freewriting Exercises That Build Students' Confidence, Develop Their Fluency, and Bring Out the Writer in Every Student_ by Linda Rief.  Her book, Seeking Diversity, is sort of a bible for me, but I fear I backslid last school year and got away from true writing workshop.  I abandoned the daily ten minutes of writing in a journal to begin class two years ago because I felt it tended to establish poor writing practice as well as to discourage reflection and revision.  The students' work never seemed to mature.  Instead of free-writing,  I tried to provide some context, discussion, and reflection time prior to most writing. My kids did began to write with more "content" but I don't feel many were "mining their minds," writi
ng with insight, or developing passion and voice..

After reading the intro to 100 Quickwrites, I see how to establish a daily writing exercise that will generate the gist of thoughtful writing that could blossom into substantive pieces via reflection and revision, IF THE STUDENT CHOOSES.

I think quickwrites are going to be very important in my classes next year--maybe the most valuable 3 minutes of the day to me and my students next year.

Here's the strategy for teaching with Quickwrites, according to Linda Rief:

1. Provide a short reading passage--a poem, a brief passage, another student's work or the teacher's--in short, a model piece of writing that contains some stimulus for a students initial ideas. Rief suggests using a transparency, reading it to the kdis, and leaving it up. Students need to see "a whole piece that is thoughtfully and carefully crafted...that touches them intellectually or emotionally," not simply "stand-alone phrases or three-word prompts."
2.  read the poece aloud
3. Ask them to try writing or drawing quickly based on any of the "try this" suggestions at the bottom of the transparency (she provides these)
4. write or draw your own quickwrite
5. if they are still writing after 2 or 3 minutes, extend the time another mnute or two
6. Give them credit for the quickwrites, considering it rough draft production for their writer's notebook or journal

Then, of course, they can share by reading their quickwrites.
One can extend the quickwrites by providing choice in which quickwrites to develop, by having them go back to their quickwrites every couple of weeks for one that surprised them or they want to know more about

There is more to this system, but that's a bare outline of quickwrites.  This is a practice that some of you engage in, I'll bet, with success. How has it affected your writing classes?  

By the way, the little book I bought is from the Scholastic Teaching Strategies series, for grades 5 and up.  ISBN 0-439-45877-3, $15.95  (I paid 7.95 used, the bargain of the summer!)