It's a Process - Part One {the Writing Process}

Writing is a process and to make a piece of writing the very best it can be, it should be taken through the steps or stages of the writing process.

The stages of the writing process are… Pre-Writing, Drafting, Revising, Editing, and Publishing.

I printed and laminated writing process cards to keep in our writing center. You can find them here. You can purchase them separately or they are a part of my curriculum download as well.  My children can use these as a reminder of what to do in each stage of the writing process. On the back of each stage card, I have written a reminder of what they need to be doing in each stage. I just copied the "What does it look like?" on the back of the writing binder dividers also found in my curriculum download.

All writing must begin in the pre-writing stage. Our brain has to "warm-up" and start generating ideas about a topic. A topic can be chosen from past experiences or memories., topics I know a lot about {baseball, horses, cooking}, topics I would like to know more about {the Civil War, bats, weather}, people I know, places I have visited or want to visit, and on and on. Topics and ideas are endless. I only suggest that the topic chosen is something that interests the child. It is much more fun to write about a topic that interests you than to not.

Pre-Writing: Brainstorming

Generating a topic list is important. This list should be an ongoing list where topics and ideas are added as they come to mind. This list should help a child who is reluctant to write or at a loss for ideas, decide on something to write about. I suggest using ABC boxes to help generate ideas {choose a topic for each letter of the alphabet - for example: a - Aunt Susie, b - balloon ride, c- cats, d - Disney World} or creating word lists for broader topics.

Once your child has a topic list, they will have a much easier time choosing an idea to write about.

After choosing an idea, I have my children choose one way to pre-write. The dividers found in my curriculum include these pre-writing methods on the back to use as a reference and a reminder.

 

I always model each method at the beginning of the year.

The methods I encourage are...

timeline - write simple phrases or draw pictures of the events from your story in ORDER on a timeline

draw a picture - drawing can be an effective pre-writing method as long as details and labels are used in the picture to help remember everything they want to include in their rough draft

word web - write the topic in the center of the paper and jot down ideas or pictures about that topic that you want to include in your rough draft

I encourage my children to use different methods for different types of writing. A timeline might lend itself more towards a story about a memory or experience whereas a word web would be more appropriate for a research report about tornados.

Drafting: Rough Draft

When the pre-writing and brainstorming is complete, it is time to "move" your writing to the next stage - drafting. In this stage, your child will begin to gather all the information and details from the pre-writing stage and put it together into a draft using sentences, punctuation, and capitals. This is only a draft, not the finished product, so it will have mistakes and things that need to be changed. these changes will occur during the next stages - Revising and Editing.

If you have put together a writing binder, as I suggested in this post, then your child will write their rough draft in the spiral notebook found at the front of their binder. Remind them to always include the date at the top of each rough draft!

For my primary child, I use a primary writing journal with a space for a picture at the top and primary writing lines at the bottom.

Let's Write!