Volume

I found this picture today on a tweet from the Prairie Lands Writing Project.  This picture is the perfect thing I needed after listening to Penny Kittle talk about volume.  What will make our students better writers?  What will make anyone a better writer?  Writing....More Writing....Even More Writing.  

Today I talked to the class about our Red Pen Writing.  Every Monday and Wednesday from now on I am going to ask the students to write for ten minutes at home in their writer's notebooks.  They can write about anything.  They can write in any style.  I just want them to write.  We are going to call this Red Pen Writing because I bought a massive supply of red pens for the class.  When they are writing at home on Monday and Wednesday, I want them to write using their red pen.  If they lose the pen, all they need to do is ask for another pen.  

You would think that most of the students would have been upset about me telling them about Red Pen Writing.  I know that not all students are probably excited about this new idea but some of my favorite questions today when we were talking about our Red Pen Writing included: "Mr. Tarr if we want to write for more than ten minutes, is that OK?" and "Mr. Tarr if we want to do Red Pen Writing on Tuesday and Thursday and Monday and Wednesday, is that OK?"  

I love our class.

We also got a new teacher in writing today...Jane Yolen.

I love Jane Yolen.  She is an amazing author. 

We are going to spend the next few weeks noticing things in Jane Yolen's writing.  This will be very similar to what we did earlier this year with Cynthia Rylant.  To introduce Mrs. Yolen to the class we read Owl Moon.  I typed all the words from the book out for the students.  I wanted them to see the beautiful words that she used as I read aloud.

When we were finished listening to the book, I read the story again and had the students think about their favorite lines.  The students used pencils to mark their favorite parts.  In the end we forced the students to pick just one line or part and highlight the section.  Then we went around the room and students read aloud their favorite sections.  The read aloud sounded very similar to a poem in the round.  Tomorrow we will have students write their favorite parts of the book on sentence strips and we will work on making a class Owl Moon poem.

After all this, it was time to write.  I showed students how I was going to lift a line from Owl Moon to start a bit of my own writing.  The students could try this technique or write about a time they did something special with someone they loved or write about anything they wanted.  The students went off and they wrote.  The writing as usual blew me away.  Tomorrow I will share some of the amazing pieces that students shared at share time.  

Hope your week is off to a great start.