It is essential to plan engagement strategies into writing instruction. Engaging students during writing instruction in elementary and middle school classrooms is crucial to foster a love for writing and improve their skills. Purposefully and intentionally planning discussion as an engagement strategy ensures it will happen.
Prior to writing independently, students need multiple opportunities to discuss the connections they are making in writing, their thinking and understanding of writing, and the ideas they will put on paper. Multiple opportunities to discuss with peers can support their confidence and motivation to write. Talking about writing helps students engage as a community of writers. Allowing peer collaboration supports students as they listen, think, speak, and write.
Engage Students in Collaborative Discussions
Peer collaboration can happen in a variety of ways. Integrating strategies for discussion requires little effort from the teacher, while yielding a high impact on student agency and learning.
Turn and Talk
This can be a short practice where students turn to someone sitting near them to tell them one thing they noticed the author did in the mentor text that connects to the skills they are learning. They could turn and tell a partner one idea they have for their writing today that relates to the learning target. While this is a simple technique for discussion, it still needs to be explicitly taught and practiced.
Think-Pair-Share
In the whole group lesson you might consider having students take out an idea journal and record their answer to a question like - What words did the author use to elaborate on the character’s traits? Students would then analyze how the author used words to develop a character. They would think and record their ideas, then pair up with a partner to share their thinking, and then share out to the whole group what they discussed.
Think-Pair-Square
This strategy is similar to think pair share, but the pair will partner up with another pair to discuss rather than sharing with the whole group. So, students have individual thinking time, maybe with a writing journal integration, then they pair up to share with a partner, and then the partners pair up with another set of partners to discuss.
Talk Moves
Talk moves integrate sentence starters and sentence frames to support idea expression and peer interaction. Sentence frames offer students something to say when they aren’t sure what to say. It also supports the integration of academic vocabulary in context. So, if you want students to use the word “transitions” in their peer discussions, offer them a sentence frame like “A transition I found in the text is _____. I will use the transition _______ because ______.” From kindergarten all the way through college, students can benefit from explicit instruction in the skills of summarizing another person’s argument before presenting an alternate view, asking clarifying questions, and expressing agreement or partial agreement with the idea of another participant. Talk moves can be integrated into Turn and Talk and Think-Pair-Share discussions.
Talk-it-Out-Teams
This small group discussion strategy has students talking with many students to gather ideas. For this strategy, students will be organized into groups of 3-6 to engage in a semi-structured discussion. In writing, the discussion might be analyzing writing against the rubric they are using to evaluate their own work. They will discuss their ratings and the evidence they found that supports the rating. After a few minutes to discuss, 1-2 students from the group rotate to another group and they continue the discussion.
Remember that every student is unique, so it's important to adapt your discussion technique to suit individual needs and preferences. Building a collaborative, positive, and supportive writing environment where students feel their voices are valued and their creativity is nurtured, is key to successful engagement in writing instruction.
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