The Writing Process

I wanted to create a way to visually show my students the writing process and came up with a giant pencil! I know a lot of other teachers have used the same idea in their classrooms and I think it is really effective. I decided to add a little more information than usual to my writing process to help my students work independently (they have a tendency to ask questions they already know the answers to! This way, they have no excuse to be asking me anything, especially while I am conferencing with another child).

I also decided to add pegs with the student's names to my pencil writing process. This helps me to keep track of where students are at with just a glance, as well as being able to see which students have been 'stuck' at a certain stage for too long. This visual method also had an unexpected motivational impact as students all try not to be the last one. I always make it clear to the students how much writing I expect from them and if they get up to conferencing and have not met my expectations, they will need to go back and fix it up (which puts them back to the bottom of the conferencing list).

Anyway, here is the finished product (sorry for the mobile phone quality photo!)