Teaching Writing: Children

Lesson 1: Getting Started

Supplies that are Useful

When I returned to school from that career-altering writing workshop, the first thing I did was badger my principal into letting me try the new ideas I'd learned. He agreed, so the next thing I did was to begin to gather some supplies and items that I thought would be useful for this new approach to writing.

Whether you have been using a writing workshop approach for many years, or are just getting started, I thought I'd share my list of some of the things I found to be very useful in teaching writing over the years.

If I had to choose one thing to have in any classroom, it would have to be a large easel and chart paper. I did a lot of demonstrating with my classes, and having that large easel to write on was great. On it I demonstrated new skills, we did group brainstorming, started topic lists, and much more. And the pad of chart paper was really helpful because we could always turn the pages back to something that was done several weeks ago to refresh our minds. So, if you can, get yourself one. And, of course, you need some great markers. I loved the Crayola markers and used lots of colors - for emphasis on certain ideas - and just because the kids loved it when Mrs. Taylor demonstrated something in Fuschia!

Any good writing classroom has the basic writing supplies: paper, pens, pencils. I always scrounged up a wide range of kinds of paper for the students to use. We had regular 8-1/2 x 11 inch lined paper, both yellow for drafts and white for final copies, but we also had small paper, blank paper, colored composition paper, and many other kinds depending on what I could find that year. I occasionally visited the primary grade classrooms to see if they had some story paper or some interesting, large lined paper for my students to use for drafts. Unless the finished work needed to be on a specific type of paper, I usually let them choose what they liked. That was one more way that they felt ownership of the work.

The same applied to pens and pencils and markers. A choice of colors (especially useful for revision and editing) and an assortment of kinds were always available. Most students had their own favorites, but I always kept an assortment on the Writing Table for anyone to use.

And did you know that you can buy colored white out? I kept bottles of several colors to match some of my colored writing paper for that last-minute quick correction.

Another must was the writing folder. Some schools are very sophisticated in their use of folders, and often they have places for teachers to keep track of students' skill mastery. Use any kind that works for you, and that your school prefers. In my classroom, we used simple manila folders as a place to keep drafts, idea lists, and works in progress.

My writing table held a supply of reference books, too. Although I encouraged my students to "just get it down on paper" while they were composing, and not stop the thought process to worry about spelling, we all know that spelling is an important part of writing well. So, I always had several good dictionaries available to use during proofreading.

And if you've even had a student ask you "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?" I've included one "misspeller's" dictionary on the workshop recommended book list (there are others). This type of dictionary lists words by their common misspellings, along with the correct way, of course. In addition, a thesaurus was also a must for my writing table!

You may be wondering about journals. This workshop has a section devoted to using journals in the classroom. My students had journals, but I didn't always use them as part of the writing workshop, and in Section 4 I'll discuss ideas for using journals.

And don't forget that special Sharing Chair! Mine was on old teacher chair that wasn't being used. I painted it green and used it daily when students shared their work with the whole class.

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