Writing Process +2 (What I Learned in Vegas)

I'm at a teaching conference in Las Vegas and they're talking about blogs, wikis, and twitter. I realized that it's been a year since I last posted on this blog. Yikes!

I learned something cool that I plan on using next year. Usually, when you teach the writing process, the steps are: prewriting, drafting, revising, editing, publishing. One of the presenters I had this morning suggested adding two steps. The first is to add "talking" after prewriting. Students are to tell their story, essay, whatever to a partner, referring only to their graphic organizer or prewriting. The partner can then ask questions and help the writer add details to their prewriting. This also helps the student to consider organization, etc. The other step in the process is "Referencing and Re-reading." This happens during the drafting phase. Students re-read what they've written, and reference their graphic organizers and rubrics. These are two simple ideas that I think are brilliant and I'm excited to try them out.