Writing
Clubs
Writing
Clubs
Every month throughout the
school year, students select one notebook entry/story to publish. This means the
story will be shared with members of a writing club in order to receive feedback
from other authors in the classroom. When students are
part of a writing club, they meet in groups of four to read their chosen stories
aloud and help each other improve the stories before taking them into
first-draft form. Students are placed into teacher-assigned writing clubs
with a checklist of questions for the authors to ask of their club members after
reading their stories aloud to their group. I have been so impressed with the
constructive feedback the stu
dents
offer to their fellow authors to help them improve and revise the stories before
putting them into first-draft form.
As the year goes on,
students will continue to work with different students
in ever-changing writing clubs to share and revise the writing they do in their
notebooks. Students use the feedback they receive in their writing clubs to
begin a first draft of the story they are taking out of their notebooks. The
drafts are turned in to me, and I meet with each student to discuss and further
revise the stories before they are published and added to the students' writing
portfolios.