“I’m done!” I heard from several students in unison on day two of writing workshop. I thought to myself, How are they finished? They’ve only just begun. I get it, they were writing small moments, but I wondered if there was a tool we could use to slow down the student writing and build in reflection as part of the drafting process.
We tend to use organizers such as story maps when students are drafting stories as part of prewriting, but I wondered how they would work as a reflection tool in the midst of the writing process.
Ruth Ayres in Celebrating Writers writes about responding, reflecting, and rejoicing over student writing throughout the process rather than at the end of the writing or publication time. Story maps are tools the teacher can use in a conference while responding to student writing. Story maps can serve as a scaffold to help students reflect on their writing in the midst of the writing process independently or with a teacher. They can serve as an artifact to document student thinking and insight even if they never make their way into the writing.
Responding to Emma
Emma was one of the students who shared that she thought she might be finished with her draft. I let Emma know that we were going to see if there were any missing pieces to her story before we actually did a more traditional writing conference. Usually when conferring I listen to the student read and take a conferring stance of research, decide, teach, based on the student writing. This time the purpose was simply to capture the story structure on the story arc and identify any missing pieces. I used the organizer that the teacher had introduced to the class as a prewriting tool, the organizer that students knew. I asked Emma to read me her story.
“Have you ever rode a bike with 2 wheels?” “Well I have.” One beautiful light blue sunshining morning I woke up ready as ever. That day I was going to ride with 2 wheels. My mom and I went to my grandparents’ house so I could use my lucky bike! My grandfather took off my training wheels and my mom tightened my helmet and I put on my elbow and knee pads. My mom and my grandfather said “It would make it easier if you went down a hill.” So that’s what I did. I was a little nervous so my mom held on. It took a load of tries and it was very hot out so my mom and my grandmother went inside to take a break. I said to myself “I won’t give up.” It took a ton of tries but then I did it! I was so excited I got off my bike ran inside so I could show them. They were so proud of me. So we went out for ice cream. Since then I have been riding a bike with 2 wheels.
This time I decided to let the blank story map that the students had used in their prewriting with the teacher guide the conference. I was looking to build in an opportunity for student reflection before moving to a more traditional writing conference. I let Emma know that as she read her story, I was going to jot down everything I heard and plug it into the story map.
I wrote down that she was the main character learning to ride a bike without training wheels and that it took “loads of tries” before learning to ride her bike. I filled out the map, noting the beginning parts of the story and the end. When she finished the story, I asked her what she noticed in reflecting on the map. She said, “There’s nothing in the middle.” I asked her what happened the first time she went down the hill on her bike without training wheels. She told me she fell off. I asked what happened next. She said, “I rode along the grass so I could fall onto it.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
She responded, “Frustration set in.” I took dictation as she shared what happened and highlighted it in yellow. I jotted these down in the middle of the map as events that related to the problem.
At that point I left Emma with her story draft and highlighted the story arc organizer with notes. I asked her to reflect on her story and maybe add the details of what we had talked about.
Reflecting
I went back into Emma’s classroom the next day. I asked her if she had gone back to her story on learning to ride a two-wheel bike. With that she smiled, pulled out her writer’s notebook, and handed me back the organizer. If you look at the organizer above, you will see check marks. Emma had put these check marks herself next to every area of the map that she went back to, reflected on, and addressed in her writing. She then showed me her notebook with details that she was going to go back and put into her draft, and stars within the text indicating where she was going to slip in the sentence.
*The first time I went down the hill I fell off.
*The second time I went down I didn’t want to fall on the tar again because it hurt so I was thinking smarter to go on the grass.
*I got a little frustrated but I kept calm and took deep breaths and thought to myself I can do it.
** I got off my bike and ran inside to tell them what I did and asked if they could come inside to watch.
***They were cheering really loud.
****It’s my lucky bike because I have never fallen off of it.
Rejoicing
Emma went beyond reflecting on the events leading up to learning to ride her bike. I noticed that she had even responded to one of my questions that I had noted on the bottom of the map where I wondered why the bike was lucky. I asked Emma if filling out the story map helped her see if her story had missing pieces. She said, “The map showed me where I needed to go back and add in details. The details were in my head, just not in my story.” We celebrated the process. Emma’s smile was proof enough to know that she was proud of her draft and that the conferring strategy was a success.
