Step 9 - In-Class Writing
(Suggested Time: 3 minutes)
Writing is best done as homework, right? Well, I’m not so sure. I think writing is a wonderful in-class activity. Writing helps a student immediately lock in new grammatical concepts. The physical movement of pencil or pen on paper helps many people remember new vocabulary and structure. Writing also can fuel a student’s imagination. It can be a peaceful, restorative process during a loud and active class experience. As students write in class, a teacher has a chance to circulate, offering suggestions, serving as a walking dictionary, pointing out errors discreetly.
Of course, students could do all of their writing for homework. But I think it is better to use a little class time, at least twice per week. How much class time should you devote? Very little at any one time. I recommend the “three-minute rule.” Have students write FREQUENTLY in class, but generally don’t have them write for more than three minutes. Start a timer, say “GO!” When the buzzer goes off, pencils drop.
It doesn’t matter if students are in mid-sentence. It doesn’t matter if they’ve written one paragraph or just a few sentences. I think writing a little each day is far more valuable than writing a long essay every few weeks.
Collect these writing assignments. You can correct them quickly. I either make all of the corrections for the beginning and intermediate students, or use a “correction key” for my advanced students. On this advanced correction key, I underline an error and leave a symbol in the margin for the type of error that the student has made (e.g., agreement, spelling, missing accent mark, etc.). I then ask the student to fix the error in class the next day, or for a subsequent class.
I grade these assignments usually just with words: Excelente, Muy Bien, Bien, OK. I enter these words in my grade book, which is for my use only. I tend, in time, to associate many of these words with grades …. Excelente is an “A,” Muy Bien a “B,” Bien a “C,” OK a “D.” I give grades of Excelente /Muy Bien if it is an “A-/B+.” But I don’t want students to be hung up on their writing grades. I want them to build confidence. I think words and comments (rather than a number or letter grade) are the best rewards for a fledgling writer.
When a child learns to walk or a bird learns to fly, the parent does not analyze each effort, grading the countless steps in this process. “Today you fell, Johnny: F.” “This afternoon, Louise, you took one step before tipping over: D-.” “This morning, young robin, you flapped your wings, but didn’t really go anywhere: C-/D+.”
A teacher has many opportunities to offer suggestions and praise along this somewhat slow process of becoming a good writer. But one day, almost magically, a student will write a near-flawless paragraph, rich in vocabulary and grammatical structure, and feel amazed! You, in turn, will be happy, too. If you can just have them write a little every day, if possible, you will help them to become better speakers of a language.
Here is the type of writing activity I usually set up. Hand out a piece of paper to each student with an opening sentence in the target language. Here are some samples:
“It was 3:30 a.m., and I couldn’t sleep ….”
“Dear Sir or Madam,
I am returning this telephone because it doesn’t work ….”
”Last night, my sister came home late again with her useless boyfriend, Ramón.”
“When the summer comes, everything will be different.”
What have I done today?
--I have ______________, I have ____________, I have ____________, etc…………
I was surprised when the elephant walked into class carrying a birthday cake.
If I had more money, I would travel to South America.
You will notice that I have put in a little piece of art on all of my assignments. The Internet and computers make it so easy to insert a little picture (go to Google Images!). I can’t explain exactly why, but my feeling is that by putting in a picture, you are helping your students write better. I think a picture primes a student’s imagination. A picture truly can inspire a thousand (grammatically-correct) words. It looks attractive. It makes the assignment more fun.
Over time, you will have a wonderful collection of these mini-composition topics on file. They can be used the same day in ALL of your classes, no matter what the level. Your advanced students simply will be able to do more with the assignment than your beginning ones. It will make you feel good, too, seeing how much progress students make over the years. Often teachers of advanced students forget the days when students were grappling with numbers, weather expressions, and greetings.
I am enclosing here the correction chart I use with my Spanish classes. You might make a similar one for your own students. If you like, feel free to us this one.
Correction Chart |
|
|---|---|
| A | agreement error (subject/verb, noun/adjective, etc.) |
| P | wrong word or word doesn’t exist |
| R | should be reflexive |
| X | omit |
| WO | work order is wrong |
| IDOP | indirect object pronoun needed |
| DOP | direct object pronoun needed (me, te, lo, lo, nos, os, los, las) |
| S/E | if you used ser, change to estar; if you used estar, change to ser |
| T | wrong tense being used |
| SUB | you need the subjunctive |
| IMP SUB | you need the imperfect subjunctive |
| SP | the word is misspelled; consult dictionary |
| PA | you need to use the personal “a” |
| PREP | you need a preposition or a different preposition |
| ? | I don’t know what you are trying to say; rewrite or ask me |
| SEE ME | see me before or after the next class meeting |
| C | you need a conjunction (y, o, ni, pero) |
| RP | you need a relative pronoun or a different relative pronoun (que, cual, el que, el cual, lo que, quien, etc.) |
| DA | definite article needed (el, la, los, las) |
| IDA | indefinite article needed (un, una, unos, unas) |
| INF | infinitive needed |
| O | a circle over a word means there needs to be an accent mark (or an accent mark should be deleted) |
One final thought: I often put on some background music as students write. I like to create an atmosphere for students conducive to writing. Oftentimes, I’ll find some good mood music to go along with a theme. If you happen to have the soundtrack to the movie Titanic, you will find an amazing collection of different types of mood music. There are mysterious, dramatic, haunting, joyful, carefree, pensive, foreboding melodies, all on a single CD. I recommend that you have your department buy a copy today! Put on track number 7 and assign a composition that begins………….. “It was a dark and stormy night, and I couldn’t sleep.” You will be amazed to read what your students will write. I promise you that good grammar and vocabulary will flow right from their pencils!
Step Nine - In-Class Writing
Key Things To Remember
What To Do:
- Give your students frequent (aim for twice a week) in-class writing assignments.
- Include a picture and/or a leading sentence at the beginning of each assignment.
- While your students are writing, try to play some background “mood” music, chosen to enhance the theme of the assignment.
- Stick to the “3-minute rule.” Short and sweet. Collect papers at the three-minute mark, even if your students are in mid-sentence.
- Correct the writing of your beginning/intermediate students.
- Give your advanced writers a correction chart and mark their papers with symbols from that chart. This system encourages students to correct their own mistakes.
- Grade in-class writing with written comments only, rather than a grade.
Why It Works:
- Writing is an important vehicle for helping students to lock in new linguistic structures and concepts.
- The physical act of writing the language enhances the overall learning of the language.
- Writing fuels the imagination and builds expressive confidence.
- Providing your students with prompts, in the form of leading sentences, pictures and mood music, further primes the writer’s pump.
- Giving up-beat written comments (Excelente, Muy Bien, Bien, etc) to your student writers is the best way to build their confidence as writers.
The Big Picture:
- Don’t wait until your students have reached a high level of proficiency to give them in-class writing assignments.
- Short, frequent writing assignments are far more valuable than long, complicated ones.
- Find ways to encourage your students to write. Creating assignments they will enjoy and showering them with healthy praise in their fledgling efforts goes a long way.
- Remember that learning to write in a new language is a multi-step process. Recognize the many bumps along the road to fluency, and celebrate each small step. Your students will thank you, and you, in turn, will help to make writers of them!
