Young Children - March 2008 - (Page 28) with their peers during writing, several children consistently wrote similar pieces. Over brief periods of time, they slightly altered their writing to include these influences. Read-alouds When Ronda spoke and read books aloud to the class, Astride listened carefully. She was someone other children in the class turned to when they wanted to learn new information. In Astride’s writing world, monsters played an important role, and she often included monsters interacting with various family members. Astride and I discussed her writing: Brian: Astride, tell me about your writing today. Astride: (Points from the bottom of the page and sweeps her finger from left to right.) Me. My uncle. Mommy and sister. (Then, pointing to the blob in the middle of the paper) That a monster. Brian: Why do you have a frown? Are you sad about something? Astride: The monster! The influences on children’s writing Ronda’s class wrote every day during a writer’s workshop (Fletcher & Portalupi 2001). Routinely, Ronda gathered the children together for a short experience, typically her reading aloud. After the short experience, she crafted a piece of writing in front of the children that she called a minilesson (Calkins 1994). This writing demonstration gave children the opportunity to see the process writers go through when they compose a piece of writing. Ronda’s writing demonstrations evolved through the year. At first she drew pictures to represent her writing. As the year progressed, she included initial-letter word sounds next to some of the central themes of her writing. Near the end of the year, she added simple words that the children helped her to sound out as she wrote. She always included a picture. This evolution mirrored the writing of the children. She gently scaffolded their writing development, introducing print when most of the children were ready (Vygotsky [1962] 1986). Ronda’s inclusion of drawings, initial sounds, and words supported the children as they wrote. By continuing to draw pictures, she respected the children’s use of images and symbols to convey messages (Genishi, Stires, & YungChan 2001). Ronda knew that the children would recognize the purpose of print as their awareness of letter-sound correspondence grew. The read-alouds, writing demonstrations, and peer interactions all influenced the writing of several children, who integrated themes from these interactive experiences in their own writing. Astride’s Monsters One day, Ronda read aloud the book Hungry Hen, by Richard Waring and Caroline Jayne Church. In the story, a hungry hen eats incessantly and becomes quite large as the days pass. From a distance a fox watches the hen grow plump and remains a patient observer in hopes that the larger she grows, the more delicious she will taste. Astride decides to retell the story with a twist. She incorporates the fox and hen in her writing and creates a monster fox. Brian: Astride, can you tell me what you wrote about today? Astride: I made a fox. I made a monster fox. Then I made a hen. And I made some flowers. Astride kept the monsters in her writing and decided to make one a monster fox. This is a direct response to the character that she met in the story. While Astride’s incorporating the fox and hen with monsters was interesting on its own, she continued her (1) Early writing. 28 (2) Six weeks later, her writing includes letters, a monster fox, and a hungry hen. (3) Four days later, she makes the words hungry hen more prominent, like on the book cover. Young Children • March 2008
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