How Does Student Engagement Impact Learning in the Writing Classroom?
Yes, teacher friend! Student engagement can impact learning in the writing classroom. When was the last time, you sat down to write a long piece of writing. A letter to a dear friend, a long email, cover letter for a new job, master or doctoral degree paper. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Was it hard to sit still and get the words on the page?
Some of your students may feel this way too when it's time for writing workshop or independent writing time.
In order for your students to be successful at writing, it will take a huge amount of mental focus and discipline. They need energy to keep writing. They need to connect with your writing. They need feel engaged with some part of it.
So, why is writing engagement important to a conferring classroom?
You can learn the most important teaching methods for conferring with students and have note-taking forms ready to go, but if you send your students back to independent writing, and they don't write; they won't make the progress you're hoping for.
If you're looking for more free strategies and tips on conferences and small group instruction, then grab my free Conferring with Readers & Writers guide below.
What are Engaged Writers?
There are SIX characteristics of engaged writers. This is how you will know if student engagement is high or low during writing workshop or independent writing time.
- Have a mental focus and discipline
- Love OR are engaged with some part of the writing process. It could be the creativity or creation part of it that gets them excited. Maybe they can't wait to keep writing to find out what's going to happen next. Or maybe they get excited about having their writing read by others.
- Take initiative. They start writing projects even when they aren't told exactly what to write about, or what genre to write in.
- Understand the purpose of writing.
- Understand their words have POWER.
- Have ways to generate topics.
Looking for strategies to help your students brainstorm new topics or ideas for writing?
Grab my Brainstorm Writing Strategies resource right here.
The Brainstorm Writing Strategies resource will help your students generate new topics and ideas for future writing pieces. No more getting stuck on what to write next. They will have plenty of topics to choose from after using the brainstorming strategies and graphic organizers inside this resource.
THREE Student Engagement Writing Goals That Will Make a Positive Impact on Learning.
Goal #1: Build Independent Writers
Students consistently write by themselves for a long chunk of time without coaching and guidance from you. They practice writing strategies you have taught them in the mini lesson, conference, or small group.
Goal #2: Increase Writing Volume
The amount of writing that is done in a period of time. Writing Volume can tell you a lot about their level of engagement. How many lines or pages did they fill in a certain amount of time? Was there a day they wrote very little? A lot? Why?
Goal #3: Develop a Writing Identity
Here are a few questions your students can ask themselves to help them develop a writing identity:
- What kind of writer I am?
- What kind of writer do I want to be?
- What kind of environment do I need to get my best writing done?
- What do I do when I feel stuck?
- How do I solve writing problems?
- What do I do when my focus is starting to fizzle out?
Conferring with students is so much easier when you have a room full of engaged writers!
To get you started in conferring with writers, I have a free guide that you can download. Click here.
