Interactive Writing:
Teacher and students "share the pen". Focus is on the concepts and conventions of print, sounds in words, and how the sounds connect with letters. Students own most of the process and the teacher provides assistance with pacing, and instruction as needed. The conventions of writing are practiced.
Essential Elements of Interactive Writing:
- Provide active learning experiences were the students are active in process and the teacher is drawing on the students' prior knowledge of an experience.
- Establishing the topic through talking as the teacher facilitates the conversation in order to shape sentences.
- Composing the text using negotiation between the teacher and the students as the students repeat what they will write several times before beginning to write.
- Writing the texting (constructing) and sharing the pen between the teacher and the students. The teacher is also modeling, questioning, and focusing students' attention on concepts, such as conventions of print and sounds in words.
- Reread, revise, and proofread as a way to show the students that we always check the text to make sure it makes sense, sounds right, and what we meant is being communicated.
- Revisit text to support word solving as an opportunity to work on word solving and word work.
- Summarize the learning at the end of the interactive writing experience. The teacher should review some learning points with the students and reinforce what has been learned.
- Extend the learning- the writing that the teacher and the student have done is purposeful and can be used as a reference if displayed in the classroom. The students can illustrate the story, or the teacher can make copies to be read and reread.
