Guided Writing:
Students are creating their own writing with the guidance of the teacher. Guided writing takes place in small groups where the teacher helps to facilitate and develop skills. This may begin with a mini-lesson. Students write and practice skills learned through mini-lessons. Writing may be student choice or teacher assigned, while the teacher is meeting with individuals or small groups of students to teach specific skills. Students are aware of and followed the routines that have been established. Students can also participate in peer conferences.
Framework of Guided Writing Instruction:
Small group context allows teachers to provide high levels of immediate, target support while each student writes his or her own short, but complete text. A 20-minute guided writing lesson might include-
- Engagement in a brief, shared experience that is of interest to the students, including both linguistically and informationally rich activity.
- Discussion of strategic behavior of writing, including presentation of a think-aloud or a cue for strategic activity along with active discussion of ways in which students can integrate this strategy into their own writing.
- Students' time to write individually with immediate guidance from the teacher, interact with individual students about decisions and strategies, and uses prompts to guide students' thinking for problem solving while writing.
- A brief sharing activity in which the writer's immediate work is shared with an audience.
