Team 100WC – Comment on Writing

One of the biggest impacts on writing standards in our classrooms has been the use of the 100 Word Challenge and similar writing opportunities. Blogging and 'little and often' writing tasks really help children improve as writers.

 

A huge part of this is children receiving comments about their work. Writing in a book and me marking it and then that book sitting on a shelf is ok, but only ok. What's much better is when someone from some far-flung part of the globe comes along and says what they like about a child's writing and what could be improved. Being part of a 'Hub' and receiving peer comments is part of this, but adults in 'Team 100WC' are a massive help and have a huge impact on children's writing. 

The 100WC is free to use, is offered by a retired head teacher and relies on volunteers to operate. 

So...

Think you have 20 minutes spare a week to read some fantastic writing and leave some comments? Do you know someone else who might? You don't even have to be a teacher, or be any good at writing - just need to be an audience! I do it each week. It is enjoyable. I read work from around the globe. I read work that's amazing. I read work that's no-so amazing. But, for each one, I say what I like and offer some advice. I hope I'm making a difference. 5 pieces of work a week - it's not much. When children in my own class receive comments, they really, really appreciate it!

If you can, take a look here!

Lightning Writing

Just like anything else, one of the key elements of becoming a better writer is actually doing it. One of the strategies we have used to increase the frequency of our writing is something we have called 'Lightning Writing'. This takes place most mornings during registration and involves writing for a short amount of time (often only 15 minutes). In general, the writing tasks fall into the following areas:

• three sentence stories - write a story in three sentences. Horror works well, but it can also be a good opportunity for teaching rhetorical questions as a story ending.
• improving supplied sentences - give them basic sentences and get pupils to improve them.
• sentence combining - a variation on the above. However, with a focus on joining simple sentences together.
• teaching sentence types in a context - we use Alan Peat 'Exciting Sentences'. This is a great opportunity to teach some of the different styles.
• descriptive passages - writing a description based on a stimulus such as those provided by the brilliant 'Pobble' website. Although we have used our own such as this one.
    
  There are, of course,  lots of other options. We wrote tweets, emails to the prime minister and even letters of complaint. 

Once the idea is set up, the task is displayed on the board and children were able to get on with having a go independently. 
This activity does require a bit of extra marking, but, by adding in a peer-assessment day, editing day and feedback day, one task can become an extremely constructive piece of writing over a whole week. Often these tasks are so good they can be published (including sending them to the people they are writing to). Another advantage is that they come so frequently you can get them to write what interests you and the children as well as those pieces on the curriculum. A favourite of ours was the writing of haiku, which ended up in our best work books at the end of the year.

'We Make Use of...' 100WC

We've been aware of the 100 Word Challenge since 2011. In the past, we've used the prompt occasionally in class and commented upon children's writing shared via the 100 Word site. And, in 2012, Julia, the creator of the challenge, even attended a TeachMeet that we organised. 

This year, through the Night Zookeeper website, we've started to use the 100 Word Challenge on a weekly basis. We've made time each week to complete the challenge and to comment upon other children's work. We've seen it be hugely beneficial to the children and had an impact on many of their writing abilities. Generally, in our English lessons, the children need to demonstrate their ability to follow a certain text type in a certain way (there are success criteria and learning objectives to meet). The 100 Word Challenge is different: write a response to the prompt in your own way, how you like... 

Some children have written entries as good as their normal every-day writing; others have been really enthused by it and created writing better than they do at other times. Once the children have completed their 100 Word entry, they visit other class' entries and read the children's work. After they've read it, they leave comments for that child. Thus, widening their experience of writing and being critical of their peers. 

Image credit: https://100wc.net

All-in-all, it's been a wonderful addition to our classroom practice. As we use Night Zookeeper, we've also made use of the Star Writing each week. Although the 100WC can be carried out through the Night Zookeeper website, any blog site can be used and Julia has recently started offering blogs hosted on 100wc.net (Contact her for details).

Should you wish to pop by and read our writing or leave us a comment or two, our Night Zookeeper writing can be found http://tinyurl.com/pqmc7lo & http://tinyurl.com/ouo84vx.