Teaching Interactive Writing

Abstract

Interactive writing is an evidenced-based pedagogical tool that engages students throughout the full process of literary construction. This tool provides an authentic way for students to experience the full writing process, from developing a story line, writing and revising the text, and reading the text with a larger audience. Additionally, students are receiving instruction in spelling, syntax, and semantics as they work together to produce their text. This practice provides teachers the opportunity to precisely tailor their lessons to students needs, uncover places where students are having difficulty, and encourage students to feel more confident as writers.

Overview

Interactive writing is a pedagogical tool that uses mediated action to focuses on the ways that students interact with a text. Students begin by acting as apprentices for the teacher. Then, as the activity progresses they become active, equal part participants in the development, revision, and distribution of text (Williams & Lundstrom, 2007). Interactive writing is not intended to be the only method of instruction in the classroom. Instead, it is used as a complimentary feature to traditional reading and writing instruction. The advantage being that because the students are producing the text, they begin to see themselves as both active readers and writers.

This technique is taught in several steps that can occur on one day or be spread out through several different lessons. First, students experience an event such as taking a tour of the school, learning a new skill, or investigating a new type of writing such as poetry. Next, students engage in prewriting in which the student and teacher brainstorm about who the audience is, how and why a message should be conveyed, and what aspects of the experience were most important. Then, students and the teacher collaboratively compose the text with the teacher helping the class to negotiate the vocabulary, wording, and structure of the text. If the teacher is writing during this time, he or she should "think out loud," demonstrating the decision-making processes of writing, such as word choice. Students share the pen by writing portions of the text on the blackboard or flip chart. In this way each student has an opportunity to contribute a letter, letter cluster, whole word, punctuation, or at higher grades, a complete sentence. Then, in the review step, students and their teacher revisit and revise portions of the text.

The goal at this time is not to perfect the entire text but rather to capitalize on teachable moments and portions of the text, for example, by focusing on the use of past tense or the use of commas. Finally, the text is extended through other classroom activities. The class might illustrate the text, or make a newsletter reporting on their efforts (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014). Throughout all of these steps, the teacher should prompt students to consider what they have already written, asking "does this make sense?" and "Will our audience understand?" These questions will prompt new discussions and revisions, producing a more complete text. After the text has been created, it can be distributed to parents, put on display in a school hallway, or even form the foundation for a reading assignment where students are tasked with re-reading a passage that they helped to create. In this way, students begin to think about their writing as not only a class activity, but also as a way to create something that contributes to their community.

There are many types of texts that students can interactively write. They might go on a walk through the school and then report on their findings. Or students might make a list of their favorite characters and then create a story map for a new adventure. Other groups might enjoy re-writing one of the classroom’s favorite stories to feature classmates as characters. Older students might interactively write a research paper before embarking on independent writing assignments, or they might develop a web page to report on a school club. Because these texts are interactive and based on student experiences, students are more likely to pay attention and be engaged in the lesson, thus opening space for the teacher to provide instruction in less-interesting or technical subjects.

Applications

In the earliest grades, interactive writing includes focus on structural elements such as writing from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, when to use capital letters, and the role of punctuation. Through these activities, elementary aged students that are engaged in interactive writing should be able to demonstrate concepts of print and how words work. Using a technique known as "share the pen," students take turns writing the text on the blackboard or a flip chart. This allows them to demonstrate their new skills as well as feel that they are contributing to the class text, even if it is only by writing a single letter. In technologically equipped classrooms, students might share the pen by taking turns typing on a class laptop, computer, or tablet which projects the collective text onto a large screen or projects the text onto a wall. Either way, the critical element is that students are physically writing as well as brainstorming material for the text. Interactive writing provides young students with opportunities to sound out letters and learn how they connect to one another. Students also learn about the ways that texts are created as they collectively construct and revise their own text.

In grades 2 through 5, students can engage in interactive writing through more frequent, shorter sessions and focus on learning to write in a specific genre (Roth & Dabrowski, 2014). Additionally, in these grades, interactive writing can help students to develop advanced skills in grammar and vocabulary (Wall, 2008). In more advanced grades, students can participate in interactive writing as part of group brainstorming activities or when learning to write collaborative reports and work well in groups.

Regardless of their grade, at the beginning of a school year, students should begin with a simple text and engage in a writing project that only lasts one day so that students can see and feel pride in their immediate results. As they become more accustomed to the process, students will become comfortable writing, lengthening their attention spans and encouraging once-silent students to gain the confidence to volunteer during an interactive writing session. During early sessions, the teacher might write a section of the text, challenge student’s use of various words or text, and assist with spelling or writing. Later in the school year, students will be ready for more complicated texts which can be constructed over several days. Additionally, after a few interactive writing sessions, students can be encouraged to use skills such as sounding out new words, revising text, and experimenting with punctuation while writing independently.

Discourse: Early Readers

Interactive writing has been successfully used in many different settings. In the early grades, interactive writing is a step away from shared writing because in interactive writing the students are involved in activities such as holding pens and doing the actual writing. In this way, students are gaining agency because they are thinking of themselves as writers rather than simply assistants for the teacher. Additionally, the teacher’s role in interactive writing changes as the students develop new knowledge about both the writing process and the topic of the writing.

When teaching interactive writing, the teacher must support well-structured risk taking. Students are participating in the construction of the text, negotiating between words, story lines, and grammatical structure. During this portion of the exercise, the teacher must remember that children are still learning. Through student negotiations, approximations, and sometimes incorrect contributions they are gaining valuable skills and experience in the creative aspects of writing. Often a teacher will ask the entire class to make suggestions about what should be written next, or what type of punctuation should be used. Some students will immediately produce a correct answer while other students will make suggestions that do not fit into the text.

Rather than tell students that their contributions are incorrect, a teacher should remind students that they are creating a text for a broad audience, and that audience might require additional clarity. Then, the teacher can guide a student who made a confusing recommendation to make a more reasonable recommendation. For example, if a student suggested the sentence "they runs" the teacher might say, "Yes, that does tell us how they escaped from the bear, but it might be confusing to our audience. Can you think of another way to say that?" thus gradually leading the student to the answer "they ran away." In this way, the student is affirmed in their desire to contribute to the class project while the class also learns to negotiate the proper grammatical structure of the sentence.

In a controlled study of Head Start students ages 3–5 years old, researchers found that 10–15 minute interactive writing lessons each day had a significant effect on student learning. Those who received interactive writing education could identify more lower and upper case letters by the end of the study, though no effects on the ability to sound out letters were found. (Hall, Toland, Grisham-Brown & Graham, 2014). These new skills in upper and lower case letter identification occur because during the process of sharing the pen the teacher provides direct instruction of when to use capitalization, and might even ask a student to first demonstrate both the upper and lower case letter before deciding which to use in the class’s text.

ELL and Foreign Language Acquisition

While the technique of interactive writing was originally designed for use in early elementary education, it has proven successful with students of all ages. For example, interactive writing is a proven tool to assist English Language Learners (ELLs) in gaining mastery and confidence in the English language. When working with ELLs, the teacher’s role includes drawing attention to cognates that can encourage students to think about the connections between a language in which they are fluent and the language that they are learning. Additionally, because ELLs develop at different rates, the teacher can work with a multi-level class by strategically sharing the pen with students to encourage them to negotiate and master specific skills. Demonstrating success in language learning, even through a small action such as adding a period to a sentence can have a transformative effect on students seeing themselves, in front of their classmates, as an active and successful ELL (Williams & Pilonieta 2013).

Similarly, students who natively speak English can use interactive writing to learn another foreign language. Just as with ELLs, native English speaking students can develop new vocabulary and examine the differences between grammatical structures while working together to produce an interesting text.

As students gain experience and skills, the role of the teacher in interactive writing lessens. Students will be better able to work in smaller groups, and after participating in several sessions will be able to negotiate and share the writing and revising activities equitably. After participating in several sessions of interactive writing, students will be more comfortable with silent writing and reflection in individual journals or smaller groups. Even after these students have turned to writing individual journals, they can continue to participate in interactive writing through peer review or submission of their journals to their teacher for suggestions, questions, and review.

College Students

The technique of interactive writing via student journals has been especially successful for college students. For example, interactive online journal writing for teachers-in-training has improved student reflection, writing style, and grasp of course information. When used with physical education students, interactive online journal writing allowed students to view each other’s writing, develop professional relationships with other students who could pose in-depth questions and develop confidence in the field (Lee, 2010). Similarly, medical students have used interactive reflective writing to examine and cultivate empathy and humanism within their medical practices. These students construct individual journals, which are then submitted to faculty members who provide feedback and pose questions. In the next writing session, the student reflects on the faculty member’s comments and repeats the submission and revision cycle (Wald, Reis, Monroe & Borkan, 2010).

When working with older and adult students, teachers do not need to be as active in the interactive writing process. Instead, they need to provide organization and coordination support to ensure that all assigned partners are participating and that feedback supports continued learning (Maloney & Campbell-Evans, 2002). While these activities are similar to many mentorship styles, they are considered interactive writing because they are engaged in the continued process of submission and revision between students and advisers/teachers. Rather than developing a question and answer type of mentorship, these programs help older students imagine themselves within the career that they are training for, and establish networks between practicing professionals and students in which both parties learn and develop.

Terms & Concepts

Cognate: Words with similar spelling and sound in English and another language.

Brainstorming: A collective effort by students in the classroom to offer, consider, and accept appropriate word choice, syntax, grammar, and other writing skills to create a text.

English Language Learner: Students whose native language is other than English and who are now learning English as an additional language.

Rereading for Meaning: The process of revision which teachers encourage throughout interactive writing, encouraging students to revise and reconsider their texts.

Share the Pen: At strategic parts of an interactive writing session, a teacher asks individual children to write specific letters, words, punctuation, or full sentences on the classroom blackboard or flip chart. In this way, the students participate in the physical act of writing.

Think Out Loud: whenever the teacher is writing during an interactive writing session, she must verbally express how and why she decides to write particular words on the classroom board or flip chart.

Bibliography

Hall, A. H., Toland, M. D., Grisham-Brown, J., & Graham, S. (2014). Exploring interactive writing as an effective practice for increasing head start students’ alphabet knowledge skills. Early Childhood Education Journal, 42(6), 423–430. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=98898870&site=ehost-live

Lee, O. (2010). Facilitating preservice teachers’ reflection through interactive online journal writing. Physical Educator, 67(3), 128–139. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=55232788&site=ehost-live

Mackenzie, N. M. (2015). Interactive writing: A powerful teaching strategy. Practical Literacy: The Early & Primary Years, 20(3), 36–38. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=109557038&site=ehost-live

Maloney, C., & Campbell-Evans, G. (2002). Using interactive journal writing as a strategy for professional growth. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 30(1), 39–50. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=6185505&site=ehost-live

Roth, K., & Dabrowski, J. (2014). Extending interactive writing into grades 2–5. Reading Teacher, 68(1), 33–44. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=97678425&site=ehost-live

Wald, H. S., Reis, S. P., Monroe, A. D., & Borkan, J. M. (2010). "The Loss of My Elderly Patient:" Interactive reflective writing to support medical students’ rites of passage. Medical Teacher, 32(4), e178–e184. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=48846907&site=ehost-live

Wall, H. (2008). Interactive writing beyond the primary grades. Reading Teacher, 62(2), 149–152. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=34739482&site=ehost-live

Williams, C., & Lundstrom, R. P. (2007). Strategy instruction during word study and interactive writing activities. Reading Teacher, 61(3), 204–212. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=27349099&site=ehost-live

Williams, C., & Pilonieta, P. (2012). Using interactive writing instruction with kindergarten and first-grade English language learners. Early Childhood Education Journal, 40(3), 145–150. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=74465867&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Graves, A. W., Valles, E. C., & Rueda, R. (2000). Variations in interactive writing instruction: A study in four bilingual special education settings. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice (Lawrence Erlbaum), 15(1), 1–9. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=3170553&site=ehost-live

Jie Chi, Y., Hwa Wei, K., & Ling, C. I. (2005). web-based interactive writing environment: development and evaluation. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 8(2), 214–229. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=85866366&site=ehost-live

Williams, C. (2011). Adapted interactive writing instruction with kindergarten children who are deaf or hard of hearing. American Annals of the Deaf, 156(1), 23–34. Retrieved January 12, 2016 from EBSCO Online Database Education Research Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ehh&AN=60375412&site=ehost-live