DEVELOPING STUDENT INDEPENDENCE WITHIN THE WRITING PROCESS CYCLE.
PURPOSE
 To develop student independence in using the writing process.
 To set goals within each writing process cycle so that students learn at least one new
strategy or awareness about revising and at least one new strategy or awareness about
editing.
 To teach the writer not the writing piece.
PREPARE
Post a Writing Projects chart to use as a status of the class’s current writing work. Writing is a
recursive process so writers may be editing while revising, etc. Put name labels up and develop a
system that will allow the students to move their names across the chart during their writing work.
(Some have found Velcro, stick-on notes, or clothespins work well for this.) Have students
articulate what they are doing as writers in each part of the writing process. And, what they will be
doing in the stage as they move their name to a different part of the chart.
EXPLORE
Student Understanding – In your writer’s notebooks you can gather ideas for your writing and
expand upon these ideas throughout the writing process.
Build the Chart: Create broad statements that capture the essence of notebook writing. These
statements might include:
 Gathering our feelings
 Capturing our thoughts, wonderings, opinions and observations
 Responding to cartoons, artifacts, articles, editorials, poems, limes or phrases and pieces
of literature, and Quick Writes
 Creating lists and webs that can be expanded into writing projects
You will want to be mindful of the kinds of seeds you are planting in the writer’s notebook as you
embark on particular genre units of study.
TAKING A PIECE OUT OF THE NOTEBOOK TO DEVELOP INTO A WRITING PROJECT
Student understanding – You will want to choose a seed from your notebook carefully since as a
writer you will be taking some time to develop it into a final draft or published piece of writing. In
order to do this you will want to read through all of the entries in your notebook. Here are some
questions you can ask yourself each time you are considering what seed(s) to develop into a writing
project:
 Is my topic important to me? Do I find it interesting?
 Is it something I would enjoy exploring further?
 Do I have a lot to say about this subject?
 What would I enjoy sharing with a particular audience?
 What do I want my reader to know?
 What do I have to say about…?
 If I explore this topic through my writing, what might I discover?
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
1
Here is a minilesson you might teach to help students with the process of taking a seed out of their
notebook to develop into a piece of writing:
Minilesson: Writers reread their notebooks to find topics that have special interest for them.
They can mark seeds (two or three) that are possibilities for developing into writing projects.
Then they can choose one seed to develop.
Use your own notebook to model the process. Then have students reread their notebooks to find
three possible topics or ideas they might want to develop. Ask them to mark each topic with stickon notes. Explain that some of the entries in a notebook don’t lend themselves to writing project
work though they may make writers think of topics they want to develop. Also explain that for the
first several writing projects you will be asking the writers to choose seeds based on their own life
experiences and craft some memoir pieces.
Share: In threes writers share the seed they are planning to develop so that the group can help
each writer decide if it is a good choice and why.
FURTHER EXPLORATION IN THE WRITER’S NOTEBOOK
Student Understanding – You might want to do some related entries to in your writer’s notebook
for the seed you have chosen or for other entries. This can help you think about characters, setting,
dialogue, developing important scenes, structure or point of view. This additional writing can be
done in the writer’s notebook at any time during the writing process. Here are some related entries
for writing projects:
 Audience
 Purpose
 Character sketch
 Exploring character further - thoughts, opinions, actions, habits, feelings
 Setting description
 Time Line
 Dialogue
 Experimenting with point of view
 Experimenting with different sides of the story
After teaching this concept you might add another question under EXPLORE on your chart:
 What entries might I add to my writer’s notebook to further explore my topic?
When writers have decided on a seed and developed further entries in their writer’s notebook
(optional) they are ready to write their discovery draft and can move their name on the chart from
EXPLORE to DISCOVERY DRAFT.
DISCOVERY DRAFT
Student Understanding - Once you have decided on a topic freely write your ideas to discover all
of your thinking. As a writer you are “discovering” more about the topic and its importance to you.
Minilesson: Once writers have decided on a topic they can freely write their ideas to discover all
their thinking about it. This is called a “discovery draft” because the writer is “discovering”
more about the topic and its importance to them through quick writing. Explain that today is a
day to write freely about the topic. Explain the use of the discovery draft paper that students will be
using.
Share: Circle share possibilities: Each writer briefly shares the topic s/he has chosen. Other
possibilities: Students discuss such questions as: “How did it feel to do discovery draft writing?”
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
2
“What were you thinking about as a writer?” “What discoveries did you make about your
topic?” These questions can also guide a discussion for students to articulate what they are doing
as writers in their discovery draft writing.
Build the Chart
 What is it I want my reader to understand from reading this piece?
 What might my reader like to know more about?
 What is standing out as being really interesting about this writing?
 What did I learn by writing this, what did I discover?
 What makes this uniquely mine, nobody else could have written it!
When writers have completed their discovery draft they move their names on the chart from
DISCOVERY DRAFT to BIG REVISION. Continue to remind your students to move their names to
the next section of the chart after finishing a step in the writing process. This helps you to take a
quick status of the class and helps students have a visual reminder of what they are working on as
writers. As students are moving through each part of the writing process, remember to have them
verbalize what they have done and why they have decided they are ready to move on. It helps
students understand different parts of the writing process and how it is helping them as writers if
they are able to say for example, “In my work on my discovery draft this is what I did….Now I am
able to move on to Big Revision.
BIG REVISION
Student Understanding - Big Revision is the thinking and revising you can do as a writer about my
piece as a whole. The biggest consideration is: Do I have a focus, for my writing. If I understand
my purpose, what it is I really want my reader to know, it will help me focus my piece.
Minilesson: When writers find a focus it makes their writing clear and powerful for readers.
There are many ways to help students focus a piece of writing. Different elements can be put into
sharp focus. Focus the time so it is not the whole day but perhaps five minutes of the day. Focus
the characters so that it is not the whole family but one family member. Focus the topic so that it is
not the whole summer or a three-week trip but rather one significant incident. With informational
writing narrowing the focus or finding an angle is also crucial. Writing a piece on dogs is too big a
topic but writing a pamphlet on tips for training your dog is specific and manageable. Read your
writing as an example and show the writers how you determined your focus. You may want to
give students the metaphor of a camera with a zoom lens. The more the lens zooms in on a topic
the smaller the amount in the picture in the frame but the details become more vivid. You might
want to bring in a camera to show this.
Share: Have students who narrowed the focus of their piece share how they did it. They might
say something like: “_______ was my general topic and I narrowed it by making _______ the
focus for my piece.”
Another possibility would be to have students discuss how narrowing the focus of their piece is
powerful for readers
Build the chart with possible questions writers can ask to help focus their piece:
 What is the purpose of writing this piece? Can I answer the question “So what?’ Could
my reader answer this question?
 What is the focus of my piece?
 What do I want to say in this piece?
 What is the one thing (2 at the most) that I really want my reader to understand?
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
3
 Am I making my purpose clear to the reader by the way I am writing the piece?
As it corresponds to your teaching you can also teach other ideas around big revision land add
other questions to your chart around these understandings:
 What genre have I chosen for this piece and why?
 From what point of view have I decided to write this piece?
 What decisions have I made around how to structure this piece to make my writing
effective?
It is helpful to check that your writers have a focus before they move on to further revision. Here is
a possible minilesson around choosing a genre:
Minilesson: Writers choose a genre/container to fit the topic.
When you feel most of your writers can focus their writing you may want to do a minilesson on
choosing a powerful genre for their piece. “Will this be a poem, letter, or is it a narrative piece?”
Use your writing to give an example of the genre you are considering. Describe other examples. A
description of a spring morning might be a poem. A fight you had with your mother and how you
felt about it might be written as a letter to her. Have them play with this a bit by engaging them in
finding an entry in their notebook to craft into a poem or maybe a letter. This will help your
students determine what genre would best fit their writing. It is also helpful to have students talk
with you about what they know about a genre to determine if it would be appropriate for their
intended writing. Students can also look through notebook entries to see what entries might lend
themselves to a poem, letter, or narrative.
Share: Have students who decided to write in a different genre share the change they made and
why.
FURTHER REVISION
Student Understanding - Revise means to re-see. The revision part of the writing process is an
opportunity for you to think about how you can best craft your piece in order to get the meaning
across to your reader.
Further Revision might include revising the beginning or conclusion, providing a character’s inner
thoughts, stretching a scene, using powerful language sensory details, or figures of speech. Here is
an example:
Minilesson: Writers have powerful ways they can use time in their writing pieces to speed up
through some parts and to stretch out the important scenes for the reader. This could be an
umbrella minilesson in which various mentor text are used to show how authors are strategic in
how they work with the passage of time in their stories. A powerful mentor text for this is Sister
Anne’s Hands by Marybeth Lorbiecki. This umbrella minilesson can be done as an introduction to a
series of other minilessons on stretching a scene, speeding up time and helpful transition words
that writers use. If that was the introductory minilesson you might have them share places in their
story where they thought it would be helpful to speed up time or slow it down or discuss how it is
helpful to readers when writers don’t weight all the pieces in their stories the same way.
How we build the chart around Further Revision depends on the learning we have been doing as
we build our revision toolbox. For instance if you had been doing some minilessons on condensing
time during the unimportant parts of the story or taking out extraneous information you might put
questions like this up for your students to consider:
 Are there places in my writing where I go off topic or have added information that
distracts my reader from the heart of the piece?
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
4

Are there parts of my piece that I should move through very quickly? What techniques
have we studied that I would use to do that?
If you were working on different ways to stretching the important scenes, you might post this on
the chart under further revision”
 Is there information or description I could add so that my reader will better understand
this important scene? Do I need to add character or setting description, dialogue,
character’s thoughts, feelings, actions?
If you had a goal of teaching your writers different techniques for stretching the scenes that are
important in their stories you might post this on the chart under further revision”
 Is there information or description I could add so that my reader will better understand
this important scene? Do I need to add character or setting description, dialogue,
character’s thoughts, feelings, actions?
REVISION CORNER
The goal in our writing instruction is to help our students learn how to make purposeful decisions
about their current writing and transfer these understandings to future writing. We are working
toward having students become what Barry Lane refers to as writing doctors who are able to think
about effective ways to revise their pieces and techniques for doing so. It may be helpful to have a
revision corner in your room where different writing goals or revision strategies could be posted as
you teach them. You might want to organize these strategies under broader categories. You could
for instance have categories for Structure, Ways to Add Detail, Narrowing the Focus or Shrinking
Time. Under these broader headings you could also create questions like the two mentioned above.
Each time students go through the writing process you might ask them to choose two ways they
might revise their writing. They could look at the revision corner to get ideas of the strategies for
revision they have been learning as a guide for making purposeful decisions for a specific piece of
writing. It would also be possible to build a notebook or have your students build notebooks with
these lessons on Big and Further Revision.
EDITING
Student Understanding -Editing allows you to communicate your intended meaning through
effective use of punctuation, spelling and conventions. Editing is most effective when writers
reread their piece with one editing issue in mind at a time. This would include spelling, the correct
use of homophones, identifying ones own spelling challenges and demons as well as grammar and
punctuation. Here is an example of an editing minilesson:
Minilesson: Writers reread their writing carefully to make sure no words are missing to help
readers understand their writing. (It is helpful to read your piece slowly aloud to catch these
errors.)
Model this with your own writing. Have the students check their own writing.
Share: Discuss why using the editing process is important for readers.
Build the chart, again recording questions that writers can ask themselves to determine if they have
worked sufficiently on EDITING and are ready to write their final draft. These questions will vary
depending on your writers’ needs.
 Have I reread my piece carefully to make sure I don’t have any missing words? Have I
checked carefully for spelling including homophones and my demons?
 Have I proofread for correct punctuation including commas, periods, question marks,
quotation marks and exclamation marks?
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
5


Have I checked for capital letters?
Have I checked to see that I don’t have any sentence fragments or run-on sentences?
PREPARING FOR A FINAL DRAFT CONFERENCE (Optional)
Student Understanding – To prepare for this conference carefully review your writing in
relationship to the information on the writing process chart to check to make sure that you have
worked carefully in each of the areas. When you feel they are ready for a final draft conference,
your writing folder goes in a special basket marked “Final Draft Conference.” You may then work
in your writer’s notebook until the teacher confers with you or writes a note to indicate agreement
that this piece of writing reflects current understandings and integrating learning from recent
minilessons and guided writing lessons. When writers decide they are ready for a final draft
conference they are saying, “This is my best work as a writer at this point in time.”
It is important to balance setting a rigorous standard for students to grow as writers through their
work on writing projects with not having the demands within the stages of the writing process
insurmountable. For instance it can be helpful to give the guideline that when a student brings a
piece to final draft conference it reflects one modification within Big Revision, one or two
modifications in Further Revision and careful editing.
CREATING A FINAL DRAFT
Student understanding – For a final draft you will want to copy over or word process your final
draft incorporating all of the changes you have made throughout the writing process. This product
should reflect your best work as a writer at this point in time.
Build your writing process hart with questions students can ask themselves about completing this
part of the process. These questions might include the following:
 Have I used my best handwriting to write my final draft?
 Have I included all of the changes from my most recent draft?
 Have I proofread my piece carefully for spelling and punctuation?
WRITING CELEBRATION
Student Understanding - The best way I can receive recognition for my growth as a writer, develop
a sense of purpose and a sense of writing for an audience is to participate in a genuine opportunity
to share my writing with others. Being part of a writing community, I can also learn from peers
and provide feedback as a reader or listener that is appreciative, specific and constructive.
Possible ways to have a writing celebration:
 In small groups have each writer read their piece aloud. After each piece is read have the
listeners write one or two positive comment about the writing. You may want to give a few
minilessons about how to give specific appreciative comments to fellow writers. You can
direct the listeners to give specific feedback related to a writing goal. For instance if as a
class you have been studying how to stretch the important scene(s) in your story, you could
ask the listeners to identify what they think are the important scenes and ways they were
able to get a clear understanding of what was happening through the writing. Have the
authors add these messages to their writers’ notebooks and write an entry.
 Put together a book of writing, newspaper, file of published pieces to be shared with
parents, other classes, or members of the school community,
 Send writing to fellow authors, publishers, magazines, or newspapers
 Displaying work in the room, other parts of the school or public library
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
6
This experience is further enhanced if one builds in a way not only for the writers to share their
work but also to receive supportive comments about what they have written. An example might be
that writing could be published and mounted on oversized paper frames on which readers write
responses to the author about the piece.
REFLECT ON YOUR NEW LEARNING AS A WRITER
Student Understanding – You can record your new learning about writing in your writer’s
notebook or your writing folder so that they will have it to refer back to as a resource for future
writing.
Minilesson: Writers can keep records of the writing they have done to be able to reflect on the
number and variety of pieces they have written. Show students how to record their projects on
the Writing Projects Record Sheet. Share: Discuss ways in which this record of writing could be
useful to them as writers.
Minilesson: Writers record their new learning about writing so that they will have it to refer
back to as a resource. Show students this sheet in the writing folder and how to fill it out. Go
through the writing process and have students give some examples of what they felt they learned
during this first writing project. Have each student record a new learning that they thought was
significant to their growth as a writer. During guided writing lessons or at other times during the
writing process they might have already recorded a new learning as well. By keeping a record of
“What I Learned about Being a Writer “ in their writers’ folders students can reflect upon new
learning from this cycle that they can then apply to future cycles.
Share: Volunteers share some of their new learning with the group and how these
understandings might help them with writing in the future.
During this process students can ask themselves these questions:
 As I have gone through the writing process cycle, what have I learned as a writer?
 How might I use this new learning in future writing?
Take a few days to explore in the writer’s notebook in class before starting the rest of the cycle
again so that it continues to be a fertile seedbed for writing. Hopefully students will have been
continuing to write entries in class while engaging in the writing process and for homework.
PUBLISHING
Student Understanding - After three or four final drafts you will have the opportunity to choose
piece to publish. As your writing teacher I will act as your editor so that the final product has no
errors. During this process you will be able to make intentional decisions about format,
illustrations, graphs, maps, print and font, if using a computer, and paper so that these choices fit
the piece. As a guide through the publishing process you can ask the following:
 What purposeful decisions can I make around publishing my piece to enhance its
meaning for the reader?
More experienced writers may do more re-visioning of their pieces before they publish.
HELPFUL HINTS
Your instruction will be guided by where your students are as writers. To inform your planning of
minilessons, guided writing groups and topics for individual conferences you will want to read
what each student is writing in their writer’s notebook or writing projects folder at least once a
week. You will also be checking students’ writing after Big Revision and for the final draft
conference. It can be helpful to have a system of taking home four or five writing notebooks and
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
7
project folders each night. You may want to write stick-on notes to writers a brief note of
encouragement or message in the interim before their next conference.
You will want to develop the chart during group share time and continue to add to it throughout
the year.
All minilessons can be reinforced through guided writing as needed.
Review with the students what moving their name to the next stage on the writing chart means to
you as a teacher. If I see you are editing you are telling me that you feel as a writer you have a strong focus,
have found at least one or two ways to further revise your work and are now ready to edit your piece.
After a writing project has been completed each student can clip together all of the drafts
sequentially and place them in their hanging file folder so that their writing folder is ready to hold
the next project. The teacher can do a management minilesson to explain this procedure.
It can be helpful for students to reread their entries for What I Learned as a Writer from previous
pieces to facilitate transferring this learning to future writing.
The writing process chart is to be used to help writers learn the possibilities of ways they might
think about audience, purpose, focus, revision and editing and to realize that the order in which it
is laid out is generally helpful for a writer. It is important however for us, as teachers, to
understand and respect the idiosyncratic nature of writing as we work with students. It is also
important to make it clear that we not only expect but also encourage the boundaries of this cycle to
blur over time. Writers often edit while they are revising, writers might reconsider what genre
might be most effective for a piece in the final stages of editing it and decide a big change is in
order. Certainly the kinds of considerations pinpointed in Big Revision may be better attended to
as a discovery draft is being written. As writers are ready to consider these elements
simultaneously, they should be encouraged to do so as this is ultimately the way writers write.
So that you and your students can clearly see the kind of work they are doing as they revise and
edit their pieces you might want to have them revise using one color pen and edit using another.
Writers write with a greater sense of excitement, exploration and commitment if they feel that
writing is fun, that they are successful and their task is manageable. It is important to keep in mind
that the repetition of the writing cycle allows for continual new learning at each stage of the
process. Instead of the need to fix everything in a piece this allows for teachers to facilitate learning
that is manageable and based on the writer’s needs.
ENJOY!!!
 Jill Eurich, Lesley University Literacy Collaborative Intermediate, from Fountas, I.C. & Pinnell, G.S. (2001).
Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. Portsmouth, NH:
Heinemann, with input from Linda Towlen
8