Middle School English Language Arts Instructional Guide

1. Create and Maintain a Supportive Writing Environment

Foster a dynamic writing environment that sustains a positive writing culture and empowers students as writers. Students need a supportive writing environment in order to take risks and improve as writers.

Description:

Rationale:

Resources:

Middle School ELA Resource Hub

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Best Practices

Critical Components

●​ Focus on amplifying the effective moves. ●​ Re-establish student writing identity and momentum. Begin to see themselves as writers again. (Gallagher) ●​ Honor student voice in writing. ●​ Accentuate the positive. Eliminate the negative. ●​ Collaborate in writing with students ●​ Allow students to see your writing process in all variations versus only the best draft ●​ Use think-alouds with students while writing so they can your decision-making process ●​ Stop frequently and make explicit the choices writers make to create an effect for an intended audience. ●​ Focus on how diction, tone, and punctuation can change meaning. ●​ Ask the following: What am I trying to say? Have I said it?

Create and maintain an asset-based approach to student writing.

Write alongside students and allow yourself to be vulnerable in modeling the writing process and decisions writers make.

Approach writing as problem-solving.

Notes/Ideas:

Last Updated September 23rd, 2024 Middle School ELA, Page 9