Red/Green Writing

If you are looking for a good and an easy place to get started with the WBT writing program, I would highly suggest red/green writing.  I had an opportunity to try this technique out at the end of last year, and I was amazed by my students' enthusiasm over it and the difference that it made in their writing.  To get started all you need is a green and a red pen.  Assign students a ten minute quick write.  Make the topic open ended so that students can not claim to be finished.  Announce the focus skill/s that you will be looking for.  At the beginning of the year start with neatness.  Then, every one or two weeks, add an additional skill that you will be looking for.  Students are responsible for both the previous skills and the new one.  As students are writing walk around with your pens.  Place a green dot next to an example of something the student did right.  For example, a word that is written very neatly, a capital at the beginning of a sentence, or an end mark used correctly.  Place a red dot next to an error, but do not say anything.  You want the student to correct the error on his/her own.  I found that my students knew exactly what they had done wrong as soon as I made the mark, because they knew which focus skill/s I was checking for.  My class hated getting red marks.  As a result, they were much more careful when they wrote.  They would get so excited when they had all green marks on their papers.  If you want to know more about red/green writing you can go to the Whole Brain Teaching website and watch video 531.

I have given a lot of thought to what I want red/green writing to look like next year.  I used the WBT proofreading list as a starting point and created my own proofreading list, upon which I have placed the focus skills in the order that I will be introducing them during red/green writing time.  This is the list that my students will be using to do Paperclip Proofreading.  In Paperclip Proofreading, each student is given a paper clip that they clip beside their writing rules.  Each rule has a proofreading task in parenthesis next to it.  When students complete the task, they move their clips to the next rule.  As a teacher you can tell immediately which error a student is looking for, based upon where the paper clip is at.  It is also an easy way to tell which students are following directions.  Just watch their gestures.  On the WBT website there is a great free down load called Whole Brain Writing.  There you will find additional information on Paperclip Proofreading, as well as other components of the writing program.  Below is my proofreading checklist:

Writing Rules and Proofreading Checklist 1.      Your paper is not wrinkled or torn.  Your writing is neat and very easy for your     teacher to read.  (Smooth your hand over your paper.) 2.      Every sentence must begin with a capital letter.  (Press one finger on each               capitalized word that begins a sentence.) 3.      Every sentence must end with a period, question mark, or exclamation point.        (Flick the end mark at the end of every sentence.) 4.      No two words are squashed together.  (Place the side of your finger between         two words that look too close together.) 5.      No sentence is shorter than 5 words or longer than 12 words.  (Use your fingers     to count the words in each sentence.) 6.      No sentence begins with the word “And”.  (Put your thumb under the first           word of every sentence to be sure it is not “And”.) 7.       No sentence has more than one “and”.  (Flick every “and” and make sure that           no sentence has more than one.)  8.     Two sentences in a row never start with the same word.  (Using two different              fingers, point at pairs of sentences to be sure they start with different words.)  9.     No words are missing.  My writing makes sense.  (Point at each word and read          it quietly out loud.) 10.    Every word is spelled correctly.  (lightly underline any word you think may be            spelled incorrectly, and look for the correct spelling.) I am going to create a small rectangular bulletin board on one of my walls.  It will be titled "Focus Skills".  On it I will post each focus skill as the students are responsible for it.  They will be introduced in the order that they are on the proofreading list.  So at the beginning of the year, the only one that I will have up will be neatness.  Around the board I am going to post, possibly in speech bubbles, sentence frames for the red/green writing topics that I will be giving my students.  As the year progresses, this will give them a number of ideas to choose from.  After I have gotten through the third focus skill, I am going to introduce them to the proofreading checklist.  They will each keep one on their desk during red/green writing.  If they receive a red mark, they will place a tally next to that item on the list.  To make it less confusing, I don't think I will give them the complete list.  I will only have on the list those focus skills that I am editing for.  Every so often I will give the students a red and a green pen to try doing their own red/green writing.  The students will also use the list for Paperclip Proofreading, not just with their red/green writing, but with other writing as well.