WBT Writing

I chose to write this post in red because red is a color that grabs the attention of others, and it is my hope that this post will grab your attention.  Let me just begin by saying, WBT writing rocks!  We are five weeks into the school year, and I am loving what I am seeing.  If you are considering using some or all of the Whole Brain writing techniques, but are still a little unsure, let me encourage you.  You will be amazed at the results!

It is not easy to let go of what we know and have always believed in.  When I decided to do full WBT implementation this year, that meant letting go of some things that I had always believed in very strongly, like Writers' Workshop.  For 24 years I had either been using or training other teachers in how to use a Writers' Workshop approach.  It was not an easy thing to let go of, but now that we are five weeks into the school year, I can tell you that I do not regret that decision at all.  The truth is that I have never gotten such good results in such a short amount of time.  Since I am no longer doing Writers' Workshop, I can only attribute this success to teaching writing the WBT way!

It is hard to pinpoint one component of the program that makes it so successful.  I see it as a synergistic effect that is achieved when all of the different components are mixed together.  Having said this, however, I do think it starts with a combination of oral writing and the Brainies.  There is such truth in the statement, "If a child can say it, he can write it."  Oral writing teaches kids how to write before they have even picked up a pencil.  The teacher provides students with a framework for oral writing through the use of sentence frames. Sentence frames benefit all students, but with a class composed mostly of ELL students, a third of which are in special education, I find that the sentence frames are especially beneficial.  The Brainies are gestures that accompanies students oral writing.  These gestures remind them to do things like punctuate correctly or indent.

I also love the WBT philosophy that writing should be broken down into its smallest components and these components should be taught individually.  Coach B. uses the analogy of a tennis game.  Before anyone can pick up a racquet and play, he must first learn a backhand, forehand, volley, serve, overhead shot etc.  Writing works the same way, but many times we expect students to write without teaching them the individual components or giving them the structure that they need to become strong writers.  WBT uses complexors and puzzlers to teach these skills and frameworks in a fun game-like format.  You can read more about complexors and puzzlers by going to the Whole Brain Teaching website and downloading the Writing Game.

I also believe that another thing which makes Whole Brain writing so successful is the immediate feedback that students receive through red/green writing.  I am able to provide feedback to all of my class everyday through red/green writing, as opposed to just three or four students each day when I was using a Writers' Workshop model and conferencing with my students individually.  If you would like to know more about what red/green writing is and how to implement it, please see the post that I have written on this subject.

I would like to end by sharing with you the comment that actually inspired this blog post.  I have a student in my class who I will call Tommy.  Tommy is one of my special education students.  He entered my room as a total non-reader and a non-writer.  At the beginning of the year Tommy struggled with writing even a few words.  He felt successful, however, through oral writing.  He could verbalize what he wanted to say and share it with others.  As he has slowly started to read, he has also slowly started to write.  Last Monday for red/green writing I asked students the following question:  What did you do over the weekend?  Their answers became their topic sentences.  Tommy then asked me the question that I will never forget:  "Can we do one of those three zoop (the sound effect for comma) sentences?"  I answered, "You mean a triple whammy sentence.  Of course, you can."  I came back by a few minutes later and he had written the perfect triple whammy sentence, sharing three things that he did over the weekend, and it was punctuated perfectly.  I could share many other stories, but I think that Tommy's does the best job of emphasizing the point that Whole Brain writing truly does work.

My goal in writing this post was not to teach you how to do Whole Brain writing (Which, by the way, would be impossible to do in one post.), but it was to inspire you to consider learning more about it and using some or all of its components in your classroom.  I hope that I have achieved this goal.  Happy writing!