Red/Green Writing Across the Curriculum

I have been using red/green writing since the first day of school.  I love it!  If you are not familiar with what it is, here is a brief overview:   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.

My understanding and appreciation of red/green writing has definitely grown since I first started using it.  At the beginning of the school year I was very good about making the topics that I assigned open-ended.  However, I soon discovered that red/green writing was a perfect place for step five of the WBT five step lesson, critical thinking.  (Please see separate posts for more detailed information on the five step lesson.)  The critical thinking piece of the lesson generally involves writing, but it is hard to fit in during my regular reading and math blocks.  So, on some days, I would provide students with an assigned topic that supported what we were learning in reading or math.  Students still had plenty of time to write on topics of their choice, but now I was also asking them to write about what they had been learning.

I have also decided that red/green writing does not have to occur just at the end of the school day.  I often use it during my regular writing block.  Some days I will even allow my students to do their own red/green writing.  They absolutely love this.

To demonstrate the power and versatility of red/green writing, I went through my students writing notebooks and selected samples of red/green writing that they have done during the school year.  Underneath each photo I have written a brief description of the assignment.

In writing we were learning how to properly use the "but" Brainie.  We were also working on adjectives.  We had taken the Genius Ladder to the Extender level during writing time, but did not have time to write our Genius Paragraphs.  So, I asked the students to write them during red/green writing.  In our class we use a smilie face to show that a paper is correctly indented.

This piece of writing was from the early fall.  We were beginning our unit on place value.  I had created a math Power Pic through which the students learned that a place is a home for a number.  After a few days of learning about places, I asked them this question during red/green writing time:  What is a place?  Students had also just learned what a "for example popper" was, so many had started using it in their writing.

This paragraph was written in the early spring.  I had introduced students to even numbers with an even number Power Pic that I had created.  After a week of studying what even numbers are and what their relationship is to doubles, I asked them the following question during red/green writing time:  What are even numbers?

The Genius Ladder and red/green writing really do work well together.   We did the ladder that this piece of writing stemmed from after a couple of weeks of addition with regrouping.  the "Blah" sentence was:  The student traded in a ten for ten ones.  At the "Spicy" level my kids had to add an adjective to describe the noun student and at the extender level they were asked to use a "because clapper."  They wrote their Genius Paragraphs during red/green writing time.  I did ask them to use a "for example popper".

During writing we were learning how to write a triple whammy sentence with a because clapper.  Students had orally practiced a number of sentences.  I asked them to choose one and to write a five paragraph essay about it.

During phonics I taught students what we refer to in our classroom as the "Good-bye 'e' rule".  It is our term for the "e" drop rule.  At the end of the week, during red/green writing, I asked students what the "Good-bye 'e' rule was."

Sometimes I ask students to explain something to Biffy Bluebird, one of the WBT cartoon characters.  We had been studying time, along with explanatory writing.  I told the students that Biffy Bluebird knew nothing about how to tell time and it was their job to teach her how.

     

 
We were studying point of view.  I had given the students a passage about a cat named Cupcake that had traveled 150 miles from a campground that he had run away from back to his home.  The passage was written in third person.  I asked the students to retell the story in first person, from the point of view of Cupcake.

This piece of writing was not done during red/green writing, but during our regular writing block.  We have been working on writing informative text and have been doing a lot of comparing and contrasting in our writing.  After reading a passage about Saturn and Earth, students were asked to write a paragraph telling how the two planets are different.

My purpose in writing this blog was to spark your imagination and help you to realize all of the possibilities that await both you and your students with red/green writing.  Happy writing!