As our primary class was using a writing software program to work on the Washington State Writing Standards in the Winter. 1998, we initiated a framework for learning the writing process. I began by showing the children how to create/save a Prewrite document for a writing topic. I then taught them how to create/save a sequence of draft, edit, revise, and publish documents by using the "Save As" feature of our software writing program. They learned how to print hard copies of the documents they created for each step in the writing process . These paper documents were put into their individual writing portfolios. They used their portfolio hard copies of each writing step to do writing assessment conferences with me and to share their writing skills progress with their parents. They learned how to save each writing process document to their own personal school computer disks. They used their computer disk writing process documents to: 1) continue working on the writing topic from one writing session to the next; and 2) upload the finished writing documents as email messages to global peers with whom they are collaborating on the curricular topic.

While the children were giving their best effort in learning this writing process, I realized that when they were already giving tremendous cognitive energy to generating and writing their words and sentences, it was hard for them to remember the meaning and sequence of steps using the language of just Prewrite, Draft, Edit, Revise, and Publish. Knowing that primary children learn best when ideas and concepts are contextualized in concrete images/experiences that have meaning for them, I realized we needed to give more descriptive language to these writing process steps. I started on a quest to find just the "write" descriptive words for each step of the writing process.

By coincidence, at the same time I was on a quest for just the "write" descriptive words that would help children understand and remember the meaning of each writing process step, our class was having a fabulous time studying birds. Our classroom science lessons on birds included learning not only their names and identifying markings, but also their behaviors and how some birds are symbolic in people's cultures. We were learning about owls and how they represent characters of wisdom and intelligence in fiction stories. We were learning about how swans move smoothly and gracefully across the water. We were learning about puffins and watched a video of these shoreline birds who flap their short wings as they fly around shoreline cliffs.

Seeing the understandings children were generating as they studied the different names and behaviors of birds, I started thinking about how we could make connections between their understandings of birds and their understandings of the writing steps. By pairing names of birds who's behaviors had metaphorical connections to writing process behaviors, we could perhaps have descriptive, meaningful language that contextualized the writing process for children.

I introduced the idea to the class by suggesting that since a prewrite is a way that we generate a list of just words or short phrases to quickly capture our main ideas about what we want to say in our writing while we are thinking about the whole sentences we want to write, and because the puffin is a bird that flaps its short wings quickly as it hovers around the ocean side cliffs deciding where to land or where to dive for fish, perhaps we could think of our prewrite as something being like a puffin. The class thought that was a great idea and, hence, Puffin Prewrite came into being and the journey to create the Bird Prints Writing Process was underway.

The pairing of bird names with steps of the writing process and the naming of this curriculum as our "Bird Prints Writing" has an historic and semantic etiology.

From the time I was a child, I had older generations of family members introducing my siblings and I to the world of birds. Both of my grandmothers, especially, shared their enjoyment of bird watching with us every time they came to visit. My childhood and present homes have "bird prints" on the walls. Every place I have traveled in the world, bird watching has been a part of the journey, including trekking through fog and volcanic gravel to watch puffins off the coast of Iceland!

My passion for knowing the science of birds has been brought into our classroom. I included ornithology lessons in our science curriculum. When a science learning package from the Audubon Society arrived at our school with video and lessons on puffins, our class studied these fascinating birds. Our class was already studying swans, Canada Geese and Mallard ducks in our longitudinal water habitat project of ponds near our school. When our primary class visited the pond one early morning and spotted a Great Blue Heron on its shore, bird study of wetlands birds like the heron and egrets was added to our ornithology lessons. When the children heard owls in our school neighborhood, we studied owls. And when the Washington State University School of Veterinary Science brought raptors into our classroom, we learned more about owls and also learned about falcons! The synergy between teaching children the writing process and teaching children ornithology led to deciding we would now have a curriculum called the Bird Print Writing Process.

The semantic etiology of calling our writing process the "Bird Print Writing Process" comes from three experiences. The first experience is that when I was in high school, we had a student literacy publication called "Patterns in Print". Working on that literary publication was a wonderful journey working with the process of putting student writing into published print! I always liked the idea that the publication name communicated there were patterns to the writing created by our generation of high school students and that there was a pattern to how we designed the publication. Our faculty advisor for this project was one of the most inspiring writing teachers our high school ever had! The second experience that inspired using the words "Bird Prints" comes simply from my own family home environment (past and present) in which we have prints of paintings of birds we have seen in real life framed and on our walls where we can keep looking at them and thinking about our bird watching experiences. The third experience is being on beaches and shores where one can see the actual footprints of birds on the land and making a connection between birds leaving their footprints behind on the land and people putting their word prints on paper for others to see. The collective idea of these three experiences is that when we make "prints", whether by footprint on the land, paintings, or words on a page, we create something to see, revisit, reflect upon and share with others.

As I reviewed the lists of birds we were studying to decide on names for all the steps of the writing process, I added a goal of trying to add elements of lyrical syllabication and phonemic connection between the bird names and the writing steps whenever possible. Using the alphabetical index of a bird identification book and the list of birds our class was studying, the quest to pair bird names went into high gear.

Our Bird Print Writing Process now includes the following:

Puffin Prewrite . . .because the behavior of the puffin flapping its short wings to fly as it decides what to do and where to go next seems somewhat parallel to the process of getting words and short phrases for the ideas of our writing topic into print while we keep thinking about the whole story we want to tell.

Puffins live in colonies with one another rather than independently. This "community" component of this bird has some metaphoric commonality with the first component of the Prewrite which is to collaboratively talk together as a class or in small group about the writing topic. The purposes of the collaborative conversations are to: 1) give opportunity for the children to verbally articulate their writing topic ideas; and then, by having talked about the topic, 2) have the children be better able to think about writing ideas when writing their texts.

In the Puffin Prewrite step, the children open a new writing document and name and save the document as writing topic title + Puffin Prewrite. For example "Pond Puffin Prewrite" if it is writing about our pond science. Then at the top of the screen document, they write their name, writing topic + Puffin Prewrite, and the date. Then they proceed to create their list of words and short phrases for their writing ideas. They do a return after each idea.

Being able to use the computer keyboard to type their words is enhanced by doing keyboarding skill lessons in parallel with learning the "Bird Print Writing Process". Some of their session on the computer are spent doing writing assignments and some of the time is spent doing KEYBOARDING.

When they finish their list, they reread their words and, by using the cut/paste feature of the writing program, they put all the words/phrases that are about the same idea near one another but still in list format. By rearranging the prewrite word/phrase list by ideas at this step in the writing process, their sentences will already be in an order by common idea so that, in Wren Revise, sentences about the same idea can more easily be put into paragraphs. Having the sentences about a common topic all together, greatly enhances teaching primary children about the concept of paragraphs during the revise steps of the writing process. Some children need the help of a classroom aide, parent volunteer, or experienced classmate to do this Puffin Prewrite reorganizing step.

In the final steps of Puffin Prewrite, the children check to see that they have two returns after each word/phrase on the prewrite list so that the spaces for adding sentences are there. Next, they do a "File/Save" and "File/Print". Then they do a "SaveAs" and rename the document as writing topic title + Swan Draft. This gives them a new document renamed for the next step in the writing process. At the top of the new document, they change the word "Puffin Prewrite" to "Swan Draft" and change the date if they are starting this step on a different date than when they did the Puffin Prewrite.

Assessment Tools: Quantitative Data: Click here to link to Puffin Quantitative Assessment Rubric Qualitative Data Notes on: 1) child's engagement/confidence/motivation in generating list independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 2) how well child is able to articulate sentence ideas for each prewrite word/phrase idea she/he generates; 3) child's understandings in using concept of words/short phrases to represent whole ideas; 4) child's own metacognitive voice on writing challenges,progress, and goals; and 5) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. Click here to link to: Puffin Qualitative Assessment Rubric

Swan Draft ... because the imagery of the swan gracefully floating across the water has metaphorical connection to the goal of doing a writing draft by just letting the sentences for each idea flow onto the page. The goal of swan draft is for the children to get their sentence ideas into print on the screen as fluently as possible using book spellings that they already knows and sound spellings for any other words. The main focus is on creating the flowing sentence language for their main ideas with the understanding that editing and revising steps will be the time for close scrutiny of spellings, punctuation, and syntax.

In Swan Draft, the children type one or more sentences under each Prewrite word/phrase. Having the Prewrite words there in the document seems to help them: 1) keep focused on writing sentences for one idea; and 2) then move onto the next ideas. The advantage to doing this writing step on the computer rather than with paper and pencil, is that all their prewrite words are there for them to create their sentence work with unlimited expanding space underneath the words for those sentences. How much they write is no longer limited by the space.

When young children create prewrite words on a piece of paper, they can't anticipate how much space they will need for writing their sentences in between each of the words/phrases listed. They either have to try and squeeze in their sentences into a space they didn't make large enough or they have to reference the list of words on their first paper as they write their sentences on another piece of paper. Referencing text from one document to another in pencil paper writing is a difficult task for primary children. On the computer, the writing software automatically creates the space they need as they add sentences. In addition the delete tool enables them to change their minds about their spellings or word choice and still have a neat document unmessed by eraser marks or crossed out words. Because the delete key so quickly enables a change, their cognitive thoughts on their sentence thoughts stay intact because the flow of their ideas is not interrupted by the time and frustration of trying to completely erase a word they decided they didn't want. Finally,

When they have finished writing all their Swan Draft sentences for each Prewrite word/phrase, the children do two "returns" after each line of writing to create spacings between the lines of print. This enables us to write in book spellings and make other editing and revising notes. When they have finished the spacing step, they do a File/Save and then File/Print to have a hard copy of their Swan Draft. They then do a Save As to rename the document as Egret Edit. At the top of the newly named document, they change the title from "Swan Draft" to Egret Edit and change the date if they are starting this document on a date other than when they started Swan Draft.

Assessment: Quantitative Data Click here to link to Swan Draft Quantitative Assessment Rubric Qualitative Data Notes on: 1) child's engagement/confidence/motivation in generating sentences independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 2) evidence of traits of writing in sentences including ideas, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, organization; 3) child's own metacognitive voice on writing challenges, progress, and goals; and 4) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. Click here for Swan Draft Qualitative Assessment Rubric

Egret Edit. . . because the egret is a bird that has keen eyes and looks carefully and closely within its habitat to find its food, we decided it would be a good bird name for the first step in the editing process of looking carefully at our writing to identify sound spellings that needed book spellings. Because the egret strikes quickly with its beak to catch its prey, we decided it was a good bird name for the process of using a mouse clicks and keyboard strokes to underline the words needing book spellings. The keen eyes of the egret also remind us to use our keen eyes to: 1) look for words that needs capital letters because those words either start a sentence or name someone or some place; and 2) look for places where we need periods or other punctuation marks.

The children become very skilled at underlining words they think need book spellings. When they finish underlining, they do a File/Save and then a File/Print to have a hard copy of this step in the writing process. Then they do a Save As and change the name of the document to Owl Edit. They change the name at the top of the screen document to Owl edit and change the date if they are starting Owl Edit on a different date than when they created the Egret Edit document.

Then they come for a Egret Edit conference with the teacher. We have a score sheet for that conference in which we tally: 1) the number of sound spellings the child underlined; 2) the number of sound spellings the teacher underlines for them during the conference; 3) the number of book spellings the child underlined thinking they were sound spellings or wasn't sure if they were book or sound spellings; and 4) the number of accurate book spellings in the writing document. We also tally: 1) the number of capital letters that are needed or need to be changed to lower case; and 2) the number of periods that are needed.

Many of the children are able to do Puffin Prewrite and Egret Edit with a fair measure of independence. For those children who are still developing their letter sound relationships and understanding of sentences, I have a parent volunteer work with them one-on-one or I will work with several of those children in a small group to create a writing document together.

The scoring from the Egret Edit conference provides excellent data from which the child and I can talk about spelling skills and good assessment data on the child's understanding and skill in spelling. Together we talk about setting goals for them being able to identify more sound spellings than the teacher. Even if they have underlined many sound spellings indicating the need to work on book spellings, I can still give affirmation of what a thorough job they did as a spelling editor! When I see the words they have underlined that are actually accurate book spellings, it provides an important opportunity to make sure they do realize they have generated a book spelling and to positively affirm their use of a book spelling. Sometimes, a child and I will generate an individualized/customized spelling list to practice from the sound spelling words of his/her writing document.

From reflective observations of primary children's skill development from starting writing with sound spellings to using more and more book spellings, I have tried to determine the most optimal time to set individual expectations/goals for use of book spellings. The spelling scores from the Egret Edit conference in combination with the number and length of sentences generated during Swan Draft have been most helpful in making this determination.

The criteria I now use to initiate higher expectations and skill work for book spellings is as follows: In the initial stage of doing the writing draft, sound spellings are encouraged along with encouraging use of book spellings which they know automatically. I want the child to focus primarily on getting ideas/thoughts on a topic into print. The use of book spellings is secondary in this writing step because I want them to concentrate on the flow of words to generate a sentence rather than losing the complete sentence thought because they are stopped on one word that requires enormous cognitive energy to spell accurately. I want their cognitive energy focused on the idea content of their writing. When I see that children are able to write several complete and descriptive sentences in Swan Draft with fluency and ease, then I feel they are ready to devote more of their cognitive energy to book spellings during the initial drafting of sentences. With the data from the Egret Edit conference, we can decide goals and skill work on book spellings.

Assessment: Quantitative Data Click here to link to Egret Edit Quantitative Assessment Rubric; Qualitative Data on 1) child's engagement/confidence/motivation in identifying and underlining words with sound spellings independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 2) child's own metacognitive voice on writing challenges, progress, and goals; and 3) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. Click here for Egret Edit Qualitative Assessment Rubric

Owl Edit. . . because the owl has keen eyesight for looking carefully in many directions and because it is a symbol of wisdom and knowledge, we decided to use its name for the second step of editing process.

In Owl Edit, the goal is to: 1) find the book spellings for sound spelled words either by conferencing with a teacher and/or by using a classroom dictionary; 2) write those spellings above the sound spelling words in the Egret Edit hard copy writing document; and 3) put the hard copy document on the computer document clip and change the words on the computer screen document. This is also a time to change capitals and punctuation that were noted during the Teacher/Child Egret Edit conference.

We have mini-lessons on dictionary use to build the children's skills in using dictionaries to locate book spellings. We also have our dictionaries available as a choice during free reading time in the classroom so children can peruse and become familiar with these resources. During Owl Edit, I will sometimes have a second grader help a first grader make Owl Edit changes in the document on the screen. Second graders become very proficient at this; first graders sometimes need a mentor who points to the place for an editing change on the hard copy and then points to the place for making that change on the screen document.

Once the children finish Owl Edit by changing all the sound spellings into book spellings as well as making appropriate changes in capital letters and punctuation, they do a File/Save and then a File/Print to have a hard copy of their completed Owl Edit document. Then they do a Save As and change the name of the document to Wren Revise. They change the name at the top of the screen document from "Owl Edit" to Wren Revise and change the date if they are starting Wren Revise on a different date then when they started Owl Edit. They then come to the teacher with their Owl Edit hard copy writing document for a Wren Revise conference.

Assessment: Quantitative Data Click here to link to Owl Edit Quantitative Assessment Rubric; Qualitative Data Notes on 1) child's engagement/confidence/motivation/skill ability to systematically use dictionary for book spellings independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 2) child's own metacognitive voice on dictionary/spelling skills challenges, progress, and goals; and 3) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. Click here for Owl Edit Qualitative Assessment Rubric

Additional assessment can be done in the following steps: 1) how well student practices spelling the customized list of words (or a reasonable # of words) in the writing document that were edited from sound to book spellings; 2) student is assessed on ability to accurately spell those words Click here to link to Owl Edit Spelling document

Wren Revise . . . because the wren is a bird that: 1) hops from branch to branch which reminds us of how we can "cut" and "paste" words and sentences in our screen document to move them from place to place; and 2) has a beautiful lyrical song which reminds us to make our words and our sentences together flow like music. (Because the two words "wren" and "revise" start with the same sound but not the same letters, it gives us opportunity to talk about silent letters at the beginning of words!)

Our primary goal in Wren Revise is to do revisions in word order and add missing words so that the writing can be read fluently without interruption of thought because there is confusion from missing words or because the sequence of sentences doesn't make sense. This step includes a writing conference with the teacher so that instruction for revising can be individualized to the child's written work. During the Wren Revise conference, the child reads the written document aloud for the purpose of listening for places where revision is needed. If the child is unable to recognize when there are missing words or incomplete sentences, the teacher rereads the document so the child can listen more objectively. Together, we discuss the places that need revision and I mentor the child in making revision decisions. We write the revisions in the spaces between lines of their Owl Edit hard copy. Sometimes Wren Revise conferences will take place with a small group of two or three children listening to one another's revising efforts. In this way, they can learn from one another's teacher/student revising collaborations and examples of how to revise writing.

While waiting for a teacher conference, a child may be asked to work with another classmate who is also ready for a Wren Revise conference. Each child is instructed to read her/his writing aloud to the other classmate and the other classmate is instructed to make comments on whether or not the sentences make sense and make helpful comments on revising sentences. Often the reader recognizes a need for syntax revision and/or missing words in the process of reading the writing aloud. Another version of doing this step of collaborative peer Wren Revise is for a classmate to read aloud the other classmate's writing so that the author can hear his/her writing more objectively. We do mini-lessons to teach, model and practice skills, strategies and positive interactions of collaborative peer Wren Revise conferences. The children enjoy this collaborative process and are usually eager to work together. They underline any sentences that they have identified for revision.

A second goal of Wren Revise is to conference about creating a paragraph or paragraphs from the sentences in the document. By having the children reorganize their list of words/phrases during Puffin Prewrite, they have their sentences already clustered by similar idea when they get to Wren Revise. This facilitates having the children understand how a paragraph is a group of sentences about a main idea. During the conference, we make marks on the hard copy of Owl Edit to indicate where they can tab for paragraphs.

After finishing a Wren Revise conference, the children put their hard copy on the document clip of their computer and proceed to make the noted word and sentence changes/revisions.

They then do a File/Save and File/Print to have a hard copy of their Wren Revise document. They then do a Save As and change the name of the document to Peregrine Publish. They then change the title at the top of the newly created screen document from "Wren Revise" to Peregrine Publish and change the date if they are starting this document on a different date then when they started Wren Revise. The children then come for a Peregrine Publish conference.

Assessment: Quantitative Data Click here to link to Wren Revise Quantitative Assessment Rubric; Qualitative Data Notes on: 1) child's ability to recognize needs to revise; 2) child's engagement/confidence/motivation/understanding/strategies & problem solving in revising sentences independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 3) child's own metacognitive voice on revising skills challenges, progress, and goals; and 4) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. Click here for Wren Revise Qualitative Assessment Rubric

Peregrine Publish . . . because the peregrine falcon is a bird with incredible flying speeds, we decided to use its name for the final step in the writing process in which we make sure our document is ready to share with others and send on the speedy communication of email.

In the Peregrine Publish conference, the child and I check the entire document together to see if any further editing or revising is needed. The child rereads the entire document aloud for both a reading assessment and as a way to listen for fluency of sentences and completeness of ideas. By this conference, the child has worked on and "lived in" this document enough to be very familiar with its content. It is a good opportunity for me to assess and encourage fluency, rate, and expression in reading.

The child then goes through the entire document to:

1) remove all Puffin Prewrite words;

2) remove all spaces between the lines

3) tab to indent the beginning line of each paragraph

When the child and I agree together that the writing document is ready for publication and to be sent by email (if the writing topic is one which we are collaborating on with another class locally, regionally, nationally, or globally), we write the title and author's name at the top of the document by hand. The child then returns to his/her computer to remove the writing process headings and replace them with the title and author byline. The child does a File/Save and File/Print to create a final hard copy of the finished writing document.

All hard copies of each step in the writing process are put in a child's individual writing portfolio to be used at parent/child conference time. Sometimes copies of each child's final Peregrine Publish document are made to compile class reading booklets on the writing topic. Their final documents are also loaded into an email document for sharing with local to global peers who are doing collaborative curricular projects with us on the topic of the writing.

Assessment: Quantitative Data click here to link to Peregrine Publish Quantitative Assessment Rubric; Qualitative Data on 1) child's ability to recognize needs to reformat; 2) child's engagement/confidence/motivation/understanding/strategies & problem solving in reformatting and preparing document for email independently or with mentoring from teacher, volunteer, or peer; 3) child's own metacognitive voice on Peregrine skills challenges, progress, and goals; and 4) teacher's strategies and accomodations that helped unencumber child's challenges to understanding. about child's metacognitive reflections on writing content, goals and progress with this writing assignment. Click here for Peregrine Qualitative Assessment Rubric

* criteria for scoring Six Traits of Writing for primary children are in the process of being developed on the basis of experiences with piloting the Bird Print Writing Process

A class log can be kept by the teacher to track the progress of each student in any given Bird Print Writing Topic: Click here for Bird Print Writing Class Log.

Observing the challenges children faced in understanding the writing process, I was reflecting on two significant findings of challenges the children encountered in the process of learning to be writers and I was trying to find ways to unencumbered those challenges. The two challenges were:

1) revising was a difficult concept for them to understand ;

and

2) the editing step had too many components for them to juggle at once because it included: a) identifying words needing book spellings; b) finding the book spellings and changing words to book spellings; c) identifying need for capital lettering and changing capital lettering; and d) identifying and changing punctuation.

I noticed that the normal sequence of the writing process (Prewrite, Draft, Revise, Edit, and Publish) did not have developmentally congruence with the literacy skills of first and second graders. Specifically, it was very difficult for them to comprehend what it means to revise writing even when we had mini-lessons to explain, demonstrate, and practice this skill. Being able to revise a piece of one's own writing is, in my mind, a fairly sophisticated cognitive task. From my own writing experiences, good revision means being able to shift from being the "author" writer/reader" of the text to being the "audience reader/writer". It often requires some time distance from your generation of text in order to be an objective reader of the actual print on the page unbiased by your additional thought of ideas and words that didn't actually make it into print.

During our classroom mini-lessons on the step of revising writing, we defined it rearranging words and sentences to make the sentences complete and meaningful to themselves and other readers. They could manage this process in our mini lessons when the sentences we were working on had meaning to them but were not ones they had personally written on their own.

In my observation of the primary children in my class as they came to conference with me on the next step of revising their writing after finishing their first draft, I discovered that when prompted to reread their writing with me to see if they recognized need to revise it they often saw no need to revise or change their word order or order of sentences. This was true even when syntax disfluency was quite apparent because of missing words and incomplete sentences. It was true for effective and efficient readers as well as for the children still developing their reading skills. It was true even when they listened to me reread their text for them.

I had a hunch that perhaps the explanation for the challenges they encountered being able to recognize need for revision was that immediately following their effort on drafting their sentences, their "reading" and "listening" relationship with their text still included not only predicting cues from what was actually in print but also cues from the words and ideas that were still in their thoughts but not yet on the page.

One possible solution would be to have them put their writing work aside for some period of time after completing their writing drafts so that when they came to the next step of revision, they could read their text as "audience reader/rewriter." However, with young children, their content hold and motivation in working on their writing topic can be very elusive if too much time elapses between starting and finishing the writing process. If too much time elapses, they can forget their intent and content of their writing.

I decided on a different solution that would keep their active temporal engagement in their writing while also facilitating making a transition to revision. I decided to put the edit step in front of revise. My reasoning was again based on observations of children's metacognitive engagement with their writing during conferences with me. I noticed that while they were unable to readily recognize needs to revise word or sentence order, they were quite readily able to identify words that were sound spellings and that needed book spellings. I think there are three criteria of the teaching/learning context that both motivate and enable them to do this:

1. phonemic mini-lessons on strategies for using sound spellings (guess-and-go spellings) to write a word when you don't know the book spellings and clearly articulating that this is just a step in the writing process to helps us get our ideas in print and that we will be editing the sound spellings into book spellings

2. mini-lessons on book spellings including:

a. dictionary reading to understand that we do have a resource for knowing the spellings for words we see in books we read and mini-lessons on the use of developmentally appropriate dictionaries to help primary children find book spellings for words they want to use in writing;

b. discussion of goals for using book spellings so our writing can be easily read and understood by others

c. mini-lessons on changing sound spellings to book spellings that are positive journeys in exploring the fascinating world of words

d. opportunities to rehearse the book spellings for vocabulary words we expect to use in our writing topic by writing them repeatedly on the computer while practicing keyboarding skills, writing them repeatedly by hand while practicing D'Nealian letters, positive class lessons for spelling them aloud together while looking at the words in print, and spelling them aloud without looking at them in print

3. mini-lessons during reading lessons that connect a purpose for learning to recognize and accurately predict words in books with a goal of using the book spellings for those words when writing and with a goal of recognizing that a sound spelling is not the book spelling.

My observations as a classroom teacher indicate that when the above criteria are in place, children are understanding the reasons for editing towards book spellings and are motivated towards that goal. They are also understanding when and why to use sound spellings. They are also more willing to take risks to attempt and use sound spellings if they know that at a editing conference, we will talk about the book spellings.

By putting the editing step immediately after the draft, the children were able to engage in looking at their writing from the "eye" of an editor. From mini-lessons on using the computer underline feature, they would reread their document on the screen with the purpose of finding and underlining sound spelling words. Their ability to do this was connected to their remembering which words they had to had to used the sounding out strategy to spell. When they finished underlining all the words they thought needed book spellings, they then came to me with a hard copy of their document for an editing conference. Together we would go through their underlining decisions. We then talk about using the dictionary to locate the book spellings or I may chose to give them the books spellings written above the words on the hard copy of their writing. We also conference together on places that need capital letters and periods.

By the time the children had spent some time "living-in" their writing documents as editors for spellings, they were making transitions from reading their text from the close perspective of authors generating the print to being able to view their own writing with some measure of objectivity. Time and time again, as we conferenced on spellings words, capitals and periods, they started noticing syntax that didn't work or "make sense". I have taken their self-initiated metacognition on syntax as an indicator that they were now ready to look at their own writing for the purpose of revising.

Mini-lessons on the process of revising text help the primary children start to understand this cognitively demanding task when they look at their own writing. However, my experience with primary children is telling me that the majority of them need mentoring in this step.

After doing mini-lessons on all the editing steps (which included: a) identifying words needing book spellings; b) finding the book spellings and changing words to book spellings; c) identifying need for capital lettering and changing capital lettering; and d) identifying and changing punctuation, and then asking children to do these steps after they finished their draft, I soon realized it was too many tasks for them to juggle. Because spelling was a top editing priority and the perhaps the most significant component of their writing that made reading their writing a challenge, I decided this would be the first editing step.

The Bird Print Writing Process is providing a meaningful, contextualized framework for primary children to learn the writing process and to develop critically important writing skills. On our whiteboard in the classroom, we have posted photographs of each of the birds in the Bird Print Writing Process. The writing process steps are named under each bird photo. This provides visual reminders to the children of the steps in their writing process. We also have classroom library collection of children's books about birds for which we read during story time, small group reading times, and individual free choice reading times.

Writing Topics: A critically important component of children's success in developing writing skills is providing them with a meaningful topic to write about for which they all have background knowledge. Each writing topic that we use in the Bird Print Writing Process is one that comes from meaningful classroom curricular learning experiences. These experiences include field trips, hands-on classroom science and social studies lessons, thematic curricular topics which we have studied, and online collaborative, curricular telecommunications projects with other classrooms in our school, state, country, and/or the world. For example, during our integrated Social Studies/Service Learning/Literacy Ronald McDonald House Hospital project, the children all did final writing pieces about the project using the Bird Print Writing Process. Examples of these writings can be viewed on the "Writing About Caring and Caring About Writing" pages of our classroom Ronald McDonald House and Children's Hospital Project. They also used the writing process to send collaborative email about this project to another class in our school. We used the Bird Print Writing Process for children to compose email messages to Puerto Rico after the hurricanes there in Fall 1998. These hurricane email messages can be viewed at our Puerto Rico Comfort Quilt web pages. We use the Bird Print Writing Process to do our Water Habitat Pond Field Trip Observations. After the children return from a field trip to a nearby pond, they write individual documents about those experiences. We take digital images during our field trip and then, while the children are working their pond writing in the computer lab or on the classroom computers, we project the digital images as a slide show. The slide show images provide visual prompts for Puffin Prewrite words and descriptive Swan Draft sentences. Examples of children's finished writing about the pond experiences that have been published as pond email and as narrative in pond photo journals can be found on our web pages for the I*EARN Water Habitat Project.

Assessment: Through each writing topic, the children's progress in developing writing skills is assessed as they have conferences with the teacher and by reviewing their portfolio of writing process documents. Throughout the school year, their writing portfolios provide documents for longitudinal assessment of writing skills. Each Peregrine Publish document can be assessed on the Washington State Writing Scale of 1 to 4. Each Peregrine Publish writing document can be assessed on the criteria of Six Traits of Writing. In addition, each child provides metacognitive reflections on writing progress and writing goals in periodic conference without the teacher. At the two yearly School Conference times, the children present their writing portfolios to their parents. They explain the writing topic, review the writing process steps and read chosen excerpts from published documents.

Collaboration: Teaching the Bird Print Writing Process has been possible because of having Parent Volunteers, a Classroom Aide, and University School of Education Faculty and Students who are willing to learn the process and who can be with us when we are working on our writing in the classroom and in the computer lab. Having a collaborative team of adults who work with us on teaching and learning is an important cultural component of our classroom philosophy and practice. Special thanks to the following people for their valuable assistance in developing and implementing the Bird Print Writing Process: Dr. Paula Boxie of Washington State University and Ohio's Oxford University, Ms. Paige Keyes Student at Washington State University, Ms. Jen Widman Student at University of Idaho, Tom Fletcher Sunnyside School Parent Volunteer and Technology Coordinator, and Mollie Ressa, Sunnyside School Teacher Aide.

Once the children become familiar with the Bird Print Writing Process, we can work on it together as a class with or without extra adult assistance. Because of being a multiage class, Second Graders become models and mentors for First Graders. Children who are just beginning to write one or two short sentences on a curricular topic for which they have knowledge can be mentored through the entire Bird Print Writing Process. Children who are developing independent writing skills are able to draft, edit, revise and publish their writing content in a focused process that more often than not results in their writing far more content than they originally thought they could do.

The Bird Print Writing Process is an exciting journey and is one that is clearly supporting all learners to "soar" towards meeting the Washington State Writing Essential Learning Standards. Special thanks and credit goes to the children in our classroom who have been active contributors to the development and implementation of the Bird Print Writing Process. Their voices continually inform and enhance the process of teaching and learning writing!

For further questions about the Bird Print Writing Process contact me by email at <kfranz@psd267.wednet.edu> This Bird Print Writing Process is copyrighted.

***All documents on our classroom web pages are copyrighted. The text and images are for educational use only. Please honor the integrity and original ownership of all text, design and images. We request that you not replicate the webpage designs nor publish the images and text without permission. For permission contact Kristi Rennebohm Franz at kfranz@psd267.wednet.edu