W-+Writing+Clubs

Every month throughout the school year, students select one notebook entry/story to publish. This means the story will be shared with members of a writing club in order to receive feedback from other authors in the classroom. When students are part of a writing club, they meet in groups of four to read their chosen stories aloud and help each other improve the stories before taking them into first-draft form. Students are placed into teacher-assigned writing clubs with a checklist of questions for the authors to ask of their club members after reading their stories aloud to their group. I have been so impressed with the constructive feedback the students offer to their fellow authors to help them improve and revise the stories before putting them into first-draft form. As the year goes on, students will continue to work with different students in ever-changing writing clubs to share and revise the writing they do in their notebooks. Students use the feedback they receive in their writing clubs to begin a first draft of the story they are taking out of their notebooks. The drafts are turned in to me, and I meet with each student to discuss and further revise the stories before they are published and added to the students' writing portfolios.
 * Writing Clubs **