Teachers, feel free to use this activity for your classes. You may need to alter certain parts of the activity to meet the needs of your particular classroom situation.

Activity submitted by DWP teacher Sue Morrell

Introduction: Collaborative Atmosphere, Shared Decision-making, Teacher as Learner-- these ideas are so central to our teaching practices today. We've all heard them. We've all struggled with the arrangement and rearrangement needed to deploy these well-grounded theories in our classroom.

In this activity, I offer one way to bring theory and practice together, from Day One, in your classroom. This activity works with any age group, any classroom.

Credit for this idea belongs with a South Dakota artist's group, the Prairie Winds Writers Conference. The teacher/writer who introduced the idea to me is Bill Schultz. For more information and great additional activities, purchase a copy of The Prairie Winds Writing Book, available from Prairie Winds at Black Hills Special Services Cooperative, 208 E. Colorado Blvd, Spearfish, SD 57783. Cost is $30.00.

Materials needed: Paper and pens for each writer (teacher included). Poster board.

The Activity:

1. Fold a blank sheet of paper in half-- hot dog style or hamburger style-- it really doesn't matter how you fold, as long as each writer has four sections that are approximately equal. Number each blank section, front and back, from 1 to 4.
2. One at a time, with time for writing between listing, write the following questions on the board:
1. Why write?
2. How do I write?
3. What have I learned about writing?
4. What are the qualities of good writing?
3. Ask everyone to copy the first question and to take five minutes to write answers to that question in one of the quadrants of the paper. Encourage reflex writing for each response; that is, writing non-stop.
4. Before moving to the next question, have each writer share responses by exchanging papers with another writer. There is no need for discussion at this point. Just share, read, and return.
5. Follow the writing, sharing, reading, for each of the four questions.
6. When all questions have been answered, break the class into four small groups and distribute a large sheet of poster paper to each group.
7. Each group should come to a consensus about the five best responses for its assigned question (1-4).
8. Each group posts and presents its ideas to the entire class.
9. The teacher/leader should then generate discussion about the posted answers. Since the writing and sharing takes almost an entire class period, you may want to save the reflective process for the next day, when there is time to come back to the discussion on both a philosophical and practical plain.

Teacher's note: Once we have composed these basic answers to each question, they become our guiding philosophy and our standards for excellence. The answers to the question "What are the qualities of good writing?" are especially helpful for their direction and potential specificity. If one answer to that question, for example, is "using specific, concrete words, not abstractions," nearly every piece of writing assigned in that classroom can be measured by that expectation. The posters remain at center stage of the classroom, ready for reference and addition as the year proceeds.

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