Writers write. I’ve said it before. I’ll continue to shout it from the rooftops.
We don’t give students enough time to immerse themselves in the writing process.
Kids need to write every day. They need to spend not just a few minutes, but throw themselves into writing.
Having said this, I found myself in a fifth grade classroom last week because a teacher texted and said “Do you have a minute? I want to show you this awesome writing tool I found.”
I always love learning about the writing process so I went to the classroom immediately. Both the teacher and students were very excited about an online tool/game called We Will Write. They gave me a demonstration of how it worked, and I was awestruck at how engaged every student was in the writing process.
I’ll try to summarize it as succinctly as possible. Every kid enters the game on their device. The website automatically groups the students randomly into teams. Then students get a writing prompt (For example, “write something that builds suspense throughout the story”) and have 4 minutes to write as much as they can based on the prompt. The scoreboard on the main screen in the room keeps track of word count for each team. Students can see which team has the most words in real time.
Next, students are randomly assigned two written responses and have to decide which is a better example of the prompt (“Which is more suspenseful?”). Once every student decides, the whole group is presented four responses that the group then votes on to decide which team earns the points.
As you are reading this description, I know that it sounds convoluted, but what amazed me about the game is how engaged all students were. I never saw an entire room full of fifth grade writers so quietly engaging in the writing process. Usually, there are one or two who won’t. The social and collaborative effort of the group to identify suspenseful writing took the writing process to the next level. And guess what? Writers were writing.
It’s a genius idea. I wish I came up with it. As a writer, I sometimes have problems with the idea of timed writing and encouraging word count quotas, especially for students. But, what I can say is that we need to let students write, and I’m now impressed with WeWillWrite.com‘s ability to get them to write. The website shares a phrase on the main page:
Ignite the urge to write.
I hope that you’ll try out the website to ignite the urge in your students.
Writers write. Let’s get our students writing more.
Rich