QUE ES SOBREPROTECCIÓN: EL ‘AMOR’ QUE HACE DAÑO

You will have begun the year teaching kids that they can draw on all they already know to write as well as possible, and inviting them to get going on their writing . After a week or so of such work, children will be ready for the unit of study to take on a new emphasis . There is no one way the unit could unfold—no set-in-stone progression to the unit— but our thinking is that if this year is going to maximize your students’ potential, you will want to rally them to work in increasingly powerful ways with each other . One of Murray’s key articles is titled “The Other Self,” and it suggests that when novice writers regularly read each other’s writing, thinking about ways that another person’s writing could be made even stronger, then writers learn to eventually become readers of their own writing, rereading their emerging draft, asking, “What’s working that I could build upon?” and “What’s not working that I could repair?” We suggest, then, that this second part of this unit might rally students to invest in partnership work to an extent deeper than they’ve experienced before . While supporting those partnerships, you can help students use partners to scaffold their engagement in the writing process . That is, while ostensibly supporting writing partners, you can actually support students’ engagement in the process of writing . “Partners help each other plan writing,” you can say . “Partners also help each other revise writing .”

After drumming up independence and conf idence in the f irst week of second grade, allowing your students to write across genres of their choice, you will then want to shift the focus of this unit to informational writing . Therefore, while you tap into the repertoire of strategies that the students in your classroom already know, you will want to do so in ways that lift the level of informational writing in the room . You might start this part by validating the various genres that the students chose to write in during the initial part, and then you might say, “Now that you are second-grade writers, you not only know so many things about writing and what it takes to be a strong writer, but you also know so much about the world around you . You have learned so much in kindergarten and f irst grade, and so I thought it would be fun to spend the next couple of weeks writing informational books to teach others all that you now know .”

As we mentioned earlier, the Common Core State Standards call for a strong emphasis on informational writing, so we think it’s a good idea to get your students writing nonf iction texts right off the bat . The challenge when teaching this unit is to make sure that you are not simply giving students another month to write informa- tional books, but that you are also ramping up the level of their informational writing . You will want to be sure that students enter this school year realizing that the expecta- tion is not just that they dutifully f ill up the pages of their booklets with facts that they know, but that instead, the expectation is that they actively, purposefully, work toward making their writing better and better . You will want to acknowledge the all-about and expert books that your students wrote in kindergarten and f irst grade, while at the same time letting them know that as second-grade writers they will be learning how to make these books even stronger . The writing that students were able to do at the

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© 2011 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.

start of the school year—say, in their f irst on-demand informational assessment—is the starting line, and each week, each month, there should be visible evidence that each student’s writing has improved . It is especially important that now, at the very start of the year, each child sees his or her writing getting better, day by day, week by week, because if students start the year seeing themselves outgrowing their old selves in ways that are visible, then they’ll develop expectations for that growth curve being the status quo for second grade .

You might, for example, begin this portion of the unit by telling your students that you know they are accustomed to working with writing partners, but that you wanted to teach them that grown-up writers actually use partners in a really special way, and you thought maybe, just maybe, there would be a few second graders who might be ready to use partners like the professional writers do . Of course, your entire class will be on their knees, insisting they’re game for this, and with that drumroll you could point out the truth, which is that grown-up writers look hard to f ind writing partners who help us become better as writers . We know that a writing partner who isn’t just a “pat on the head, ‘Good Girl’” partner, but who says, “You can do even more than this!” and helps us to do that, is worth a million .

It is important to recognize why writing partnerships are important, and you will want your second-grade writers to get this sense too . Partners can make pieces of writing—and writers—better . To make sure this happens, you will want to give your students strategies that allow their work in partnerships to pay off . You can teach students to take the responsibility of listening to each other’s work (and their own work) really seriously . Perhaps in partnership meetings, the writer will read aloud his or her writing, while the partner carefully listens and looks on with the reader, offering suggestions to improve readability . You might, for instance, illustrate what you don’t expect partners to do by showing what a disinterested partner might look like (lean- ing back in his or her chair, eyes scanning the room, yawning) and contrast that with a pantomime of an interested partner .

In this part, you will not only teach behaviors that allow for effective partnerships, but you will also want to teach strategies to help your writers lift the informational books they are writing . You will want to recognize what your children have already learned while writing all-about books in kindergarten and f irst grade, so that you are acknowledging how you expect so much more now that they are second grad- ers . Instead of teaching one way that partners can help one another to elaborate on a topic, you will want to teach your writers to ask questions to one another in order to prompt places where more elaboration is needed . This is a good time to teach second graders, that not only is it important to add more to their books, but as sophisticated, grown-up writers, it is even more important to be deliberate in choosing the places to elaborate . You might say, “Today I want to teach you how you don’t just need to add more to each section of your book just to say you did, but instead you can use your writing partner to help you f ind the parts in your book where you need to add more .”

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© 2011 by Lucy Calkins. Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH.