We worked on our word choice over the past two days. We looked at two samples of writing, one which mimicked some of the formulaic writing I read in our writing assessments and another without the transitions (and more voice). We had partner and whole group conversations about why a piece was or wasn't at standard. Kids talked about how one sounded like a robot, and didn't sound like me. They also talked about the word choice and description.
After showing kids a Wordle word cloud, we had similar conversations. More words, better description, larger cloud. I set kids loose to read an article called the Disappearing Dollar. They needed to pick a side of the debate (Dollar Coin or Dollar Bill), and then write about it. They used Wordle, and eventually posted on our discussion forum. The result? Great writing with voice and word choice. You could actually see a kid talking in a way that mimics their writing. They added details that gave you a mental picture of what they were writing about. Seeing them toggle between word cloud and writing was awesome.
The one downside was in their proofreading. Oh my goodness! I'm not sure if it was because they typed it first, or just weren't paying attention as well as they could have. Either way, their writing ended up lacking that attention to detail that they paid to their word choice.... but proofreading can be fixed. Word choice is far harder. We're making progress!
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