Presentational Writing Practice in the FLES Classroom

Last year I realized that I don't do a lot of writing in my room. I teach at a Title I school and while our scores are going up, we still need our students to be writing more. Writing in Spanish is a good way to get in more of the presentational mode and I use it as a way to reinforce L1 skills like punctuation and handwriting.

But how to do it?

1. Do group writes. Especially for younger students, start out by modeling how to write. Ask students to give you the sentences and you write them. Then let them come up and write the sentences.

2.  Have students partner write - One person has the whiteboard and marker but they have to listen to their partner as they dictate. Then they revise it together. My second graders loved this last year as they wrote animal riddles during our zoo unit. And it was great scaffolding for later when they wrote on their own at the end of the unit.

3. Whiteboards during our Hola time. We have a time where we practice our interpersonal conversations. Some of these times instead of orally practicing introducing ourselves and talking about what we like, we write our answers on whiteboards.

4. Make it fun. In our My Food Choices unit in second grade we take laminated place mats and write what we like and don't like on them. It takes what would be a boring activity using a worksheet into a fun activity because they are writing on the plate. Later we do the same thing when talking about school schedules and our favorite subjects. They write on a large laminated schedule.

5. Write on the tables - My fourth graders wrote descriptions of their friends using expo markers on my tables. Each table had a different adjective. Working with a partner they took turns writing who they knew that matched that description. They had a lot of fun and it was super low prep. Before my third graders did the notebook foldable below they did the same thing. Writing with a partner the names of their family members. Each table was a different person in the family.

6. Interactive notebooks - a lot of our activities in our interactive notebooks have the students writing. This activity in third grade, had students writing about where they lived and the members of their family.

7. Use social media - my students are too young to be on social media but Instagram on paper was a big hit right before Thanksgiving break. Some even asked if they could take a picture and post it to their real Instagram (I pretended not to notice they are about 4 years too young to have their own accounts...)

8. Lengua Lunes - Outside of class, as part of our morning show, students write the answer to a question and turn it in. On Tuesdays, someone is drawn and they get their name announced on the morning news show and get a pencil from our school counselor. If you don't have a morning show like I do you could use a bulletin board with a weekly question. Or put up butcher paper and have a Spanish graffiti wall. Just be sure to show and model to students how to use it appropriately.

So that's how I get my students writing more in class. What are some activities that you do in your classes to get in the presentational mode? Share in the comments below or on Twitter using the hashtag #earlylang!