Last year, I had a student (let’s call her “Alex”) who had trouble with her writing. And by writing, I mean her script; the way she put words on the page. Her writing was unlike anything I had seen before. When she wrote the word “huge”, she wrote it with a HUGE font. Instead of one exclamation point, she would use five, six, seven in its place. When she composed in the computer, her writing would not only be of different types, but different colors as well. I thought this made sense for children just learning their letters, but for a twelve year old? I kept trying to get her to stop writing this way. “Mature writers use the lines to help them make letters,” I’d say. And I’d bemoan the terrible state of writing today. How can I teach them to be good writers AND teach them to write?

I was missing the point. At two different conferences this summer, I heard the same thing: Kids write this way-wait for it-
Because they’re kids.

They use five exclamation points when one (or none!) will do. They use different color fonts. They use pictures and words together. And on top of all that, they end stories with ” and it was all a dream”. They aren’t writers, at least not yet. They are student writers. They are learning the craft. Next year, I want to separate writing from publishing. More than that, I want to separate the kinds of publishing they are aiming to do. The higher the level of publishing, the more I (or some other adult) take over as editor.

The chart above helped me think this through.

Level 1 publishing is for  students’ self-publishing. This “published” work could  stay in their writing book, or onto their digital writing book/ blog. The student herself is the main audience for this kind of writing. Student editors can help with this writing, but whether or not they follow the rules of writing is up to them. The vast majority of student writing will live here.

Level 2 writing is published outside of the room. It goes on the walls outside of my room. It goes on the class site. It is the writing that students edit, and I edit. And it is the writing that I assess for traits, or qualities of writing.

Level 3 is the highest level. Writing for contests, for magazines and journals has me or someone else as editor- like writers do. It may not be writing that I assess, since I, or some adult have moved from making suggestions to giving advice about the writing.

Not all writing is equal, and not everything need be “published” in the same way. More writing on the page will, I believe, lead to more selective writers. I can embrace that fact that they are student writers and let them try different fonts, work with different sizes, and even craft stories that end with them main character waking up from a dream. After all, they’re kids.

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