This is the presentation delivered at the E TN Title One Conference in 2013. The presentation looks at three different strategies of asking questions to help students improve their writing. It also looks at suggestions in how to incorporate a writer's workshop method in the classroom.

1. The Importance of
Asking Questions
Keith Pruitt, Ed.S
www.woweducationalconsulting.com

2. Types of Writing in
Common Core State
Standards
Response to Literature
Process Writing

3. • Make as many words as
you can in one minute
from the following word.
• Pronunciation

4. Exemplar Rubric Text
Today before we had writing groups Mrs. John read us
a story about frogs. We had to write about frogs. We
had a tadpole in the science center. It has two back
legs and when it has two front legs its tail disappears
and it cannot eat when its mouth is changing. Then
the skin gets too little and the frogs pull off their skin
and they eat it. Some fo the frogs blow bubbles.
Frogs laid eggs that look like jelly and the fish eat
some but some hatch to tadpoles. It grows bigger and
bigger and bigger.

5. One of the strategies with
which we find success in
comprehension instruction is
the usage of questions.
May I suggest that asking
questions in writing will help
create better writers.

7. • Turn to a partner
• Write three questions
prompted by this picture
• These questions now
become the beginnings
of a narrative.

9. What We Think We Know
What We Learned

10. I Learned
Coast redwood
trees are the tallest
trees on earth.
Some redwood
trees are among
the oldest living
things on earth.
I Wondered?
The tallest is
reported to be 350
How tall is thefeet tall. That is
tallest
like
redwood? a 35 story
building.
The oldest
How old is the oldest tree lived
redwood
redwood tree about 2000
to be
reported to years old. That
be?
means it first took
root when Julius
Caesar ruled
Rome

11. A Method to Strengthen
Who Went
to the
Writing What did
store?
How did
store
you go?
you go to
We went to the store.
We bought some
clothes. We had fun.
What kind of
clothes did
you buy?
What was
there about
this that was
fun?
When did
you go to
the store?

12. Did you have the
Now We Have…down? What
top
What was it like
inside the store?
was the weather
like?
Carlos, Maria, and I went to the Wal-mart on Thursday
evening. Maria drove us in her Mazda convertible.
Carlos bought some new shirts to wear. Maria bought
a new dress. I bought a new pair of boots to wear to
work. We had a lot of fun at the Wal-mart. I like being
with my friends. We tell jokes and like being together.
Describe the shirts, dress
and boots. What color
were they?

13. By just asking
questions, you can flesh
out a very simple form
of writing to give it more
meat and build its
volume.

14. Considerations in Writing
• Write Often, Model Often, Release Often
• Use a learning progression in working with writing (James
Popham, 2007), building blocks
• Design a continuum of writing for assessment
(www.readingandwritingproject.com)
1. Use an on demand benchmark to begin measure
2. Compare to your continuum
3. Monitor their progress over time compared to the
continuum
4. End the year by an on demand piece and show the
progression
• Provide students with clear goals and effective feedback

15. In Process Writing:
1. Target the instruction- don’t try to
get all the lions out of the jungle the
first day
2. Offer constant feedback, but let the
children do the work (they don’t
learn from what you do, but what
they do)
3. Use a writers workshop model with
six trait writing