Blogs “If you can read everything your students write, you’re not assigning enough writing”- Doug Fisher.
Teachers tend to think about building fluency in terms of reading, but now more than ever, teachers should be helping their students build writing fluency as well. Readers who don’t read fluently devote much of their cognitive energy to decoding individual words and phrases, making it difficult for them to focus on the meaning of what they read. Similarly, students lacking writing fluency devote lots of cognitive energy to forming individual words or basic sentence structures, making it harder for them to focus on conveying their thoughts and feelings effectively.
CCSS Writing Anchor Standard 10 addresses the importance of students writing routinely over extended and shorter time frames for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.  The PARCC assessment requires students to type at length on demand, constructing a response to a prompt that requires them to read and synthesize multiple documents including videos, articles, and graphs.  They’re also often argument prompts (see my last blog on the importance of argument writing).
Many teachers I’ve spoken to recently are nervous about these tasks, not just because they are cognitively demanding, but because they worry students won’t write fluently enough to succeed. Students may struggle to generate ideas about an unfamiliar topic, to organize their response, or to generate an entire essay quickly (and with minimal errors). They’ll have to do this without the usual scaffolding or encouragement.
In a recent PD, literacy expert Doug Fisher recommended a simple instructional routine to help address these concerns called Power Writing. Research shows that when combined with instruction, writing proficiency increases when writing volume increases. Power Writing should be used regularly to build writing fluency and stamina by having students generate as many words as they can on a given topic in a set period of time. While similar strategies exist, I like this approach for its versatility and usefulness as a formative assessment of both writing and content knowledge.
I’ll explain the simple procedure and then include a Q&A gleaned from teachers who’ve used this strategy successfully in the past to help you implement it in your classroom.
Step 1: Give students an important vocabulary term or question you’ve been addressing in your instruction and write it on the board.
Step 2: Instruct students to write (or type) “as much as they can, as well as they can” for 60 seconds. Have them always write in the same place (writers notebook, science notebook, etc. depending on class).
Step 3: At the end of 60 seconds, tell them “pencils up” and ask them to count the overall number of words and tally it in the margin. Have students circle the errors they noticed while rereading their writing.
Step 4: Have students repeat this procedure two more times, giving them a new related vocabulary word or relevant question each time.
Step 5: For each session have them graph the highest number of words they wrote in any one minute period. Have them set goals for the numbers of words they will write in any one-minute period next time.
Step 6: At least once a week, have them choose a previously written entry to revise and extend into a more formal explanatory or argumentative piece for homework.
Q&A
What should I do with the student errors?
Pay attention to errors students DON’T circle. Not circling it means they don’t realize it’s an error and need to be taught that skill. Skim the notebooks each week and look for patterns in errors to address in minilessons.
How much should I expect students to write per minute?
According to Doug Fisher, by the end of fourth grade, good writers can get as high as 40 words per minute. In 9th grade and beyond, many students remain the 40-45 word range, because they are using longer words and conveying more complex ideas. The important thing is growth, not hard and fast norms.
Should I subtract errors from their total?
I wouldn’t, particularly when you are starting out, as students may be worried about making errors and slow down. As time goes by, you can subtract for errors involving skills that have been extensively taught if you wish.
What if students get wise and start writing shorter words to get a higher total?
There is always someone trying to outsmart the system! As in reading fluency, emphasize that speed is only one component. The quality of writing and thinking also matters. If you require students to periodically revise their entries, they’ll realize that writing short, choppy words means more revision work in the long run.
Can I use this to give students practice with particular skills?
Yes. For instance, you can require a particular sentence structure or usage issue such as their, there and they’re you’ve been teaching. Your prompt can target generating a particular text structure, such as compare and contrast. You can also differentiate by adjusting the prompt for more capable writers, adding audience or genre elements. Just take these additional layers into account when judging growth as they may slow students down.
Do I have to read everything students write?
Absolutely not! Tell students they’re not writing for you to read it, they’re writing because writing is thinking. Skim entries once a week for patterns in errors. Target particular entries to read for a formative assessment of content knowledge.
Should I have students share their number of words or their entries?
Sure, but keep the emphasis on growth. You can also have students pick their favorite entry and read it to their partner, or pick an entry to revise together.
Now get your students writing!
The most important thing is to get students writing. What do you do to build writing fluency and stamina in your classroom? Have you tried this or a similar routine?
Learn more about the Power Writing strategy in Scaffolded Writing Instruction: Teaching Writing Within a Gradual Release Framework (Fisher & Frey, 2007)
