Katie Kapp is raw material and Jaymie Hardtarfer the finished product in Wakarusa Valley School's writing program.
Teachers at this Lawrence public school are disciples of a system of writing instruction they believe can transform Kapp and other first-grade scribes into compelling, insightful authors like sixth-grader Hardtarfer.
The state's narrative essay exam, given to fifth-graders, showed nearly half of Wakarusa Valley School students performed at the two highest levels. The school's students, including sixth-grader like Ryan Wingert, use a "Six Trait" model to help achieve writing success.
The system has moved Wakarusa Valley to the front of the district's writing class.
Wakarusa Valley Principal Linda Rogers said the goal was to make all of the school's 250 students fluent in narrative, expository, persuasive and technical writing by the time they move to junior high school.
"I believe with the program we have in place and the commitment by our teachers that we will have strong writers," Rogers said.
On the latest Kansas Writing Assessment, a statewide test given in 2000, no Lawrence school matched the capacity of Wakarusa Valley's students to deftly express themselves with pencil on paper.
The state's narrative essay exam, given to fifth-graders, showed nearly half of Wakarusa Valley's students performed at the advanced or proficient (two highest) levels. None of the school's students were in the lowest category, unsatisfactory.
"The key is that we have children writing every day," Rogers said. "We practice."
Writers made, not born
Perhaps the best part of Wakarusa Valley's approach is that success doesn't hinge on each child's parent or guardian being a great American novelist.
"In the past, teachers were taught that writers were born," said Phyllis LaRue, a sixth-grade teacher at Wakarusa Valley. "This program allows you to teach writing."
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The school's blueprint for writing success follows the Six Trait Analytic Writing Model. It's a national strategy used in the Lawrence district for about a decade, with varying degrees of success.
"We bought into it right away," LaRue said.
The traits:
Identifying an idea first for a story or composition is one of six traits that students use to help them write successfully. At center, sixth-grade teacher Phyllis LaRue reviews students story develpments with students from left Alisha Hague, Nick Birney, Dustin Hoyt, Corey Wendenland and Logan Keasling. Wakarusa Valley students work on writing exercises.
Idea (Clear message?)
Voice (Writer's feelings evident?)
Word choice (Reader understands words?)
Sentence fluency (Easy to read out loud?)
Organization (Beginning, middle, end?)
Convention (Punctuation, spelling accurate?)
These elements of good writing are placed before all students, whether in kindergarten or sixth grade.
How it works
During writing sessions in Kristin Hase's first-grade class, she tackles the six-trait model in subtle ways. She might refer to a trait while reading aloud to Kapp and her peers. Or Hase might ask students to think of synonyms of words commonly encountered in their books. She could ask students to tell her how the story started or how it ended.
Indeed, Kapp and other students in first grade don't refer to "conventions" when discussing first-grade writing assignments. But it's clear the traits are on Kapp's radar screen.
Two Wakarusa sixth-graders provide "peer editing" for each other during a classroom writing exercise.
"I've learned that if there is a period (in a sentence), the next word is a capital," Kapp said proudly.
In her daily journal, the first-grader is proud of her research story about spiders "Eight legs! They eat other bugs! Some are poisonous!" she said.
And Kapp is excited about a poem she dedicated to Hase. It says: "Love is good. I love you to the tree tops. I can hear your laughs a thousand miles away. I love you."
The philosophy of writing instruction remains consistent as students move through subsequent grades, but the rigor of the program significantly expands in third grade. It's not acceptable, for example, for third-graders to get lazy on word choice and use the same word many times.
The school 'language'
With teachers throughout the school relying on the same approach, Wakarusa Valley students develop a common language of writing.
Charlie Garzillo works on a writing exercise in her sixth-grade class at Wakarusa Valley. Wakarusa Valley Principal Linda Rogers says the school's goal is to make all the school's 250 students fluent in narrative, expository, persuasive and technical writing by the time they made the move to junior high school.
"We all call it 'voice' and 'sentence fluency' when talking about writing with students," Rogers said.
The six building blocks of writing become internalized by the time students reach LaRue's sixth-grade class.
In a way, Hardtarfer's years of training in writing at Wakarusa Valley parallels development of skills possessed by her father, Dan, a firefighter with Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical.
Both bring to bear techniques drawn from years of practice.
That surfaced in Hardtarfer's recent paper on the life-and-death nature of the firefighting profession. The story about her father was timely and compelling. It showed a maturity of perspective, especially when describing the less-appreciated child's view of how misleadingly routine the job of a firefighter can appear.
Hard work
"It doesn't seem like they're going out and risking their lives, but just going to a normal day at work," she wrote. "But can you imagine walking through flames ... for any other person?"
From left Wakarusa Valley sixth-graders Cory Wendenland, Eric Miller and Jaymie Hardtafer discuss ideas and the development of a composition. Teachers at this Lawrence public school are disciples of a system of writing instruction they believe can transform novice scribes in first grade into compelling, insightful authors by sixth-grade.
Significantly, traits at the core of Wakarusa Valley's writing program dovetail with the format of the state writing assessment. That exam will be given again in March, and Wakarusa Valley this month is putting students through a practice exam to identify anyone in need of extra tutoring.
But the most significant writing instruction will always occur during a span of years, not months.
"It's like a building process. You start in kindergarten and build every year," Hase said.
Kapp, 6, and Hardtarfer, 12, are at the beginning and end of the Wakarusa Valley writing continuum. Kapp still has her toes in shallow water. Hardtarfer is swimming laps at the deep end.
"Sometimes writing is hard," Hardtarfer said, "but I believe teachers who say writing is important to life. It might be a lifesaver."
At Wakarusa Valley School elements of good writing are placed before all students, whether in kindergarten or sixth grade. First-grader Danny Norman displays his spelling notebook that helps him track words to work on and use in his writing. Wakarusa Valley students work on writing exercises.
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