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The NNWP celebrates its Consultants who've created websites about teaching and writing:


Corbett's
Always Write
Website
(Grades K-12)


Jodie's
Start to Learn
Website
(Kindergarten)


Dena's
Write in the Middle
Website
(Grades 6-8)


Holly's
Making Mathematicians
Website
(Grades K-12)


Brian's
Learning is Messy
Blog
(Grades 4-6)


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and


NWP's Website

Writing Process: Response Resources
building a community of responders in your classroom of writers

Welcome to WritingFix's Response Resource Page! I am Campbell Valle, a middle school teacher and a Teacher Consultant for the Northern Nevada Writing Project.

Why response? With very few exceptions (such as diaries or some poetry), writing is a tool for communicating with others. How can students be expected to create something expressive and worthwhile if they never have an opportunity to share?

Unfortunately, however, in many classrooms, response is the most easily dismissed or forgotten stage of the writing process. Like me, you may have experienced disappointment or frustration with response in the classroom. Too often we have students conference with peers, often guided by a checklist, and see little application of the feedback in the revision stage. Final copies are identical to rough drafts.

In “Responders are Taught, Not Born,” Jay Simmons found that the solution to this problem is explicit instruction in response. Without instruction, students are likely to find mostly surface errors. With instruction, though, they point out a writer’s strengths and what can be done to address a paper’s weaknesses. When students respond, they spend more time truly thinking about the process of writing and what makes a piece worth reading. As a result, they not only help their peers, they also become better writers themselves!

Furthermore, in order to be effective responders, students must become part of a community of writers with a common vocabulary and goal. Community-building becomes both a means for, and benefit of, response!

On this page, I hope you will find useful tools for building this community of responders and helping students learn to respond in a variety of ways.

Want to participate in this developing WritingFix page? If you have a favorite original lesson or tool for teaching your students to respond better to each other's drafts that you would be willing to let us post here, we will send you one of the NNWP Print Publications in exchange for us being allowed to feature it. Contact us at webmaster@writingfix.com for details or to summarize a response technique/tool that you'd be willing to send us.

Looking for books that inspire student writing?


Click here to see our favorite books and links to lessons that use them!

On Campbell's Bookshelf...

Reviser's Toolbox by Barry Lane

This book has many fantastic ideas for revision and response, including a very helpful chapter on training students to be good critics.

Response Resources from the Classroom of Campbell Valle

Resources from the NNWP's Elementary Writing Guide

  • My Hats With this activity, students can visually process and share the differences between thinking as a reader and thinking as a writer. This will form a foundation for the types of response they will need to do.
  • Responding as a Writer With this activity, students consider their strong and weak traits before supporting one another as fellow writers.
  • New! Responding as a Reader This response sheet guides students to code one another’s work, giving insight into what a reader thinks about while reading a piece of writing. The “literature codes” refer to the following: predict, summarize, question, connect, visualize, and evaluate. The students can add their own codes in the blank spaces if desired.
  • Chez Response -- A Response Menu This is a fun way to differentiate instruction by giving students choice in their responses.  It is easy to use with descriptive writing but can possibly be used or adapted for other types as well.
  • New! Writing Conferences Guide This guide is one of the best ways I have found to facilitate meaningful conversation and response in a secondary classroom. It is truly a collaborative effort. Although I designed the format, the questions came from Barry Lane’s The Reviser’s Toolbox, NNWP’s Secondary Writing Guide, and my students’ feedback and suggestions!

More response ideas from Campbell coming soon!

In 1995, Teacher Consultants from the Northern Nevada Writing Project worked together to create the NNWP's first print guide for teachers: The Elementary Writing Guide. The Washoe County School District generously agreed to print 1500 copies of this 400-page resource to distribute among every elementary teacher in Northern Nevada's largest county.

In 2000, the EWG underwent a revision, which aligned the guide's original content to Nevada's new academic standards. The WCSD again agreed to generously pay for the re-printing and distribution of the new guide.

In 2007, the guide was printed for the last time. The rising price of paper inspired the NNWP to began posting the EWG's contents on-line here at WritingFix. Below, you will find two resources from the guide's response section for you to open, print and use. More will be coming.

  • Teaching the Process of Response This one-page elementary lesson can easily be adapted at any grade level to model and teach response.
  • New! Modeling Response Although this guide supports teachers in conducting one-on-one conferences with students, it can be used very effectively to model response with a whole class before releasing students to respond to one another’s writing.
  • Community Building Scavenger Hunt Using activities such as this will help break the ice and begin building relationships within your classroom.
  • New! Elementary Quick Response This simple activity facilitates both positive and constuctive response.

Response Ideas from other Classrooms & Teachers

Resources from the NNWP's Secondary Writing Guide:

These ideas come from the classrooms of WritingFix users and NNWP Teacher Consultants. We are looking for more! If you have an effective response tool that you'd be willing to share with us, please contact us for details. We'll send you one of the NNWP Print Publications as our way of saying thanks!

  • New! Peer Response Checklist Elementary writing coach, Julie Leimbach, developed this checklist which she shared with us!
  • New! Rubric Practice Elementary writing coach, Julie Leimbach, developed this rubric activity which she shared with us!

In 1998, Teacher Consultants from the Northern Nevada Writing Project worked together to create the NNWP's second print guide for teachers: The Secondary Writing Guide. The Washoe County School District generously agreed to print 500 copies of this 450-page resource to distribute among every secondary language arts teacher in Northern Nevada's largest county.

In 2004, the SWG underwent a revision, which aligned the guide's original content to Nevada's new academic standards. A generous grant from the Walter S Johnson Foundation paid for the revision and distribution of the new guide.

In 2007, the guide was printed for the last time. The rising price of paper inspired the NNWP to began posting the SWG's contents on-line here at WritingFix. Below, you will find four of the revision section's contents for you to use. More will be coming.
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