Interactive Writing
Overview
Interactive writing activities for young learners can include cooperative activities to practice their foundational writing skills and can support engagement with content knowledge as they write and draw to reflect upon what they have learned. Working together to create sentences and stories can foster Creativity and encourage learners to practice Critical Thinking as they co-create cohesive narratives. The social engagement fostered through these activities can increase students' Motivation, and with appropriate structure, peer discussion and feedback can improve students' Communication Skills. Educators can also use interactive writing activities and games in digital formats to help increase digital literacies and foster a sense of autonomy in learning.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch as these first-grade students participate in peer editing. For emergent writing, teacher supervision and modeling can help structure these activities for maximum benefit.
Design It into Your Product
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Cooperative Learning Strategies
As learners work together to solve problems, they learn new strategies and practice Communication skills as they express their academic thinking.
Flexible grouping is a classroom practice that temporarily places students together in given groups to work together, with the purpose of achieving a given learning goal or activity.
Gallery walks are ways of showcasing content and materials as multiple “exhibitions” for students to view and interact with as part of larger learning goals.
Respectful redirection, or error correction, outlines a clear and concise way that educators can provide feedback on behaviors that need immediate correction, in a positive manner.
