Janet Allen,

T H E WO R D M A R K E T | Adding Underwear
to Oureditor
Writing: Word Study in Writing Workshop
page

THE WORD MARKET

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Adding Underwear to Our Writing:

Word Study in Writing Workshop
Oh come on, who am I kidding? I cant even write one good sentence. So how am I ever going to write an entire fiveparagraph essay? Ms. Adolf might as well have asked me to ski down Mount Everest. . . backwards. . . blindfolded. . .
and butt naked.
Niagara Falls, or Does It? Henry Winkler and Lin Oliver

hen I worked on our states

writing assessment, I began to
understand the critical role of
word study in writing workshop. I found
many struggling readers were like Hank
Zipzer, the main character in Niagara Falls,
or Does It?butt naked when it came
time to write.
Regardless of the states writing prompt, they didnt
know enough words to communicate their ideas and
knowledge in writing. Even our most adept readers
were challenged to find words to communicate effectively when the prompt was based on content
knowledge that required a specialized vocabulary.
Therefore, when I returned to my classroom and
implemented writing workshop, I considered helping my students build word banks of possibilities
one of the most important stages in workshop.

Word Banks for Writing

Assignments
The critical role of reading in writing has been well
established by researchers. In Kelly Gallaghers recent book, Reading Reasons: Motivational Mini-Lessons for Middle and High School, he reiterates that
connection: Voracious readers exhibit the same
signs when they write: complex sentence structure,

use of strong verbs, and evidence of a mature, nuanced vocabulary. Voracious reading creates word
shadings in our students vocabularies (2003, p. 68).
For struggling readers, writing is a double whammy
because strength in writing is predicated on strength
in reading. Supporting students who have a limited
reading background by developing word banks prior
to beginning their writing assignments is just the
step to get many writers started.
One of the most common writing choices in
my classroom was descriptive writing. Student writers often chose to use this mode in their response
journals, writing character analyses or descriptions,
and in memoir or autobiographical writing. Therefore, one of the living word walls in our classroom
was an alphabetized chart for words we collected
from reading, viewing, or conversation that highlighted effective descriptive words. Each time we
found a great descriptive word, we added the word
to our chart. As students were writing, these words
were available for them to use or as inspiration for
related words.

Word Banks for Academic/

Content Writing
When students are assigned academic writing in
their content classes, many experience an additional
layer of frustration: they lack reading experience,
they struggle as writers, and they have limited background knowledge of the content about which they

Voices from the Middle, Volume 11 Number 2, December 2003

Copyright 2003 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

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are being asked to write. In addition to increasing

students exposure to rich texts that would provide
sufficient background knowledge, content teachers
can also take time to ask student writers to collaborate on word possibilities for the writing assignment.
One of my favorite activities for this process is
the use of Exclusion Brainstorming (Blachowicz,
1986) by collaborative groups prior to beginning
their writing. The example in Figure 1 is from a
social studies classroom where students are writing
about catastrophic events in history. As a way to
model possibilities for students independent writing, the teacher has read an account of the
Hindenburg explosion from Harrison Powerss
book, Buried Alive: True Tales of Danger. As a way for
students to experience the writing for a specific purpose and audience, student groups are told they
should take on the writing role of a news reporter
after the event. They are then given a list of word
possibilities, asked to discuss words they would use
and those they would exclude in their article, and
then list new words that came out of their discussion. In this way, students can experience the impact of brainstorming related words prior to beginning academic writing.

When we provide the writing support of collaborative word banks, all of our students have the support they need to find the right word. After all,
we dont want to leave them out there feeling as
naked as Hank Zipzer when it is time for writing!

References
Blachowicz, D. L. Z. (1986). Making connections:
Alternatives to the vocabulary notebook. Journal of
Reading, 29, pp. 64349.
Gallagher, K. (2003). Reading reasons: Motivational
mini-lessons for middle and high school. Portland,
ME: Stenhouse.
Powers, H. (1983). The last moments of the
Hindenburg. In Buried alive: True tales of danger.
New Jersey: Watermill.
Winkler, H., & Oliver, L. (2003). Niagara falls, or does
it? New York: Grosset & Dunlap.

High-Utility Word Banks for

Interesting Language
In my experience, wall space devoted to language
collection is space well used in a classroom. In our
classroom, the walls are filled with words. Some
might find the word storm unsettling, but for the
student writers in my room, it is a place they visit
often. We collect interesting words every day as we
read together. A common way to end shared reading is to revisit our reading to see if there are interesting words there we want to remember. One wall
of the classroom is labeled Writers Toolbox: Words
Worth Remembering. At one time, the following
six categories of words were being built: Transition
Words; Words Easily Confused; Expository Writing Cue Words (cause/effect); Descriptive Words;
Words That Pack a Punch; and Tired Words.
Mark Twain once said, The difference between
the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

Figure 1. Sample prewriting brainstorming exercise

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