Developing Socially

The Being a Writer program helps students develop a sense of responsibility for their own learning and behavior, empathy and motivation to help others, and a desire to understand and respect differences among people. In the classroom writing community, students work in pairs, in groups, and as a class to listen to and discuss writing, brainstorm ideas for writing, and share their writing with one another.

Methods for Building Relationships

Lessons at every grade level include:

• Structured partner work
• Using cooperative structures
• Using prompts to enhance discussions
• Discussing and solving problems
• Pair conferences

Building Common Values

Students develop democratic values:

• Respect
• Responsibility
• Fairness
• Caring
• Helpfulness
• Including everyone in work/discussions
• Incremental development of social skills

Incremental Development of Social Skills

The social skills that students learn early in the year, such as listening to others and taking turns, lay the foundation for the more sophisticated social skills they learn later in the year. Students develop in their social interactions as their academic work increases in complexity.

Social skills are taught when they are developmentally appropriate. In addition, skills that are formally taught in the primary grades are reviewed and integrated in subsequent grades.