Looking for a super power for teaching ELLs how to write? We've got great news. You don't need an expensive cape, superhuman strength or a magic wand. Shared and Interactive Writing are powerful tools for ALL students, but they are especially beneficial for students who are learning English. If you are not using Shared and Interactive Writing in your classroom, you'll be thrilled to know that these "super power" approaches do not require flashy materials, grand spaces, or extensive setups...and they can be executed successfully in a multitude of educational settings. Using Shared and Interactive Writing with ELLs looks a lot like it does with native English speakers, but with a few additional scaffolds.

Shared and Interactive Writing are tools teachers use to instruct children in the writing process. Building upon their observations about what children can already do, teachers coach students to record their thinking and experiences on the page, expanding their knowledge of English in the process. These experiences reinforce that writing has a purpose; it is a way to communicate thoughts and ideas to oneself and to others.

Although both Shared and Interactive Writing lessons involve the writing process, teachers approach each procedure with different goals in mind.

The goal of Shared Writing is reading. A process developed by Moira McKenzie, Shared Writing is a way for teachers and students to construct messages based on shared knowledge and experiences. Teachers elicit information and ideas from students. They help them organize and develop their thinking as they demonstrate how to record messages on paper. In the end, all participating students will be able to read the constructed text.

Teachers choose Shared Writing over Interactive Writing when they want to generate lengthy, or more complex, text in a shorter amount of time. Beginning writers record very slowly and often “forget” the messages they are writing. Shared Writing gives students a break from the physical act of writing, freeing them to expend their energy on the message and language of the text.

Shared Writing supports ELLs by:

• reinforcing and extending vocabulary and grammar structures
• developing comprehension of text through oral rehearsal and discussion
• providing physical demonstration of instructions and procedures
• providing a readable English text for all students 

When writing a story, for example, plan stopping places to reinforce comprehension through gestures or role play. Attach picture cards next to lines of text to cue the characters, setting, or problem in the story. When writing an evaluation or response, model facial expressions or place emojis in text to prompt emotion words and opinions. Create cloze texts to cue emotive vocabulary through context clues. And, in every lesson, point to keywords to build vocabulary knowledge and understanding.

In the experience pictured above, the class just completed an interactive read aloud of the The Three Billy Goats Gruff. During the reading, they annotated the text to show what the characters were thinking or feeling. Kim is using Shared Writing to record these text responses. As beginning language learners, these students have general language about the content (character names, emotions) and can speak in short phrases or simple sentences.

Teacher: (Pointing to the troll.) Who is this?
Students: (Shouting) The Troll!
Teacher: Yes! And the troll is very (making a mad face)...
Students: Mad!
Teacher: The troll is mad. Why is the troll mad?
Students: He no want goat on bridge. Go away!
Teacher: Yes! The goat is mad because he doesn't want the goat on the bridge.

The teacher has chosen Shared Writing in this instance to reinforce comprehension and expand the vocabulary and grammatical structures of the children. As the students negotiate the text, they repeatedly practice these structures orally. After the teacher scribes, the new learning will be reinforced as students read and revisit the text in the future.

POSSIBLE SHARED WRITING GOALS

• Reinforce content vocabulary
• Demonstrate order with transition words and phrases
• Use adjectives to describe an object
• Record a shared class experience, e.g. Field Trip
• Sequence events
• Create new story endings
• Write thank you notes and friendly letters

The goal of Interactive Writing is writing. Defined by McCarrier, Fountas, and Pinnell in Interactive Writing: How Language and Literacy Come Together, K-2, Interactive Writing is a “dynamic, collaborative literacy event in which children actively compose together, considering appropriate words, phrases, organization of text, and layout.” During Interactive Writing lessons, as in Shared Writing, teachers elicit information and ideas from students. However, during Interactive Writing lessons, children take on the role of writing apprentice. Teachers share the pen with a few students, guiding them as they record messages on the page.

Teachers choose Interactive Writing over Shared Writing when they want to teach students elements of the writing process, including the physical aspects of putting writing on paper. Teachers choose 1-2 memorable writing points to demonstrate and reinforce while the class composes a short piece of text. The class may revisit the text to build on the previous day's message.

Interactive Writing supports ELLs by:

• establishing word boundaries that may be difficult to distinguish when spoken
• providing immediate feedback and demonstration for writing attempts
• slowing the writing process and giving students additional "wait time" to negotiate new learning in English and in their home language(s)
• reinforcing what they know about letters, sounds and words in a variety of ways

During Interactive Writing, students can demonstrate their partial knowledge of letters through verbal or nonverbal means. Beginning writers, for example, may not yet be able to identify letters by their names, but can associate them with their sounds, locate them on an alphabet chart, or match them to keywords. Reinforce what they already know about the letter and add any new or partially known information (name, sound, word association). Prompt students to form letters on individual white boards while a volunteer writes on the chart.

In the Interactive Writing experience shown above, the teacher and students are writing an opinion about a folk tale read in class. The teacher chose Interactive Writing to reinforce the spellings of high frequency words to help students develop automaticity in writing. Small anchor charts are posted near the easel for quick student reference.

POSSIBLE INTERACTIVE WRITING GOALS

• Develop 1:1 correspondence
• Include spaces between words
• Hear and record sounds in words
• Recognize and record high frequency and sight words
• Reinforce content vocabulary
• Use inflectional endings
• Reinforce spelling patterns

Although Shared Writing and Interactive Writing have different procedures and goals, they can both be used to generate a single text. For example, teachers may scribe an introduction to an experiment, but share the pen when writing the steps.

In this mural, the teacher has used a combination of Shared and Interactive Writing to compare two versions of Goldilocks.  They used Shared Writing to generate the main idea. Interactive Writing was used to record the evidence.

Kindergarten students used Interactive Writing to create a mural of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.  The writing goals were beginning and ending sounds.  The teacher also wanted to reinforce word boundaries, so she used cut up sentence strip as labels to accentuate each word.

In this example, the class generated an original folk tale using the story structure and patterns in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The teacher used Shared Writing so the students could focus on the structure and content, without becoming overwhelmed with spelling and conventions.

Whichever writing strategies you choose, explicit writing instruction reinforces language and literacy skills for all students.