Encourage the Craziness: Word Vomit Writing

What's Going On

This week in 5th grade, we are wrapping up our fairy tale unit. Of course, we focus in on elements of a fairy tale, however, I also use this unit to review theme, setting, characters (protagonist & antagonist) and plot.  Of course, I also us this time to cover point of view, because who doesn't love a fractured fairy tale?  At the end of the unit, the students are to write their own fairy tale. These fairy tales are eventual published in our Fairy Tale Digest! (More about that coming later.)

The Process

When it finally comes time to write, I have the students start day one with a pre-writing story map.  It's nothing fancy, but allows me to know that the students have an idea of what they are going to be writing about, who their protagonist is, conflict, exc.  The next day...we word vomit! 

Encourage creativity

Before I even start the vomiting of words, I explain to my students the difference between our left and right brain.  After that brief conversation, we turn off our right side of our brain. My students are told to not worry about spelling, punctuation, or anything along those lines. (That's right brain stuff!) The other rule is you CANNOT stop writing.  I tell them, if you cannot think of anything else to write, you continue writing the last word you wrote until something pops in your brain.  We take one last quick look at the pre-writing graphic organizer, I set a timer for 5 minutes...AND THEY ARE OFF!

The "Clean-Up"

After the 5 minutes are up, the kids have two directions they can go.  First, finish writing the story.  Second, turn on the right brain and edit, I usually have them type the story after that.  (Personal Preference: I always find it is easier for revisions, peer-meetings and teacher meetings when everything is typed.)  After the 'first' clean up we work ourselves through the writing process.  

Why I Love It!

Obviously, this is just one example of how I use this tactic when getting my students to write.  I have had HUGE success with this in grades 4-6!  For whatever reason, they are hooked with the word 'vomit' and the sometimes friendly competition to get to the back page.  However, my top 3 favorite reasons are...

1. Even my most RELUCTANT writers will freely write at this time.
• Sometimes I have a competition on who can get the most pages or turn to the back of their paper first.
2. The excitement on how much they accomplished in 5 minutes! 
3. The AMAZING conversations after the writing time is up.
• "I took that story in a whole different direction."
• "I ended up talking a lot more about that then I thought I would!"