Power Up With Power Writing

What is Power Writing?

I was first introduced to Power Writing by my National Writing Project colleague, Gus Macuil. In a nutshell, Power Writing is a 3-7 minute long low-stakes writing activity that focuses on fast drafting. The goal is to get kids to shut down their inner editor or perfectionist, so they can quickly draft a writing piece, banishing the fear of the dreaded blank page. 

Here’s the basic Power Writing Routine:

1. Introduce a high-interest topic
2. Brainstorm Ideas (optional)
3. Timed Writing (3-7 minutes)
4. Count How Many Words You Wrote
5. Share Out (optional)

With this activity, we present kids with a high-interest writing topic they can engage with, then challenge them to write as many words as they can before the timer goes off. The student with the highest word count earns the prize of the day, which might be a piece of candy, some class cash, or any other prize they might covet.

Unlike timed multiplication tests that can cause anxiety, Power Writing tends to bring out the competitive nature within students, with each student vying for the top word count . . . and the prize. Over time, you’ll notice that the word counts get progressively higher and the writing gradually gets better. 

Most of my kids will generate close to a full page of text within 7 minutes. This week, my top writer (a 4th grader) managed to write 187 words within the 7-minute time period. I even had my most trust-worthy 5th grader check his word count to be sure. 

When Should You Do Power Writing?

Power Writing comes in handy at the beginning of the school year or after school breaks because it establishes your routines and expectations for writing production. 

This activity can be done as a 3-5 minute daily writing warm-up, or done less frequently, like on a weekly basis, or on a random basis. 

Choose & Present An Interesting Writing Topic

Oftentimes the writing prompts embedded in our ELA curriculum are, quite frankly, boring for students. Nobody really wants to write another summary of a story, or write another RACE paragraph. As far as I am concerned, formulaic writing will never be the way to a student’s heart. 

Instead, pick a high-interest topic your students will actually want to write about. Kids love to write about:

1. Own life experiences (tap into memories)
2. Their strong opinions (tap into emotions)
3. Outlandish scenarios (tap into imagination and creative thinking)

Your prompt can also be a single word, a photo, or even a song or soundtrack. Whatever you choose, it has to inspire your class. Here are a few topics that I have used in my own 4/5 combo class this year: 

• Pizza
• Video Games
• School Lunch
• Dragons (my personal favorite)
• What if my teacher was an alien?
• Pets
• Purple 

Keep in mind when choosing your topic that this writing piece is intended to be low-stakes and fun. That means no teacher editing is allowed and it must remain ungraded. Usually my students write these writing pieces in their ELA or Writing journals, but on occasion I like to collect them for a quick formative assessment, so we’ll write on loose-leaf lined paper. More on that in a moment. 

Need help coming up with writing prompts? You’ll love these resources:

Brainstorm Ideas

Once I introduce the topic to my class, we begin to brainstorm ideas. We typically start with 1 minute of THINK TIME. No talking allowed. 

Then we move on to our brain dump. For the next 1 minute, everyone jots down as many ideas or keywords that they can to BUILD A WORD BANK. This is a mandatory step for me. Once we start writing, I encourage my students to cross off the words they actually use from their word bank. 

The first time you ever do Power Writing, I highly encourage you to model building a word bank by acting as scribe while your kids shout out the words. This helps the language learners, students with IEP’s, and reluctant writers learn how to generate ideas. It also helps you guide the types of words the kids come up with. 

If the writing prompt is dragons, the kids might first describe the features of a dragon, then begin to list other characters who could appear in a story with a dragon, before moving on to describing the setting. You can nudge the class toward identifying the conflicts and resolutions that might occur. 

If my class appears to be struggling to create their own word bank, I’ll add in 1 minute of PEER COLLABORATION TIME. During this short time period, kids can meet up with anyone they want to talk about the prompt, their word banks, and ideas. They can steal new words from their friends and add them to their own word banks. This ORAL REHEARSAL time allows kids to work through and rehearse what they think they want to say. Each time they rehearse, they naturally revise their ideas thinking of new ideas to incorporate when they actually begin their timed writing.

Sometimes I like to toss our VOCABULARY WORDS on the floor within arm’s reach. Each student will have 30 seconds to grab 1-3 words that they will use in their writing. Since I keep a cumulative pile of previously learned vocab words in a basket, it’s an easy way for me to review vocab words. It’s also a great way to get the class to think strategically about how to use these familiar words in an unfamiliar context. 

If you use the vocab word cards, please know that most kids won’t be thoughtful about the words they choose. It’s more of a grab and go scramble, which often leads to hilarious results. 

Timed Writing

Now it’s time for the timed writing. When you first start Power Writing, you’ll want to start with just 3-5 minutes of writing time. It’s enough time for kids to generate words on paper without getting overwhelmed. As your students become more comfortable with the routines and procedures, you can increase that time to 7-10 minutes. 

The only rule is that you can’t stop writing. You want to see their pencils moving at all times. 

Pro Tip: Use an actual timer. If you’re anything like me, trying to watch the clock, you’ll get sidetracked and suddenly 20 minutes will have gone by. 

But what if someone gets stuck and can’t think of what to say? If, despite all our brainstorming work, someone can’t get started, they can just write, “I don’t know what to write about” over and over again. Eventually they’ll get tired of writing that and will begin to generate their own ideas. 

On occasion I have had a student write about how much they hate writing, or hate the assignment, or even hate me. It’s cool. No worries. Anything goes! 

But what if a student doesn’t like my writing prompt and wants to write about something else? No problem. The only goal is to get words on paper. If a student is preoccupied by the fight they had that morning with their sibling, or has a story they’re dying to tell, let them write about whatever they want. The prompt is an option. That’s all.  

Remember, during this writing time, all we’re trying to do is build writing fluency. We’re not too concerned with what words they actually write. Anything goes! 

Pro Tip: Turn on mood music while everyone writes, but keep the volume somewhat low. Silence can make writing even harder. 

So what is the teacher doing while the kids are writing? Writing! The kids need to see you as a writer too. Writing alongside your class is a great way to bond and be vulnerable. It’s also a great time to model good writing. 

If and when I do write with my class, which I’ll admit isn’t every single Power Writing session, I love to do a “Beat the Teacher’s Word Count” challenge. The kids LOVE writing more than I do and they really enjoy hearing my writing piece, especially when I am transparent about what edits and revisions I would make to my own writing. 

Word Count

Time’s Up! When the timer goes off, I have all of my students drop their pencils on the ground. This prevents anyone from cheating and continuing to write after time’s up. 

Now we all count how many words we wrote. 

When we’re done counting, I personally like to have the kids pick up their pencil again and write their word count at the top of their page and circle it. 

If time permits, you can have your students use MAGIC HEADPHONES to reread their own work. Each student plugs their ears then reads their own writing aloud. This helps keep the volume low and lets kids focus on just their own writing piece. Reading your writing out loud is typically the first step of the revision process and a good habit to get in. I usually allow my kids to fix any mistakes they catch, but they can’t add any new words to their writing. 

When done, we stand up. 

Share Out

This is my favorite part of Power Writing. It’s time to reveal our word counts and share our writing with each other. Here’s how it works in my classroom.

Once everyone is standing, I say, “If you wrote at least 25 words, stay standing.” Anyone who wrote less than that sits. As the teacher, I take note of which kids struggled to get words on the page. These are kids I might need to help out next time. 

Then I call out the next word count, “If you wrote at least 50 words or more, stay standing.” I keep going, in small increments until most students are sitting and I’m left with the 3-5 kids with the highest word count. 

Then I’ll call on each of my remaining students to announce their word count. The kid with the highest word count gets the prize.I usually keep small pieces of candy to give kids (if I don’t eat it all first!), or I’ll give out class coins, a new pencil or whiteboard marker. 

While I like tangible items, you can always give a prize that isn’t tangible. What the prize is doesn’t really matter as long as it’s something the rest of the class wants. 

• Be line leader. 
• Pick the PE activity. 
• Sit on the rolling chair. 
• A class cheer. 

Now the class has a word target to try to hit, a person to beat, and a prize they desperately want to win. This all taps into students’ natural competitive nature. 

If you have enough time for Author’s Chair, the winner can read their writing aloud to the class. If you’ve written something during that time, read yours aloud to the class too. Trust me, they’ll love it. 

Reflect

While this step is optional, it is important for kids to reflect on their own writing progress. Here are a few ideas for you.

Students can track their word counts on a graph, which will allow them to visually see their growth over time. This is a great way to empower students and encourage them to improve.

Students can jot down a personal Glow & Grow: something they are proud of and something they want to do better on next time.

Students can spend 1-2 minutes revising their work.  I’d recommend you give students something specific to revise, such as capitalize names and the pronoun I or I’m. Or add a line of dialogue to the writing, or sensory details. Combine two short sentences into a compound sentence. Whatever revisions you want them to make, I’d recommend making it a skill you’ve already taught and want to practice. 

Formative Assessment Ideas

While Power Writing is designed to be a low-stakes writing activity, you can use it as a formative assessment. Take note of which kids struggled and had low word counts. When the winner read their writing, what did you notice? 

If you want, you can collect the writing pieces, not to be used as a grade, but to help you assess where your students’ skills are and what lessons they need next. 

I like to use each writing piece to look for the grammar skills I’ve recently taught. For example, I’ve spent a ton of time teaching kids about how to punctuate dialogue. After a storytelling Power Writing activity, I’ll collect and sort student writing into one of three categories:

1. Not yet using the skill (in this case dialogue with quotation marks)
2. Inconsistently using the skill (missing commas, sporadic attempts at dialogue)
3. Proficient (good to go!) 

When I’m done with my quick formative assessment, I’ll either return the papers or trash them. They are purely used to guide my instruction. 

Why You Need Power Teaching In Your Classroom

Let’s face it. Mastering the art of writing takes a long time. Kids can’t improve their skills if they don’t spend a lot of time practicing. There’s simply no way around that fact.

But when you incorporate low-stakes Power Writing prompts, writing time will become a fun, competitive game rather than hard work, which over time will reduce writing anxiety and help kids improve their own writing skills by building stamina and fluency.

Want to learn more? Here’s a quick video I found on Power Writing. There’s even a cute mantra that the kids can say.