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Our daily Writer's Workshop time described here.

 

A simple change we've made this year:

I've always had children respond in writing in every subject.  Usually on post-its or index cards.  A lady that taught our back-to-school Professional Development changed all this by suggesting...drawing a line. 

Why didn't I think of that?

For example, a child could write a response using a sentence frame, DRAW A LINE, and take a practice spelling test. Or...

a child could write a Somebody/wanted/but/so (my favorite fiction main-idea frame) DRAW A LINE and still have plenty of room to write about scaring his brother on a camping trip.  After Christmas, I become extremely picky about random uppercase letters and spelling word wall words correctly.  I circle mistakes and leave the journal on their desk for first-thing-in-the-morning fixing.  Finally...

a child could list three places a character hid in a story, then NOT draw a line because she didn't want to.  She apologetically explained why.  The line bothers her so close under her writing.
Since it was the Friday before Spring Break, we drew first using stencils, then wrote our sentences.  You could've heard a pin drop for 20 minutes.  They worked so hard.

It takes a lot of early in the year prompting for the kiddos that write a little then randomly skip four lines, but they get the hang of it.  I love having everything in one handy place.