Unit of Study: Personal Narrative Writing. Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District Elementary Language Arts Department, Grades 2-5

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1 ` Unit of Study: Personal Narrative Writing Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District Elementary Language Arts Department, Grades 2-5 i

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE Purpose of This Document...iv Length of the Unit... iv Sequence of the Lessons... v The Role of the Read Aloud in the Personal Narrative Genre Study... v Writing Homework... v A Note About Writing Process Boards... v Format of the Lessons... vi Mid-Workshop Teaching Points... vi The Framework of the Personal Narrative Unit of Study...vii A Discussion of Genre... ix When a Student Says, I Have Nothing to Write About... x Anchor Charts... x MINI-LESSONS Setting the Stage- Introduction to Personal Narrative Writing Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Focusing Writing Around Objects/Artifacts 1 Thinking about the Elements of Narrative Stories Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Collecting Ideas by Thinking of People and Places Reading Mentor Texts through the Eyes of a Writer Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Collecting Ideas Using Small Moments Fabric of Depth Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting the Concept of Writing on a Focused Topic Photographs: The Story Behind the Picture Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting the Concept of Writing Deadlines Rereading the Notebook: Exploring the Idea of Small Moment Writing Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting Entries to Generate More Personal Narrative Writing Rereading the Notebook: Interviewing and Selecting a Topic that Says Something about You.. Mid-workshop Teaching Point: What I m Trying to Say Flowchart (Optional) Investigating Text Organizational Structures Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Considering Audience and Purpose Getting Right to the Story You Have to Tell Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting the Concept of Writing Proposals ii

3 Effective Leads Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Ways Authors Make Paragraphing Decisions Using Sensory Details Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Developing Characters (or Setting) Exploding a Moment Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Time Transitions Punctuation Dialogue: An Introduction Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Rereading with a Partner Using an Editing Checklist Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Using a Word Wall to Check Spelling Publishing and Celebrating Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Making a Record of Published Pieces APPENDICES Appendix A: Literature Suggestions...42 Appendix B: Conferring Points...43 Appendix C: Objects/ Artifacts Notebook Collection Appendix D: Revealing the Story Behind the Picture Appendix E: Pumpkin vs. Seed Idea Resources Appendix F: What I m Trying to Say (Flowchart) Appendix G: Text Organizational Structures Appendix H: Writing Proposal Form Appendix I: Some Purposes for Writing (Narrative) Appendix J: References iii

4 PREFACE PURPOSE OF THIS DOCUMENT: The Personal Narrative Unit of Study serves as a resource to help develop students awareness, understanding, and proficiency in writing about everyday life topics in a highly personal way. This unit of study provides a rich connection between what we read and what we write. The more students read, analyze, and discuss personal narratives before they write them, the better their writing will be. Within this unit, students will learn the unique strategies associated with crafting narrative texts by investigating a variety of exemplars, including teacher models, peer models, and published works. For this reason, teachers will need samples from their own writing notebooks as well as a number of narrative texts, including picture books, to teach this genre study (See Appendices). The Personal Narrative Unit of Study emphasizes the idea that learning to write is a cumulative process and that any new work that writers do will always stand on the shoulders of previous work. Hence, students will spend time revisiting existing entries in their notebooks as well as spending time developing new strategies for writing. The teacher launches the unit of study by celebrating narrative texts and raising the students expectations for what it means to write powerful personal narratives. The teacher and students spend time getting better acquainted with personal narrative writing by studying mentor texts. They make notes of things they notice about the ways that the texts are written. They think about the processes that writers use to craft narrative texts. As students begin collecting ideas for their own narrative writing, they are encouraged to draw upon familiar strategies for collecting ideas as well as apply newly acquired strategies that they have learned. After choosing a topic, students will write under the influence of the genre, writing in a way that meaningfully reflects their learning within this genre study. In the end, the students should feel an increased sense of accomplishment and understand that their writing identities are further developed through the stories that they hear and construct. While this publication is meant to be a resource for teachers that are implementing writing workshop, it can certainly be adapted to meet the unique needs of students from year to year and grade to grade. This document is meant to spark conversations about the order in which minilessons related to the personal narrative genre are presented to students and what those minilessons might look like in the context of the classroom. LENGTH OF THE UNIT: There are a total of 15 mini-lessons in this unit, which account for about 50% of the writing minilessons in the second six-weeks of school. The remaining mini-lessons are grade-level specific and should come from the language arts section of the Principal s Overview. Conventions mini-lessons should be integrated within the study and should address spelling, grammar and mechanics concepts that will be reinforced during the editing stage of the writing process. Typically, these mini-lessons are introduced once a week and the concepts are added to the ongoing editing checklist as applicable. iv

5 SEQUENCE OF THE LESSONS: Though the mini-lessons in this document are written in a progressive format in which some lessons depend upon those that come before them, slight alterations may be made to the sequence when these changes best suit the needs of the students. It is advised that teachers and administrators carefully read through this document in its entirety and plot out potential minilessons on a calendar for the second six-weeks of school. This can be accomplished during team planning sessions. THE ROLE OF READ ALOUD IN THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE GENRE STUDY: Often, young writers view personal narratives as bed-to-bed stories that begin when the writer awakes and ends when they fall asleep (Serafini, 2006). Students need to hear numerous examples of narratives texts being read aloud in order to become familiar to the nuances and unique characteristics of this genre. When beginning the study of personal narratives, it is important that you select engaging, focused, prototypical examples of first-person narrative texts in order to establish a working definition of the genre. First-person narrative picture books, short stories, and excerpts featuring a slice-of-life story line typically work best when introducing the genre. Ideally, the texts chosen would represent the personal narrative genre; however, when such texts are unavailable, teachers may occasionally choose a fictional story to share with the students, explaining that although the text is really fiction, it is written as a narrative and can therefore demonstrate the narrative craft. Teachers are strongly encouraged to share narrative texts in both reading and writing mini-lessons during the second six-weeks to facilitate seamless integration and repeated exposure to the genre. WRITING HOMEWORK: Several mini-lessons in this unit refer to writing homework and suggest that students collect ideas in their writing notebook. Homework policies should be discussed at the campus and agreed upon during team planning sessions. Homework policies should be consistent with those established during the first six-weeks. A NOTE ABOUT WRITING PROCESS BOARDS: Some teachers opt to have a writing process board in their classroom, such as the one depicted on page 78 of Guiding Readers & Writers by Fountas & Pinnell. Please note that during this unit of study, students will move through the project stages at different paces and would move their name to the appropriate stage on the chart throughout the unit. v

6 FORMAT OF THE LESSONS: Lessons in this unit are written using the format recommended by Lucy Calkins and other teacher researchers working at Teacher s College at Columbia University. More detailed information about the format of the mini-lesson can be found in Chapter 5 of The Art of Teaching Reading. Below, however, is a short checklist which describes the amount of time spent in each part of the minilesson, as well as a brief description of what should be happening during each portion. The Steps in a Mini-lesson Connect: 1-2 minutes Teaching: 5-6 minutes Active Engagement: 2-3 minutes Link: 1-2 minutes Connect I connected today's work with our ongoing work. I explicitly stated my teaching point. Teach I restated my teaching point. I told a personal or class story connected to the teaching point. I demonstrated by thinking aloud. I pointed out things students should have noticed. Active Involvement I asked students to be actively involved by turning and talking. I listened / observed / coached their active involvement. I shared an example of what I heard / observed. Link I restated the teaching point. I told students how what I had taught can be used in the future. Mid-Workshop Teaching Points: This is an opportunity for the teacher to check back in with students about halfway through the writing workshop time, after having conferred with several students after the mini-lesson. At this time, the teacher may extend the day s mini-lesson or go back and reteach, if it seems that the class has attempted the strategy and is having difficulties. Teachers may use the mid-workshop conference topic listed or choose one that best suits the needs of their class. vi

7 The Framework of the Personal Narrative Unit of Study Explanation of Phases This unit of study conforms to stages in the writing process detailed in Katie Wood Ray s book, The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (And They re All Hard Parts) and Katherine Bomer s Writing a Life. See information below for a more detailed description of each stage that students will be experiencing during this unit. Phase 1: Immersion - Students will be immersed in the genre of personal narrative writing. Students will explore attributes and qualities of the genre by investigating mentor texts (picture books and excerpts from book-length memoirs and personal narratives). In this phase, students will spend an extensive portion of time reading texts and gathering ideas for writing during their independent writing block. While teachers will naturally want to make examples of personal narrative and memoir writing available to students at the beginning of the unit of study, it is important for the class to read and explore model texts throughout the course of the entire unit of study. [TEKS 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D] Phase 2: Writing in a Writer s Notebook/Generating - Students will begin generating ideas for personal narrative writing inside of their writer s notebook in the form of lists, sketches, bits of remembered dialogue, description, events, episodes, and images. It is important that writers see this phase as a risk-free opportunity to think on the page without being bound to rules, structures, and consequences. [TEKS 2.14 A, 2.14B, 2.18A, 3.14A, 3.14 B, 3.18A, 4.15 A, 4.19A, 5.15 A, 5.19A] Phase 3: Project Planning - Students will have the opportunity to reread entries from their writer s notebook, looking for seed ideas that can be developed into focused personal narratives. Students will examine their ideas with a discerning eye, and will self-select topics for writing. Students may look for patterns and themes that are evident throughout their notebook. During this phase, students will also begin to envision how they want to organize their personal narratives and plan accordingly. Students will spend time in their notebooks making informal timelines, storyboards, or diagrams in preparation for drafting their personal narrative. These tools should be viewed only as temporary planning guides. Students should be aware that the organization may likely change during the revision process. [TEKS 2.14 C, 2.14 D, 3.14 C, 3.14D, 4.15 E, 4.15F, 5.15 E, 5.15 F] Phase 4: Drafting and Revising - Students will begin a first draft using materials collected during phase three. Throughout the drafting and revising phase, the teacher will reveal author s craft techniques and revision strategies through the mini-lessons. As students continue to draft their personal narratives, they will apply techniques and strategies to rework the structure, develop characters/scenes (as appropriate), and rearrange/delete portions of the text to create new versions of a draft. They will share their revised version with classmates and the teacher, getting feedback on what works and what needs fine tuning. [TEKS 2.18B, 2.18C, 3.18B, 3.18C, 4.19B, 4.19C, 4.19D, 5.19B, 5.19C, 5.19D] vii

8 Phase 5: Editing, Publishing, and Celebrating - Students will reread their final drafts, adding, changing, and fixing the surface features such as capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. A final, corrected copy might be typed or handwritten, illustrated or bound. Students will read their published personal narrative to an audience, pass it along in some printed form, or make their story public in some fashion. [TEKS 2.18D, 2.18E, 2.18F, 3.18 D, 3.18E, 3.18F, 4.19E, 4.19G, 4.19H, 4.19I, 5.19E, 5.19G, 5.19H, 5.19I] viii

9 Personal Narrative Unit of Study A Discussion of Genre Many people use the terms memoir and personal narrative interchangeably and confuse both with realistic fiction. Here are some working definitions of each genre: Personal Narratives are chronological stories about one s life. They often contain characters, a plot, and a setting. The author usually hails as the central character. The plot usually involves a problem that is solved, a tension that is resolved, or a significant change. In memoirs, authors try to say something important about themselves. Memoirs often contain one or more personal narratives, structured as lists rather than stories, and linked by some common thread or theme. For example a memoirist may share several vignettes from their life and state, My love of music made me who I am today. Memoirs always contain an element of reflection. Realistic fiction contains the elements of story. Certain elements of the text may or may not be true; either way, it unfolds as continuous events. The reader enters the world of the story, experiencing it as it happens. It is not easy to locate published examples of personal narratives written for children. Quite often by the time a personal narrative reaches the printing press, the author has usually developed it into a fictional story or a memoir. Because of the limited number of examples of published personal narrative texts for children, this unit of study will incorporate the use of fictional stories and memoirs as mentor texts as well as published personal narrative texts. (Adapted from Calkins,L. & Oxenhorn, A. (2003). Small Moments: Personal Narrative Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Firsthand Heinemann) ix

10 Personal Narrative Unit of Study When a Student Says, I Have Nothing to Write About Many teachers wonder what they might do for a student who says he/she has no memories or can t remember the details of what he/she is attempting to write. Here are several ideas for how to address this issue: 1. Trust the process. If we fill our classrooms with model texts, conversations, storytelling, and with at least one week of generating activities, most if not all, students will have something to write about. The power of a safe, stimulating writing community is usually enough to open up even the most reluctant writer. 2. Confer. In writing conferences, we can talk more personally with individual students to find out more about their particular barriers to writing. For some, the barrier might be emotional. For these students, a gentle reminder that they need not write about anything that feels unsafe should be enough to get them started. Other students might need validation, the reassurance that their ordinary or obscure topics can be used to develop a personal narrative. 3. Accept what the writers are able to do for now. Some students cannot or will not put their inner lives on the page. They may avoid writing about intense feelings of inferiority. They may be fearful of disclosing difficult home issues. There is no final publication, grade, or promotion worth causing a student to feel horrible about themselves or terrible about writing. We should never force a student to go to a place inside of themselves that they are not ready to meet. Personal Narrative Unit of Study Anchor Charts Anchor charts are living, breathing, organic documents that are co-constructed with your students. The anchor charts capture student learning and can be revisited continuously throughout the year. The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon the lessons that you teach. You will guide the development of these charts with your lessons (keeping writing standards in mind) but the language of these charts should be the language of the students. Sample anchor charts have been provided to help you think about some of the attributes, categories, and topics that could be recorded. These sample charts are intended to serve as a teacher tool and is not intended to be used verbatim. The language of these charts should represent the actual language of the students. (Adapted from Bomer, K. (2005). Writing a Life. Portsmouth, NH: Firsthand Heinemann) x

11 Setting the Stage: Introduction to Personal Narrative Writing Mini-Lesson Objective: Immersion Students will read mentor texts to unearth the characteristics and qualities of personal narrative writing. TEKS: 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers An engaging, prototypical example of a first-person narrative text Teacher s writing notebook ( See Mid-workshop Teaching Point) Student writing notebooks Published examples of personal writing for students to read during independent writing time Note to Teacher: Often, young writers view personal narratives as bed-to-bed stories that begin when the writer awakes and ends when they fall asleep (Serafini, 2006). When beginning the study of personal narratives, it is important to select engaging, focused, prototypical examples of first-person narrative texts in order to establish a working definition of the genre. First-person narrative picture books, short stories, and excerpts featuring a slice-of-life story line typically work best when introducing the genre. As you prepare for this lesson, flag specific places within the text where you will pause and make observations related to the genre s characteristics. Mini-Lesson Connect: Introduce the personal narrative study by telling the students that people often write about memories from their lives. Suggest reasons that people might have for recording their memories (i.e., people record memories so that they will not forget the stories from their lives; people record memories to leave behind a story for others to remember them by). Relate this concept to the ongoing work that the students have been doing in the writing workshop. Tell students that writers often record memories in the form of personal narrative stories in order to share something important about their own lives. Tell the students that over the next few weeks they will read, think about, and learn to write personal narrative stories. Teach: Tell students that personal narrative writing is a type of writing that says something about the author. Tell them that during today s mini-lesson, you will be reading aloud an example of a personal narrative story. Explain that together the class will work to construct a description/definition of personal narrative writing. On a blank piece of chart paper, write the question: What is Personal Narrative Writing? (This chart will be used throughout the unit as details 1

12 are added to it.) Ask students to consider the following questions as you read the text aloud: 1) What is being told/ shared in the story? 2) Who is telling the story? 3) Why does that matter? Read a few pages aloud from the story. Pause to share your thoughts and personal reflections about the story. During your read-aloud, focus on details that might help students better understand characteristics of personal narrative writing (i.e., the focus on family events, the use of descriptive language, the slice-of-life story line, the first-person voice, etc.) Record your observations on the anchor chart. Active Involvement: Continue reading aloud from the mentor text. Pause and invite students to share what they enjoy and what they notice about the story. After reading the story, ask the students to turn and talk about the things that they have noticed about this type of writing. Record the students observations on the anchor chart. Revisit the three original questions: 1) What is being told/shared? 2) Who is telling the story? 3) Why does that matter? Guide students to understand that in personal narrative writing, the author is the main character and (s)he is telling the story as only (s)he sees it. Add this detail to the anchor chart. Link: Praise the students for being able to think deeply about personal narrative stories. Inform students that instead of independently writing, they will read and discuss examples of personal narrative text during today s workshop time. Provide a wide assortment of personal narrative mentor texts for the students to explore. As they read, ask students to consider how their books fit the description of personal narrative writing. You may provide multiple copies of the same story to allow students to work in pairs or groups while reading and/or discussing the texts. Possible Conferring Questions: What is being told/shared? Who is telling the story? Why does that matter? What other things do you notice about this story? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Focusing Writing around Objects/Artifacts Writers, may I have your eyes and ears? I ve noticed that as I ve been conferring with you, many of you are noticing that writers sometimes build their memorable stories by focusing on an object or artifact. Is anyone else noticing that in their story? I think that we should add that to our anchor chart. We ve talked about using objects and artifacts as one way to collect ideas in our notebook. This is a wonderful way to get ideas for the stories from our lives. I want to show you how I recently started a new entry in my notebook, by taping and/or gluing different objects and artifacts (i.e., movie ticket stub, receipts, pictures, etc.) in my notebook. Notice how I ve written down personal narrative story possibilities next to these objects (See Appendix C for an example.) We will talk more about this concept during our share time. 2

13 Share: Draw all members of the class back together to discuss their observations. Add and/or modify descriptions on the anchor chart. Save the anchor chart for future lessons. Remind students of your mid-workshop teaching point focusing writing around objects and artifacts. Briefly show the students your notebook entry once more to remind them of how they can collect objects and artifacts in their notebooks to spark ideas for personal narrative writing. Explain that the writing homework this week will involve students taping/gluing objects and artifacts in their notebook that relate to a story that they want to share about themselves. Tell the students that you would like for them to include at least one photograph in the collection. Suggest that students quickly jot their story ideas near the objects after taping/gluing them into the notebook. Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon conversations that you and your students have in class. A sample anchor chart has been provided to help you think about topics and categories that could be recorded on the anchor chart. This is not a comprehensive list. Please choose and/or revise items to meet the needs of your students. What is Personal Narrative Writing? Writing that says something about the author tells a story about yourself and/or what you have done. (YOU are the author and the main character of the story.) tells the story as the you (the author) see(s) it. focuses on one important event, not your whole life. uses words like I and we (1 st person). sometimes records the exact words a character uses (dialogue or talking). 3

14 Thinking About the Elements of Narrative Stories Mini-Lesson Objective: Immersion Students will investigate qualities/attributes of narrative stories by reading with a writer s eye. TEKS: 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D Materials Needed: 3-Column chart paper and markers A familiar (previously-read) first-person narrative text Teacher s writing notebook (See Mid-workshop Teaching Point) Student writing notebooks Published examples of personal writing for students to read during independent writing time Connect: Mini-lesson Tell the students that in today s mini-lesson, they will engage in deep thinking about the elements of stories. Reassure the students that are already familiar the elements of a story from their reading. Tell them that as they think about the elements of stories, they will think about the texts in two different ways: first as readers and then as writers. Teach: Restate the teaching point. Remind the students that you will show them how to think about the elements of narrative stories both as readers and as writers. Create a 3-column chart with the following headings: 1) What We Expect As Readers, 2) Story Element, and 3) How This Helps Us as Writers. In the center-column of the chart, record the words Characters and Setting. Explain to the students that as the reader of the story, you expect that the writer will introduce you to the main characters of the story and share the story s setting (when and where the story takes place). Relate your discussion about characters and setting to a familiar first-person narrative story. Read a portion of the familiar text aloud showing the students how an author might introduce the characters and setting. Ask students to give a thumbs-up if they believe that most readers expect the author of a story to share who the main characters of the story are and when/where the story takes place. Record this detail in the left-column entitled What We Expect as a Reader. Relate this concept to writing. Share that as writers, it is helpful to know what elements readers expect to see in the writing. Tell students how knowing and being aware of the readers expectations can help them as a writer. Record your comments in the right-column entitled How This Helps Us as Writers. Active Involvement: Invite students to practice this strategy. Ask them to name the other story elements that they expect to encounter in a personal narrative. Record the story elements in the center column. Read-aloud an excerpt of the text where the writer establishes the story s problem. Ask students to turn and talk about the story element that was shared within the excerpt of text. Engage them in a conversation 4

15 about their expectations as a reader. Invite students to turn and talk about why sharing the story s problem is important to the reader. Record the students comments in the left-column entitled What We Expect as a Reader. Relate this concept to writing. Remind them that as writers, it is helpful to know what elements readers expect to see in the writing. Ask students to think about how knowing this information can help them as a writer. Record the students comments in the right-column entitled How This Helps Us as Writers. Link: Tell the students that the use of this strategy is transferable to other texts. Encourage students to continue to think deeply about the elements of stories, both as a reader and as a writer. Instead of writing during the independent writing block, students will spend this time reading texts and analyzing texts. Provide a wide assortment of personal narrative mentor texts for the students. You may provide multiple copies of the same story to allow students to work in pairs or groups while reading and/or discussing the texts. Conferring Questions: What do you know about stories? As a reader, what would you expect to see in this story? Why is that important to a reader? How does knowing this help you as a writer? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Collecting Ideas by Thinking of People and Places Writers, I want to teach you a strategy that I use when I can t figure out what to write. Sometimes when I get stuck, I think of a person who is very special to me or sometimes I think of a place that is very important to me. I write that person or place down in my notebook, and then I list small moments that I ve had with that person or small moments that occurred at that place. I only list the moments that I remember with crystal-clear clarity. Let me show you how I do this. (Model the process.) Now, I want you to take a moment to try this strategy in your notebook. (Add this strategy to the ongoing chart entitled Ideas for Notebooks from the Launching Writing Workshop Unit of Study.) Share: Draw all members of the class back together. Ask students to share the observations that they made as they read during the independent time. Engage students in a conversation about the elements of stories, their expectations as readers, and how knowing these expectations help them as writers. On the anchor chart, add details relating to other story elements. Remind students of their writing homework assignment for this week--taping/gluing objects and artifacts that relate to stories that they want to share about themselves. Invite one or two students to share entries related to this homework assignment. Remind students to include at least one photograph in the collection. Ask students to complete their Daily Log if it is not yet completed. 5

16 Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon the conversations that you and your students have in class. The sample chart below has been provided to help you think about some of the attributes that could be recorded. What We Expect as Readers Story Element How this Helps Us as Writers We expect to meet the main characters and find out when and where the story takes place. Characters and Setting We need to introduce the main character(s) of the story and share when and/or where the story takes place. Every story has a problem/conflict that sets all other events into motion. The problem can be a good or bad. We expect to learn about the problem early in the story. The events in the story give us more details about the problem and show how the main character tries to deal with the problem. The story events build upon one another. The story reaches the point where the character solves the problem. Usually there is one main event that helps him/her solve the problem. We expect the writer to say something to wrap-up the story and give the story a sense of completeness. Story Problem/Conflict Events Solution/Resolution Ending We need to introduce the problem/conflict in a way that sets other events into motion. Our events should focus on giving the reader more details about the problem and showing how the main character tries to deal with the problem. Our stories should reach a point where the problem gets solved. There might be one main event that leads to the problem getting solved. Our readers expect us to say something that will wrap-up the story and give the story a sense of completeness. 6

17 Reading Mentor Texts Through the Eyes of a Writer Mini-Lesson Objective: Immersion Students will investigate author s craft by reading with a writer s eye. TEKS: 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers An unfamiliar first-person narrative text Teacher s writing notebook entry (See Mid-workshop Teaching Point) Student writing notebooks Published examples of personal writing for students to read during independent writing time Note to Teacher: While this is the final formal lesson related to the immersion phase, students should remain immersed in mentor texts throughout the duration of the study. Mini-lesson Connect: Share the following quote from Cynthia Rylant: I learned how to write from writers. I didn t know any personally, but I read. Explain the quote. Tell the students that even published authors like Cynthia Rylant study the writing of other authors to create powerful writing. Tell students that you will be teaching them how to read mentor texts through the eyes of the writer that is reading mentor text to uncover the writing secrets of some of the best authors. Teach: Reiterate to the students that they can learn a great deal about writing just by reading. Tell students that writers sometimes read the work of other authors in order to learn more about author s craft. Explain that the term author s craft is used to describe the things that the writer has done well in his/her writing. Explain the concept of reading mentor texts through the eyes of a writer. Tell students that they can discover the author s craft by first reading the text as a reader and then reading as a writer. Explain that in order to use this strategy, the reader must first visualize, experience, and understand the story (reading the text as a reader) before he/she can analyze what the author has done (reading the text as a writer). Share the types of reflective questions that the reader might ask themselves while reading the text as a reader (What s happening in the story?) and then as a writer (What did this author do that I could do also in order to make my own writing more powerful?) Read a portion of a selected mentor text aloud to the students. Explicitly demonstrate how you first read the text as a reader and then as a writer. First, read aloud the text and point out the things that you notice as a reader. Reread the same piece 7

18 of text and share the things that you notice as a writer. Emphasize how your focus changes when you read with a writer s eye. Help students understand that reading with a writer s eye involves a shift from reading and comprehending/experiencing to reading and extrapolating pointers about good writing. Record your observation about author s craft on the ongoing anchor chart from lesson 1 entitled What is Personal Narrative Writing? Record these observations in phrases that represent writing tips or advice. Name the strategy that you have demonstrated and explain how to use this strategy so that students can see how it is transferable to texts. Active Involvement: Ask students to practice this strategy as they listen to another excerpt being read aloud. The students will first listen as readers (comprehending and experiencing the text), and then they will listen as writers (analyzing what the author has done). Remind students of questions that they might consider when reading the text as a reader and then as a writer. Ask students to share the things that they have noticed, and add these observations to the anchor chart. Remember to record these observations in phrases that represent writing tips or advice. Link: Remind the students that the strategy of reading with a writer s eye is transferable to other texts. Encourage students to continue to study texts with a writer s eye during today s workshop time. Instead of writing, students will spend this time reading texts and analyzing what authors of personal narrative texts do. Students will record their observations on sticky notes. Provide a wide assortment of personal narrative mentor texts for the students to read. You may provide multiple copies of the same story to allow students to work in pairs or groups while reading and/or discussing the texts. Conferring Questions/ Suggestions: What is happening in this story? As a writer, what do you like about this piece of writing? What is this author doing that you could also do in order to make your own writing more powerful? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Collecting Ideas Using Small Moments Writers, I m getting some very good ideas about the types of topics that would make good personal narrative writing. I m noticing that it s not the big stories about entire vacations that make good stories. I m noticing that it s the small everyday moments that make great stories. Are you noticing that? This is giving me lots of ideas for my notebook. I think that I m going to start a jot-list of those small everyday moments from my life. Let me show you. (Model the process.) Before you continue to read, take a moment to jot a few of the small, everyday moments inside of your notebook. 8

19 Share: Draw all member of the class back together. Ask them to sit with their partners and share how they used the strategy of reading mentor texts through the eyes of a writer. Ask students to share things that they noticed about narrative writing. Add additional personal narrative characteristics to the anchor chart. Invite one or two students to share entries related to the writing homework assignment for the week-- taping/gluing objects and artifacts that relate to stories that they want to share about themselves. Remind students to finish this homework assignment soon if they have not yet completed this entry. Remind students to include at least one photograph in the collection. Remind students to complete their Daily Log if it is not yet completed. Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon the texts that you and your students explore in class. The sample chart below has been provided to help you think about some of the attributes that could be recorded. What is Personal Narrative Writing? (continued) Writing that uses lots of details and description/ appeals to your five senses. is about a seemingly small episode yet it has big meaning for the writer. tells the story in such a way that the reader can almost experience it from start to finish (there is a sense that the story has a B-M-E) conveys strong feelings (often shows rather than tell about those feelings). 9

20 Fabric of Depth Mini-Lesson Objective(s): Idea Collection/Development Students will generate ideas for writing personal narratives. TEKS: 2.18A, 3.18A, 4.19 A, 5.19A Materials Needed: Small envelopes (the number should match the number of students in class) A minimum of 10 different patterns of- 4 X 4 inch fabric squares [Duplication is fine, but the patterned cloth will need to be repeated enough times to have at least the same number of cloth pieces as the number of students in the class. For example, the activity would require a total number of 25 pieces of cloth for 25 students.] Chart paper and markers Timer, bell, music or chime to pace the passing of the envelopes Teacher and student writing notebooks One envelope containing a fabric pattern not included in the rotation [SAMPLE used for demonstration and practice in mini-lesson] Lesson Preparation: Before the lesson, assign a number to each type of patterned cloth. Put each piece of the 4 X 4 inch patterned cloth into an envelope. Write the corresponding number on the outside of the envelope. If duplicate patterns are being used to accommodate the number of students in the class, then some envelopes will have the same number marked on the outside. Prior to teaching the lesson, use the process listed below to collect entries in your own writing notebook. Have 3-4 sample entries in your notebook prepared to share with students. Mini-Lesson Connect: Invite all students to come to the floor with their notebooks and a pencil. Explain to the students that the details from our lives create a large mental box of memories. Explain that today you will show them how to use fabric to help spark memories of special moments from their lives. Teach: Restate the teaching point. In this lesson, students will use fabric to spark memories. These memories will serve as a springboard for writing. Explain the process. Tell students that you have several numbered envelopes containing a fabric square inside each one. Explain to the students that these numbered envelopes will be rotated around the room. Explain that upon receiving an envelope, students will record the number of the envelope in their notebook. Tell the students that they will then open the envelope and remove the fabric square. Tell them they will be given a couple of minutes to look at the fabric square and write about a specific memory that comes to mind. Tell them that the memory does not have to be directly related to the fabric (only the writer 10

21 will truly know the exact connection). Emphasize that they should focus on exploring a single memory rather than creating a list of everything that could possibly be associated with the fabric. Demonstrate this process using one of the envelopes. Write the envelope number on the far left side of the chart paper. Remove one piece of fabric from the envelope. On the chart paper, spend about 1 ½ minutes writing freely about a specific memory comes to mind that they will have the opportunity to use the fabric squares to help them recall special moments after spending time looking at the fabric. Share your thinking with the students. Focus on exploring a single memory rather than creating a list of all the things that could possibly be associated with the fabric. Show the students how the memory does not have to be directly related to the images found on the fabric; only you truly know the exact connection to the fabric. Explain to the students that they will have the opportunity to use the fabric squares to help them recall interesting or special moments from their lives. Active Involvement: Ask students to date the next page within their writing notebooks. Invite all students to practice the strategy while sitting on the floor. For this practice round, the students will use the sample envelope (envelope containing a fabric pattern not included in the rotation). This envelope can be marked with the letter S for sample or be assigned a number that is not included in the rotation. Begin by holding up the envelope. Have the students write the envelope number (or letter) on their page. Reveal the piece of fabric by removing it from the envelope. Give the students a few minutes to freely write about a small moment from their lives that they associate with the pattern on the fabric. After a few minutes, ask the students to put their pencils down. Link: Remind the students that they can use fabric to help them think of special moments from their lives. The goal is for the fabric to spark memories and serve as a springboard for writing. Send students back to their seats. Tell students that you are about to distribute the envelopes. Ask students not to open the envelopes until they are directed to open them. Distribute the envelopes sequentially to allow the students to rotate the envelopes several times without repeating the fabric pattern. Begin the rotation by allowing students to spend two or three minutes with each envelope, depending on their needs. You may use a timer, bell, or other signal to pace the rotation. At the beginning of each exchange, remind students to record the envelope number before taking the fabric out of the envelope. Reassure students that it is okay if they did not complete the entry before time is called. Tell them that they will have the opportunity to revisit some of their entries later on in the workshop. Conferring Questions: How s it going? Tell me about this memory. How/why did you choose to explore it? What does it say about you? How might you tell this story in a way that no one else could? 11

22 Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting the Concept of Writing on a Focused Topic Once the students have recorded at least four small moment memories, pause to show the students your fabric of depth entries within the notebook. Demonstrate how you would go about rereading each of your ideas to select an entry to explore. Revisit the anchor chart: Finding a Great Idea from Your Notebook (from the Launching Writing Workshop Unit of Study). Focus the students attention on writing tip/strategy #4 -- writing a half of a page in the notebook. Circle the idea that you want to use. Spend a few moments in your notebook (or on chart paper) showing students how you go about writing a half of a page on that focused topic. Have the student reread each of their ideas and circle the idea that they are most interested in exploring within an extended piece of writing. Allow them to spend a few moments in their notebooks writing a half of a page on that focused topic. Share: Ask students to share with a partner the memory/idea that they circled. Ask them to share why they choose to write about the memory. Invite students to share entries related to the writing homework assignment for the week-- taping/gluing objects and artifacts that relate to stories that they want to share about themselves. Remind students to finish this homework assignment soon if they have not yet done so. Remind students to include at least one photograph in the collection. It is imperative that they bring the photograph for the next lesson. Remind students to complete their Daily Log if it is not yet completed. 12

23 Photographs: The Story Behind the Picture Mini-Lesson Objective: Idea Collection/Development Students will generate narrative story ideas using a photograph. TEKS: 2.18A, 3.18A, 4.19 A, 5.19A Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers A picture book that uses photographs to reveal moments in time Teacher example (See Appendix D.) Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Writing deadline calendars (monthly) Note to Teacher: Students will need to bring in photographs for this lesson. Please remind them of this homework task in the days prior to the lesson. The students may bring in scanned images of photographs as well. Alternatively, you may choose to collect candid photographs of your students during lunch, recess, and large group time in the days prior to the lesson. Connect: Mini-lesson Tell students that sometimes authors build stories around photographs. Sometimes the stories are personal memories sparked by connections made to the photographs. Sometimes the pictures provide the ideas for settings, characters, or events for stories. Share a significant photograph from a picture book that uses photographs to reveal moments in time. Some examples of such books include Bedhead by Margie Palatini and Family Pictures by Carmen Lomas Garza to name a few. Talk briefly about how the author develops the story around the idea of a photograph. You may give a brief synopsis of the story; however, it is not necessary to read the story aloud to the students. You simply want to introduce the students to the concept of using pictures to develop ideas for writing. Tell them that today you will show them how to build a story around a picture. Teach: Restate your teaching point. Demonstrate the process of developing a piece of writing around a photograph by sharing one of your own photographs. This might be the same photograph from the object/artifact collage. Begin by telling the student a short and obvious story about the photograph one that anyone could tell from looking at the picture. Tell the students that you realize that they might still have questions about this picture. Describe some of the types of questions that might still remain about your photograph. Tell the students that the picture, just like a simple retelling of any story, only holds part of the story. You, the writer, hold the other part and that is what is important for you to uncover in your writing. Begin making a t-chart with the 13

24 headings: 1) Obvious (External) and 2) Hidden (Internal). Record the more obvious (external) details related to your story on the left side of the T-chart. (See Appendix D for a student example.) Next, tell the students the hidden story behind the picture, a story that reveals what is really important about the picture. As you tell the story, make certain that you tell the students what happened right before and after the picture was taken. Share your internal thoughts, your inner dialogue, and details that couldn t be extracted just by looking at the picture. Record the hidden (internal) details on the right side of the t-chart. Explain that you have provided them with details that could not be discovered just by looking at the picture. Remind them that the picture, just like a simple retelling of any story, only holds part of the story. You, the writer, hold the other part and that is what is important for you to uncover in your writing. Name the strategy that you have demonstrated. Strategies for Investigating Stories behind Photographs Ask questions. Make a t-chart to tell about the obvious (external) details and the hidden (internal) details. Tell what happened right before and right after the picture was taken. You may choose to build a similar anchor chart to provide additional support to your students, or you may add similar writing tips to a previouslycreated anchor chart. Active Engagement: Allow the students to spend some time thinking about their pictures to try to find the deeper meaning. Ask them to reflect upon the moment or event represented in the picture. Allow students to talk about their pictures with a partner. Ask students to begin revealing the hidden story behind the picture. Have them engage in dialogue with a partner about both the obvious and the hidden stories behind their pictures. Link: Restate your teaching point. Tell the students that their pictures hold stories, waiting to burst onto the page. Send the students off to write in their notebooks. Students may record both the obvious and hidden stories on a T-chart that is similar to the External/Internal events T-chart or they may dive right in, rehearsing the story in their notebooks. Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting the Concept of Writing Deadlines Remind the students of the value of deadlines in the writing workshop. Distribute writing calendars. Ask students to place a star on the date when you expect all students to have finished publishing their personal narratives (approximately 3 weeks). Have students make note of holidays and planned disruptions to the writing workshop schedule. Guide students through the process of marking their calendars. Since students tend to over and/or underestimate deadlines, you may suggest a minimum number of days for each phase, but please allow individual students to slightly vary the time frames according to their own needs. Students should mark the days that they expect to spend on generating and developing ideas with an I or another decided upon code. Continue the process by marking days for project planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing. Invite 14

25 the students to briefly discuss their writing deadline calendars with a partner. Please note that slight variations in calendars might exist as students may be in different phases of the writing process during this unit. Conferring Suggestions/Questions: How s it going? Tell me the story behind your picture? What is the obvious story? What is the hidden story? What entry are you thinking of developing? What does that entry say about you? Can you share your writing deadline calendar with me? Let s take a peek at it to see how you ve budgeted your time. Note to Teacher: During this phase, you may find that you have some students who are ready to move on before you have completed the entire cycle of mini-lessons. You should not feel compelled to hold them back simply because you have not covered a particular mini-lesson. During the independent writing time, confer with these students to support their individual progress within the writing process. Meet the students needs through individualized conferences. Share: Ask students to sit in small groups of four to share successes/difficulties. Ask them to reflect upon the following questions: How did the pictures help you think of story ideas? Did any of the pictures spark connections and lead to writing personal narratives? What type of pictures work best? Did the talking about the pictures help? How? When might you use this strategy again? 15

26 Rereading the Notebook: Exploring the Idea of Small Moment Writing Mini-Lesson Objective(s): Idea Development Students will learn that writers have strategies for focusing their stories. TEKS: 2.19 E, 3.19E, 4.20 E, 5.20E Materials Needed: T-Chart Markers Minimum of 6 Pumpkin Idea and Seed Idea Cards (at least 3 of each) Writing notebooks Appendix E Lesson Preparation: Prepare the Pumpkin Idea and Seed Idea cards prior to class. The items recorded should be based on your students interests. An example has been provided in Appendix E. Mini-lesson Connection: Provide a rationale for the teaching point. Tell the students that when they think of a topic, sometimes the moments that they record are too big. For example, they may have a list of moments that contain items like my summer at the beach or my trip to Mexico. Explain that at this point, they still haven t discovered a moment that is small enough to create a strong piece of narrative writing. Tell them that you are going to share a bit of advice that will help them focus their writing. Teach: Explain the concept of pumpkin ideas and seed ideas. Pumpkin ideas are those ideas that are very broad in scope. These topics are typically very difficult to handle when writing a personal narrative. They are very heavy and hard to carry, like a large pumpkin. Pumpkin ideas would be those ideas that typically lend themselves to bed-to-bed stories. In contrast, seed ideas are those ideas that are narrower in scope. They are easier to handle and typically make for better writing topics because they are more focused. Begin an anchor chart of the analogy. Demonstrate how to differentiate between broad topics and focused topics for writing. Show students how one might compare topics by using the pumpkin idea/seed idea analogy. Use a gesture of spreading your arms wide apart to represent the large scope of the pumpkin ideas. Use a gesture of pinching your thumb and index finger together to represent the narrow scope of these seed ideas. Share one example of each. It is usually best if there is a common thread between the 16

27 two topics. For example, choosing a topic about your entire day at Galveston beach would represent a pumpkin idea, while a focused topic like the moment when you found your lucky sand dollar at Galveston beach would represent a seed idea. These two topics have the common thread of Galveston beach. Explain that when thinking of topics to write about, selecting a time focus is important, too. Tell students that they should think about whether their story is about a weekend, a day, a few hours, or a few minutes. Explain that writing about short period of time is lot easier to handle than writing about an entire day or several hours. Pumpkin Idea Broad Difficult to Handle Creates bed-to-bed or list-like stories Seed Idea Narrow and Focused Easier to handle Usually makes better, more focused narrative writing. You may choose to build a similar anchor chart to provide additional support to your students. Examples My trip to Sea World Examples The terrifying thirty seconds of riding the Steel Eel rollercoaster at Sea World Point out the fact that pumpkin topics often have many seed story ideas inside of them. Show students how you might take a broad pumpkin idea and spend time in your notebook pulling out the seed stories and narrowing the topic (See Appendix E- Part II). Tell students that capturing small moments in the form of seed ideas typically lend to better, more focused narrative writing. Name the strategy that you have demonstrated and explain how using this thought process could be useful when attempting to focus ideas in writing. Active Involvement: Set children up to practice distinguishing between big topics (pumpkin ideas) and focused stories (seed ideas). Engage students in the process of comparing topics by using the pumpkin idea/seed idea cards that you have prepared. Direct the students to use the pumpkin and seed gestures as each card is discussed. Record the examples/results of the comparison on the anchor chart. Link: Rearticulate the strategy. Acknowledge that many of the students are ready to select topics to develop them into personal narratives. Ask students to reread their notebooks by looking over some of the entries in their notebooks, including any stories that they ve written. At the start of each entry, invite them to write P for pumpkin or S for seed. Students may work with a partner to do this. Then send students off to reread their notebooks. After identifying pumpkin and seed ideas within their own notebooks, ask students to find the entries that they are most interested in developing into personal narratives. Connect this process to your mini-lesson goal by asking them to reflect upon whether or not the topics that they are most interested in are narrowed and focused like the seed ideas or whether they are broad and heavy 17

28 like the pumpkin ideas. Urge students to spend time working to narrow topics that are too broad in their scope using a process similar to the one that you demonstrated in the mini-lesson. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What are you currently working on? Which notebook entries are you thinking of developing? Are they pumpkin or seed entries? If they are pumpkin entries, have you spent time working on narrowing the topic? Can I see? Can you share your writing deadline calendar with me? Let s take a peek at it to see how you ve budgeted your time. Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Revisiting Entries to Generate More Personal Narrative Writing Writers, can I have your eyes. We ve already learned lots of strategies for generating ideas for our narrative writing. For your writing homework last week, you collected lots of different objects that told a story about you. You know that writers sometime look at objects to jog memories. Today I wanted to remind you that as you reflect on possible topics, you might consider rehearsing a story related to one of these objects that were taped in your notebook. For example, right now I m looking in my notebook, and I see that I ve taped a receipt from Wal-Mart as an entry. Well, if I told you about my whole trip to Wal-Mart, that wouldn t make for a very good story. That s more of a pumpkin idea, and it would read more like a list than a story. But, if I focused on a seed idea related to the topic of Wal-Mart like the time when I thought that my car had been stolen from the Wal-Mart parking lot-- I think that I might have a better story. I can now go and rehearse this story step-by-step. So writers, spend a moment looking back at one of these objects to see if any memories related to those objects can be developed into focused story ideas. Share: Reconvene. Rally you children s enthusiasm for writing more and for a longer time by having them engage in goal-setting. Set up children to self-assess and reflect upon the day s work. Ask students to complete their Daily Log and to talk about their progress with a partner. Ask students to reflect upon their personal goals by revisiting their writing deadline calendars with their partners. 18

29 Rereading the Notebook: Interviewing and Selecting a Topic that Says Something about You Mini-Lesson Objective: Project Planning Students will reread their notebook and select a topic for their narrative pieces. TEKS: 2.19 E, 3.19E, 4.20 E, 5.20E Materials Needed: T-Chart Markers Two entries from the teacher s writing notebook (photocopied on a transparency or written on chart paper) Student writing notebooks Appendix F Lesson Preparation: Select two entries from your writing notebook. Record the entries on chart paper (or photocopy the entries onto a transparency). These entries should represent two entries that you are most interested in developing into a narrative. You will use the two entries to model and guide students through the process of asking questions to select a topic that says something about you. Mini-Lesson Connect: Tell students that one way that writers find great ideas from their notebooks is by interviewing a topic. Add this tip to the ongoing anchor chart: Finding a Great Idea from Your Notebook (from Launching the Writing Workshop: Choosing One Idea). Tell students that you are going to read through your notebook entries and interview the entries to find a topic that says something about you. Tell them that as you read through the entries you are going to ask yourself, What entries, lines, or phrases seem to really matter to me? What phrases seem to really be alive? What do these entries say about me? Teach: Tell students that writers might ask themselves questions to determine which entries say something about them as a person. Compare this process to the way that one person might ask questions of another person in an interview in order to find out more information about the individual. Tell students that you have made a list of some of the questions that have helped many of them during conferences. Explain that today, you will use these same questions to interview and select a topic to write about from your writing notebook. Display the anchor chart entitled Selecting a Topic That Says Something about You. Read through each of the entries in your notebook, mulling through each of them with a comment or two. Pause to ask yourself, What do these entries say about 19

30 me? Show the students how you would flag two entries that you were most interested in exploring. Display the first potential entry. Read the entry aloud, pausing to share your thoughts. Model the process of asking yourself the questions posted on the anchor chart. Show them how you respond to the questions in order discover what s really important about the topic. Use the questions posted on the anchor chart. Active Involvement: Display the second entry. Invite students to participate in the process. Ask the class to ask questions from the anchor chart in order to help you discover what is really important about the topic that you are considering. After considering each entry, choose the entry you feel most confident in developing. Explain to the students why you chose the entry. Use one of the reasons listed on the anchor chart entitled Selecting a Topic That Says Something about You. Finding a Great Idea from Your Notebook 5. Interview an entry. Reread your entries and ask yourself, What do these entries say about me? Link: Rearticulate the strategy. Tell students that today they will select one topic to develop into their personal narratives. Urge them to ask themselves the kinds of questions that are listed on the anchor chart. Remind them to reread their notebooks carefully to make sure that they are satisfied that they have chosen what is really important to them. Tell students that they should be prepared to discuss why the entry is important to them and how their experience with the topic will be different from anyone else s. Send students off to reread their notebooks and to find the entries that they are most interested in developing. Encourage students to begin rehearsing their story in their notebook or to begin drafting. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What does this entry say about you? What are you trying to tell the readers in your story? What do you want to say to the readers in your story? How might you tell this story in a way that no one else could? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: What I m Trying to Say Flowchart (Optional) Introduce the students to an organizational tool to help them think about the information that they will include in their stories. (See Appendix F.) Explain how this tool might be helpful in planning their narrative writing. Demonstrate how one might complete the flowchart. (See student example within Appendix F.) Tell students that you will later revisit the flowchart at and show them how the tool can be used to plan the other parts of their narrative pieces. 20

31 Share: Set up children to self-assess and reflect upon the day s work. Ask students record their name and topic choice on a sticky note, and then place the sticky note on the front of their notebooks. As the students come down to the floor, ask them to sit with their partners. The students will take turns interviewing one another about the selected topics using the questions that were recorded on the anchor chart. Ask students to submit the sticky note to you, either on a blank piece of chart paper or on the white board. Read aloud the various student topics. Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon the texts that you and your students explore in class. The sample chart below has been provided to help you think about some of the attributes that could be recorded. It is not advisable to use all of the samples. Please choose the ones that best fit the needs of your students. Selecting a Topic That Says Something About You Questions to Consider What does this entry say about me? Which part of the entry stands out? Why is this important to me? Why am I writing about this now? How is my experience with this topic different from someone else s? What am I really trying to say? What details would help me tell my story? Which part of my writing stands out? What s behind the story? Reasons to Select a Topic You think an entry is important and you have already written a lot. You realize that an entry is not your best writing, but you know you have more to say and would like to pursue it. You have a series of entries about a topic or idea that is important to you and you can envision combining the entries or parts of the entries into one piece. An entry is well-written, you like it a lot, and you think you can work on it to make it even better. You think readers will find the idea interesting. 21

32 Investigating Text Organizational Structures Mini-Lesson Objective: Project Planning Students will investigate text organizational structures that lend themselves to narrative writing. TEKS: 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D Materials Needed: Chart paper Markers A collection of familiar picture books illustrating various organizational patterns discussed (See Appendix G.) Teacher and student writing notebooks Lesson Preparation: This lesson is an introductory lesson on text structures. Within this lesson, students will investigate three different structural patterns commonly found within narratives: problem/solution, circular, and repetitive line. While these represent patterns that directly lend themselves to narrative writing, you may certainly modify and adjust them according to your students needs. Katie Wood Ray s book, Wondrous Words, and Gretchen Bernabei s book Reviving the Essay, are excellent professional resources with additional recommendations for narrative text structures. In preparation for the lesson, choose two or three familiar texts that illustrate each of the text organizational patterns that you intend to discuss. In this case, one set of texts should demonstrate the problem/solution pattern. The other set of texts should demonstrate the circular pattern, while the last set represents the repetitive line pattern. Be sure that these stories are familiar to the students. In this lesson, you will not reread, but rediscover the text by retelling the stories. Mini-Lesson Connect: Ask the students to bring their notebooks with them as they come to the floor. Remind students that they can learn a lot from professional writers. Tell them that one thing that writers need to think about is how to organize their pieces. They need to find the best way to tell their stories. Tell them that today, they will learn about some of the different ways that authors organize their stories. Teach: Restate your teaching point. Tell students that they are going to investigate some of the different ways that authors organize stories by looking through mentor texts. Remind students that they already know the basics that stories have a beginning, middle, and end. However, authors have many different ways of developing these basic parts. Tell them that they will look at a few ways that authors develop their stories. 22

33 Begin by showing students the cover of two or three familiar books with a similar text organizational structure. In this case, these books should demonstrate the problem/solution organizational pattern. Set a purpose for listening by asking the students to pay attention to similarities between the structures of the books as you talk about each story. Do not reread the text; instead retell each of the stories using explicit language in your retelling (i.e., In this story, (character) has a problem. His/her problem is. He solves the problem by.) As you retell the story, turn to pages within the text that highlight the problem and the solution of the story. Tell the students that you notice that in each of the stories, the main character has a problem that eventually gets solved. Tell students that this is one way that authors organize the information in their stories. Create an anchor chart entitled Ways that Authors Organize Texts. Below each description, draw the text organization diagrams on the anchor chart. (See Appendix G.) Repeat the process for the other two structures. Active Engagement: Ask the students to revisit the story topic that they recorded during the previous mini-lesson (sticky notes). Urge the students to think about which organizational structure might best support the story that they are trying to tell. Invite them to spend a few moments talking with their partner about possibilities for organizing their own stories. Link: Restate your teaching point. Encourage students to begin rehearsing their stories using one of the selected organizational structures. Invite them to spend time in their notebooks, sketching out how a particular organizational structure might be used to tell their stories. After considering their story s organizational structure, urge students to begin their drafts on notebook paper. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What mentors (or structures) are you thinking of using? What are you trying to tell the readers in your story? What do you want to say to the readers in your story? How might you tell this story in a way that no one else could? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Writing Proposals Remind students that now that a deadline has been set, it is important to begin developing plans for their narrative projects. Model the process of completing the top portion of the form with information about the topic, the genre, and the expected completion date. Suggest to the student that they include the title and author of any mentor texts that they might consider using as they develop their narrative piece. Show students how this information might be included in a proposal. Set a due date for the submission of all writing proposals. The proposal may be completed as homework. Have students record the proposal s due date on their writing deadline calendars. (See Appendix H.) 23

34 Share: Ask students to share their work with their partners, getting feedback on the organizational structures that they practiced during independent writing. After talking about the writing with their partners, ask them to make a tentative decision about the structure that they might use. Ask students to make note of the organizational structure that they prefer to use in writing this narrative piece. If you introduced students to the What I m Trying to Say flowchart in the previous lesson, then students may record their chosen organizational structure in the notes section of this flowchart. Tell students that you will later revisit the flowchart, and show them how the tool can be used to plan the other parts of their narrative pieces. Remind students to complete their Daily Writing Logs if they have not already done so. Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded below represent just a few of the text organizational structures that might be explored within this genre. This list is intended as a starting point. Please feel free to modify according to your students needs. The actual anchor chart should be based upon the texts that you and your students explore in class. The sample chart below has been provided to help you think about some of the attributes that could be recorded. Depictions of the diagrams and visuals related to each structure can be found in Appendix G. Ways Authors Organize Texts Problem/Solution: Tells about a problem that the main character faces and shows how the problem eventually gets solved (Diagram/Visual) Circular Story: The beginning and the ending of the story is the same. The story ends just where it began (going out the same door that you came in). (Diagram/Visual) Repetitive Line: Repeating a line or a phrase to tie together smaller scenes that make up the story (Diagram/Visual) 24

35 Getting Right to the Story You Have to Tell Mini-Lesson Objective: Drafting Students will learn strategies for rehearsing their stories in preparation for drafting. TEKS: 2.18B, 3.18B, 4.19B, 5.19B Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Appendix I Mini-lesson Connection: Praise students for selecting a topic that says something about them. Tell students that today they will learn to rehearse their stories by telling their oral story before putting it on paper. Teach: Share your selected topic. Remind students that you have selected this topic because you believe that this is a topic that says something about you. Demonstrate how you communicate the topic as a vivid and engaging oral story. As you tell your story, be sure to include the basic elements (characters, setting, and plot). Name the strategy that you have demonstrated, and explain to the students that rehearsing the story aloud helps the writer focus on the content of the story before recording the ideas on paper. Share situations of when implementing this strategy would be useful. After telling your story, jot it down on chart paper so that students are able to see the connection between the oral and the written record of the story. Demonstrate that your main priority is to record the oral story in written form. Show students that you are working arduously to put your thoughts on paper, and you are spending less time concerning yourself with the intricacies of spelling, grammar, usage, and mechanics. Tell them that their focus should be on getting right to the stories that they have to tell. Active Involvement: Invite students to reread the sticky note containing their selected topic. Give students a moment to begin visualizing their own narrative stories. Then ask the students to work with their partners by taking turns storytelling and revealing how they have pictured the story in their mind s eye. While partners are sharing, make note of individuals who are experiencing difficulty in telling their stories. Link: 25

36 Rearticulate the day s strategy, and send students off to record their stories on paper. Urge them to return to their writing spots quickly to begin/continue their drafts on notebook paper. Digging Deeper Rehearse the topic by telling someone else the entire story aloud. Be sure to include the basic parts of the story. After telling the story, jot the story on paper. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What are you trying to tell the readers in your story? Tell me the story. What happened? Why is this story important to you? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Audience and Purpose Revisit the anchor chart entitled Reasons to Write. Talk to students about other purposes for writing as they relate to personal narrative writing. These reasons might include: - to say something important about you and your life - to make someone laugh, cry, or connect with you - to remember or tell what happened - to share how you feel about someone or something Add these purposes to the anchor chart. Additional purposes for writing personal narratives can be found in Appendix I. Next, use the think aloud process to describe which purpose would be best for communicating your piece of writing. Continue to think aloud by discussing your audience - the individuals who might most enjoy reading your piece of writing. This could be a family member, a friend, or an organization. Remind the students that they are not writing just for the teacher. Model recording the audience and purpose on your piece of paper. Give students a few moments to consider the audience and purpose of their pieces. Share: Reconvene and debrief on the strategy that was used today. Remind students of situations when the storytelling strategy would be useful to them. Invite students to share their written stories with their original partners. In pairs, students will compare the written version with the oral retelling of the story. Set children up to self-assess and to set goals with partners. Remind students to complete their Daily Logs if they have not already done so. 26

37 Effective Leads Mini-Lesson Objective: Revising Students will revise their drafts by crafting effective leads. TEKS: 2.19D, 3.19D, 4.20D, 5.20D Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers Texts Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Mini-Lesson Connect: Ask the students to bring their notebooks with them as they come to the floor. Remind students that they can learn a lot from professional writers. Explain the concept of a lead the first line/first few lines of a piece of writing. Explain to the students why an interesting lead is important. Tell them that the lead sets the reader up for what they should expect from the piece. Connect this concept to their ongoing work in reading. Ask them to think of times that they have picked up a book and decided to read it after reading the lead. Then ask them to think of the times that they have decided not to read a book because the lead wasn t very interesting. Tell them that as writers, they should always think about writing an interesting lead that will make the reader want to continue reading their stories. Tell them that today, they will learn about some of the different ways that authors craft the leads to their stories. Teach: Restate your teaching point. Tell the students that you will give them the opportunity to judge whether or not an author has constructed an effective lead. Explain that you will read aloud the first few lines of various books. Tell the students to indicate whether or not they like the lead by showing a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. As students offer their opinion about the leads, form two piles one pile of stories with interesting leads and another pile of stories with uninteresting leads. Then guide students in a discussion about the books that they identified as having interesting or effective leads. The others will be discarded. If students have somewhat favorable feelings about a particular lead, add the book to the stack of books with effective leads. After separating the books into two piles, focus the students attention on the books containing leads that they found most interesting. Engage the students in a conversation about why they preferred the leads in these particular books. Ask the students, What did the author do well? How did (s)he begin this story? Start a three-column anchor chart with the headings: 1) Type of Lead, 2) Example from Mentor Text, and 3) Who s Tried it in Our Class. Discuss the various types of leads found in these books. It is important to record the title and author of the book with the 27

38 examples so that the students are able to revisit the mentor text. Leave the last column blank as students will eventually post their own attempts in recreating a type of lead. Anchor Chart Ideas: The items recorded on the class anchor chart should be based upon the texts that you and your students explore in class. The sample chart below has been provided to help you think about how the attributes might be recorded. Type of Lead Example from Mentor Text Who s Tried it in Our Class Sound Words (Onomatopoeia) Shuffle-shlump. Shuffle-shlump. Shuffle-shlump, shlumped bleary-eyed Oliver out of bed, down the hall, and into the bathroom. from Bedhead by Margie Palatini Active Involvement: Restate your teaching point. Tell the students that they will now have the opportunity to use one of the structures to write an interesting lead. Place students in groups of three. Give each group a sticky note or sentence strip. You may decide upon a topic for the students to practice with (i.e., getting lost, bullies, etc.) or assign a particular type of lead for the groups to mimic. Allow students to spend a few minutes recording a lead. Link: Rearticulate the day s strategy, and send students off to practice crafting an effective lead for the story that they are currently writing. Urge them to return to their writing spots quickly and to record their practice trials in their writing notebook before changing their drafts. Urge students to complete their drafts by the end of today s workshop. Conferring Questions: How s it going? How does your story begin? Are you considering revising this lead according to one of the types that we discussed today? If so, how might that look/sound? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Ways Author Make Paragraphing Decisions Writers, the stories that you are writing are very powerful ones. You are letting your words flow quickly on the page. That is great! However, we need to make sure that people s eyes don t fly right past our words. If we really want readers to take in our writing, we need to chunk or organize our writing into paragraphs. This is what published authors do. Paragraphs give readers a pausing point; it s a time for them to stop and think about what we ve just said. In general, we use new paragraphs when (Begin an anchor chart with some of the ideas shown on the following chart.) 28

39 When to Use Paragraphs in Narrative Writing new character comes along new event happens new idea is introduced new setting new person speaking time moves forward (or backward) a lot Let s take a peek at a piece of my writing. Here s what a new paragraph looks like. (Point to a paragraph found in text.) See mine here? Notice how I have indented the beginning of each paragraph. There isn t a rule that will tell me exactly where to begin a new paragraph, but I can use some of the tips that I ve recorded on this chart to help me. (Discuss your paragraphing decisions with your students.) As you write, remember to chunk your story into paragraphs. For now, mark a box (or draw a bracket) around the sentences that you think go in a chunk. When you publish the story, you can put remember to put them into paragraphs. Share: Invite students to share their revised leads. In pairs, students will compare the original version with their revised version. In addition, allow students to spend some time discussing ways that they chunked their writing into paragraphs using boxes or brackets. Set children up to self-assess and to set goals with partners. Remind students to complete their Daily Log if they have not done so. 29

40 Using Sensory Details Mini-Lesson Objective: Revising Students will revise their drafts by adding sensory details. TEKS: 2.18C, 3.18C, 4.19C, 5.19C Materials Needed: A familiar book that illustrates a strong use of sensory detail An excerpt from a familiar book highlighting the description of a memorable character (or setting) [See Mid-workshop Teaching Point.] Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Mini-lesson Connect: Remind students that narrative stories are filled with description and details. Explain that sometimes in the rush to talk about the people and the events in our stories, we sometimes forget to describe some of the other important details related to the story. Tell the students that sometimes authors use the five senses as an important tool for making these details come alive for the reader. Tell students that we call such details sensory detail. Reminds students that sensory details help create a movie in the reader s mind. Explain that today you will show them how authors use sensory details to make their writing come alive for the reader. Teach: Restate your teaching point. Tell students that good writers use their five senses sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound to bring the world of their stories to their readers. Invite the students to think of their five senses as tiny treasure chests that capture the world around them. Record these categories of sensory details on a large chart. Next, tell the students that you will read a portion of a picture book aloud to them. Tell them that you will be reading the book through the eyes of a writer. Explain that as you read the book aloud, you will be paying attention to which of the five senses the author uses in the writing. Read a section of the text aloud. Pause and share your thoughts on the author s use of sensory details. Record the sensory details on the anchor chart under the appropriate categories. Sensory Details See Smell Touch/Feel Hear Taste 30

41 Active Involvement: Tell the students that you will read another portion of a picture book aloud to them. Ask them to pay attention to which of the five senses the author uses in his/her writing. Read the text aloud. Ask student to turn and talk about which senses the author used to describe something. Listen in on the students conversations. Record the sensory details on the anchor chart under the appropriate categories. Repeat the process. Remind the students that writers include these types of details to help the reader better imagine what is happening in the story. Link: Rearticulate the day s strategy. Tell them that today you would like for them to reread their narrative pieces to determine if they have given the readers enough sensory details to create a movie in their minds. Ask them to consider which of the five senses they tend to use the most. Encourage them to see if they can vary the kinds of sensory description in their writing. Invite them to consider if the description makes the writing stronger and where they might consider inserting the sensory details into the text. Students may practice using sensory details in their notebooks before revising their drafts. Conferring Questions: - How s it going? - Can you show me a place in your writing where you have used sensory details? - Which of the five senses do you tend to use the most? - How might adding sensory details make your story even better? Where might you add those details? - Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Developing Memorable Characters (or Setting) Writer, can I have your eyes? In a good piece of writing, the characters come alive. We feel like we know them, we care about them, and they become part of who we are. If you want your readers to care about your characters, they have to be able to picture them. In a picture book, you can draw the characters, but in a story you have to include enough written description so that the reader can picture them. Let s revisit a very memorable character from a story that is familiar to us. Close your eyes while I read the description of this character. (Read aloud the excerpt that describes the memorable character.) Did you notice how the author used sensory details to describe this character? The author described the character in such a way that you could actually picture the character. All of you have stories with characters, and at least one of those characters is you. Today, I d like you to revisit the writing that you are working on and decide if you have given your reader enough of a description to picture the characters in your story. If not, spend some time in your notebook describing this character. Then ask yourself, Would the description make my writing stronger? Where would you insert it into my text? [Alternatively, a similar format may be used to help students focus on developing the setting of their story. Explain to students that sometimes in the rush to write about the people and the events in stories, we sometimes forget to describe the setting of the story. Tell the students that authors often use sensory details to describe the setting.] 31

42 Share: Invite students to share ways that they added sensory details to their writing. In pairs, students will compare the original version with the revised version. In addition, allow students to spend some time discussing ways that they used details to help develop characters or setting. Set children up to self-assess and to set goals with partners. Remind students to complete their Daily Log if they have not done so. 32

43 Exploding a Moment Mini-Lesson Objective: Revising Students will revise their drafts by slowing down an important moment in the story. TEKS: 2.18C, 3.18C, 4.19C, 5.19C Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Lesson Preparation: Create or find an example of a story that consists mainly of a list of undeveloped events. Be sure that the story contains an important or climactic event; however, the story should read in a skeletal way so that all the other events seem equally as important as the climactic event. Record the story on chart paper. Mini-lesson Connect: Remind students that they have been talking about ways to add details to their writing. Tell them that today they will learn how to make their writing more exciting or interesting by adding details to stretch an important moment in the story. Remind students that as writers, they want the readers to pay attention to the most exciting or interesting parts of their stories. Tell them that one way that writers get the readers to pay attention to the important parts of their stories is to slow down an interesting or important part of the story. Writers share details about that important part and stretch the moment as if it were happening in slow motion. Explain that this technique is called exploding a moment. Teach: Begin by sharing a short excerpt from a familiar text where the author has dramatized the events by using a sort of slow motion. Draw the students attention to the fact that the text reads as if the event were happening in slow motion. Next, draw the students attention to the list-like text that you recorded on chart paper. Highlight the difference between this text and the first text. After reading the list-like story aloud, tell the students that there is a definite hot spot or important moment in the list-like story. Tell them that although there is a very important moment in the writing, the reader can t easily spot it because the writer has treated all of these events, both important and unimportant, in the exact same way. Explain that because the writer has not spent time adding details to help the reader picture the event clearly, the significance of the important event is lost or unclear. Explain to the students that it is important not to rush through the important part or the hot spot. Tell them that this is one part that authors usually try to slow 33

44 down, stretch out, and explode with details. Explain to the student that authors have many ways of exploding a moment. Begin an anchor chart of some of the ways that an author might choose to explode a moment. Ways that Authors Explode a Moment Find a hot-spot then Use sensory details. Zoom in with sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and the sense of touch to make the reader experience the story. Add dialogue. Having the characters talk makes us feel like we re in the middle of the scene. Close your eyes and imagine yourself there. Then share the details, step-bystep and frame-by-frame. Go inside of the character. Share their inner thoughts and feelings. Active Involvement: Conduct the next part of the lesson as a shared writing experience. Ask the students to think about the story recorded on chart paper. Ask them to consider which part they believe to be the most important part of the story. Invite them to add details to explode the moment by using one of the strategies from the chart. Record the revised version on the chart paper. If time allows, you may choose to write a single skeletal sentence on chart paper, and allow students the opportunity to practice and apply this writing technique in their notebook. Link: Rearticulate the day s strategy. Ask students to think about their own writing. Ask them to reread their story to identify the important moment or the hot spot. Ask them to make sure that they haven t rushed through this part of the story. Ask them to spend some time in their notebooks exploding this moment by using one of the techniques recorded on the anchor chart. Conferring Questions: How s it going? Can you show me a place in your writing where you are thinking of exploding a moment? What technique would you use? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Time Transitions Writers, I want to share something with you. I ve noticed that some of you are having trouble getting to the important parts of your story. Sometimes I find that you are trying to tell everything, even some of the unimportant parts and your writing is getting lost in all of the clutter. Writers, when you write you don t have to include everything that happened between one time and another. For instance, let s say you are writing about building a sand castle on the beach. You might want the story to start when you excitedly packed the pails and towels in the car and end at the moment when placed your 34

45 flag on top of your amazing sand castle. You don t have to tell every little thing that happened in between the time when you started loading the car and the time when you finished the sandcastle. For instance you might not tell about everything that happened as you rode in the car to the beach. You would probably want to just tell about certain parts of that day. There would be some places that you would want to skip over. Today, I want to share with you some of the words or phrases that writers use to help them jump forward in time. These time order words act as signals that help the reader follow the story events. (Generate a list of phrases similar to the following ones on an anchor chart.) Words That Signal Time Changes In the morning Later that day (or afternoon) Later in the day After a while Finally These types of words allow you to skip ahead in time and leave things out of your writing that aren t important. Take a moment to reread what you ve already written. See if you ve included some less important events that you d prefer to leave out. If so, you may want to use one of these words or phrases to skip forward in time and to help the reader move from one story event to the next. Share: Invite students to share ways that they have exploded moments in their writing. In pairs, students will compare the original version with the revised version. In addition, allow students to spend some time discussing ways that they have used time transitions to skip ahead and leave out unimportant things. Ask students to evaluate their progress by reflecting upon their writing deadline calendar. 35

46 Punctuating Dialogue: An Introduction Mini-Lesson Objective: Editing Students will learn and apply strategies for punctuating dialogue in their drafts. TEKS: 2.15 D, 3.15B, 4.16B, 5.16B Materials Needed: Chart paper and markers Teacher s writing notebook entry Student writing notebooks Published examples of personal writing that contains dialogue for students to read during independent writing time Lesson Preparation: This lesson is intended as an introductory lesson to the concept of punctuating dialogue. This lesson is written to support teachers in grades 3-5. Subsequent convention lessons should focus on deepening the students understanding of the concept of punctuating dialogue. Mini-lesson Connect: Tell students that you have noticed that many of them have been experimenting with dialogue in their writing. They are recording the actual words that are coming out of the characters mouths. Celebrate their efforts. Tell them that you would like to help them better understand how to punctuate dialogue. Remind students that they can learn a lot from professional writers. Tell them that today, they will look to the experts for tips on how to best punctuate the dialogue in their writing. Teach: Tell students that you suspect that they already know some things about the ways that authors record dialogue or talking in their writing. After all, they are accustomed to reading dialogue in books, and they know that the author gives the reader signals to let him/her know when someone is talking. Show students examples of dialogue from a familiar book. Tell students that you notice several things about this example. Tell them that the first thing that you notice is that the author puts quotation marks before and after the words that the character says. These quotation marks act as a signal to let the reader know that someone is speaking. Record this information on the anchor chart. Explain that the quotation marks are used to capture the actual words that are coming out of the character s mouth. Tell them that you also notice that the author uses tags such as Mom said or Peter exclaimed to let the reader know who is talking. You may choose to use highlighting tape to draw the students attention to these subtleties. 36

47 Active Involvement: Tell students that now they are going to look closely at how different authors punctuate dialogue. Tell them that they will work in pairs to think more deeply about this concept. Distribute books to the students. Tell them that you want them to work with a partner and find a page in the book that teaches them something about how authors record dialogue - the actual words that come out of the characters mouths - and how authors use punctuation to show dialogue. Listen to the students conversations. Add the things that they notice onto the anchor chart. Link: Encourage the students to apply the idea in their own work. Acknowledge students who are already including dialogue in their stories. Ask students to the edit existing dialogue by adding punctuation to the writing. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What do you notice about the way that this author has punctuated dialogue? Can you see if there are places where your characters dialogue needs some type of punctuation? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Rereading with Your Writing Partner Writers, may I stop you for a moment. You are doing a great job of rereading your writing to find places that you can improve upon. Now, I want to teach you that after you ve looked over your writing carefully, you can reread your writing with your writing partner to make sure that your writing makes sense. All writers have a friend or buddy to help them think about their writing. Many times this writing partner can ask us questions like why, what, who, or when to help us make our writing clearer. This person acts as a second pair of eyes and ears, a person that can help us tell our stories in a clear way. Let me show you how this works. (Demonstrate. You may choose to record the steps that you take on chart paper.) So writers, before you begin publishing, I want you to read your stories to your writing partners. Pause after each paragraph and ask your partner if what you read makes sense. Writing partners, as you listen to each others stories, be prepared to ask questions like why, what, who, or when after each paragraph. These questions will help your partner add or change details to make the story clear. Today during the share session we will practice this. Share: Celebrate the students accomplishments. Ask students to sit with their writing partner to practice rereading their stories with a partner. Give each partner a few minutes to engage in the practice. Tell students not to be alarmed if they didn t get the opportunity to share their entire piece. Remind them that they are merely practicing the strategy. Invite students to share their partner s accomplishments for the day. Ways Authors Punctuate Dialogue They put quotation marks before and after the words that people say aloud. They indent every time a new person speaks. They capitalize the first word after the quotation mark. They put some type of punctuation (.,!?) inside of the quotation marks. 37

48 Using An Editing Checklist Mini-Lesson Objective: Editing Students will use an editing checklist to edit their narrative pieces. TEKS: 2.18 D, 3.18 D, 4.19 E, H, 5.19 E, H Materials Needed: Classroom editing checklist Student writing notebooks Student writing folders (with daily log, draft, & editing checklists) Teacher writing notebook Enlarged copy of teacher discovery draft (or former student s draft) Mini-Lesson Connect: Applaud students for their revising efforts and let them know that they are very close to publishing their projects. Remind students that you have been creating an editing checklist throughout the year and that they will be using this to help them check over their projects for any final corrections that need to be made. Teach: Emphasize the fact that writers use conventions in order to communicate their messages clearly. Tell students that conventions help the reader understand the ideas that the writer has written. Conventions allow the writer to tell their stories in a way that is clear and easy to understand. Tell students that they should take care to check for spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and usage before sending their writing out into the world. Remind them of their intended audience and purpose. Model how to use the ongoing editing checklist to make corrections to your draft. Active Engagement: Have students look through their drafts, focusing on just the first item on the editing checklist. Walk around and visit with the students. Next, regain students attention by asking them to return to the whole group. Choose a few student examples to share with the group as a whole. Link: Let students know that their job during the writing workshop today is to go back into their revised draft and edit it for the conventions that you ve been talking about in your mini-lessons. 38

49 Conferring Questions: How s it going? What kinds of edits are you making? Why? What kinds of errors are you discovering as you edit? How have you been using [any convention that you ve taught a mini-lesson about] in your writing? Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Using your Word Wall to Check Spelling Writers, tomorrow we will be working on editing your drafts, and in the blink of an eye it will be time to publish and send your stories out into the world. You are doing a great job in finding places in your own writing that you can make better by editing. So today it is really important that you pay close attention to editing your writing. We have lots of different resources in the classroom that we can use to check the spelling of words in your writing. One of these resources is our classroom word wall. (Focus the students attention on a word recorded on the word wall). My expectation is that you will always use these words correctly in your final drafts. Let me demonstrate how you might do this. (Model how you might use the word wall to edit you own draft. Demonstrate how one looks at the word wall to find the spelling of a word.) Hmm I want to write the word another, but I m not sure how to spell it. One of the first places I can check is the word wall. (Look towards the wall.) The word wall says that the word another is spelled a-n-o-t-h-e-r, another. (Write each letter as you think aloud.) So writers, from this day forward, I want you to use the word wall as a resource to check the spelling in your draft before you publish. Note to Teacher: Students should only be held responsible for the conventions that you have explicitly taught them during mini-lessons (see the Principal s Overview for the list of mini-lessons for the second sixweeks). Share: Call students to the floor. Have them share with their partner some places in their draft where they edited appropriately. Choose a few student examples to share with the group as a whole, if students give permission. Remind students about the three-entry writing homework requirement before you dismiss. 39

50 Publishing and Celebrating Mini-Lesson Objective: Publishing Students will publish narrative pieces for a self-selected audience and purpose. TEKS: 2.18 F, 3.18 F, 4.19 G, 5.19 G Materials Needed: Student writing notebooks Student writing folders (with daily log, draft, editing checklists & spelling resource pages) Teacher writing notebook Publishing materials see lesson Collection of published works with Dedication page and About the Author pages Mini-lesson Connection: Congratulate students and let them know that they are now ready to publish! Teach: Introduce students to the materials available to publish their first full piece in the classroom and explain how to use each. Publishing can be as simple as making a final copy on notebook paper, or it may involve more creative adaptations (i.e., writing in colored pen on special paper, bookmaking, etc.) as time allows. Remind students about the publication deadline and talk to them about the decisions that they will need to make as a writer to make sure that the deadline is met. Active Engagement: Have students take a moment to silently consider what materials they might need as they begin publishing. In pairs, have students share their reflections with one another. Walk around and visit with partners. Bring the group focus back to the front. Choose a few student examples to share with the group as a whole. Link: Let students know that their job during the writing workshop today is to begin publishing their pieces. Make sure to remind them, once again, of the deadline you have set as a class. If they are making books, have them leave the inside of the front cover and the inside of the back cover blank. Conferring Questions: How s it going? What have you said about yourself in this piece of writing? Who do you hope will read this? 40

51 Mid-workshop Teaching Point: Making a Record of Published Pieces Share a few examples of published pieces that students have completed. Remind students to make a record of their published work and reflect upon what they learned from the personal narrative genre study. Share: Call students to the floor. Have them share with their partner how their publishing is going. Walk around and visit with partners. Next, regain students attention by asking them to return to the whole group. Choose a few student examples to share with the group as a whole, if students give permission. Note to Teacher: While it is important to consider the notion that, by publication, it is intended that all students create a version of their piece that is suitable for the audience that they have designated. The goal is for all students to achieve a feeling of success and pride in their accomplishment and to begin to identify themselves as writers. The publication phase of the writing process can be quite simple and is not the focal point of this unit of study. Please spend no more than one or two days in this stage, as time must be spent in developing and publishing another piece during this six-week period. 41

52 Appendix A Literature Suggestions In this unit, it is especially important to choose engaging, high-quality mentor texts for children to study. Ideally, the texts chosen would represent first-person narrative texts; however, teachers may integrate an occasional fictional story explaining that although the text is really fiction, it is written as a narrative and can therefore demonstrate the narrative craft. The list below represents a sampling of narrative texts. These texts are either written in the firstperson narrative style or are narrative texts that depict childhood experiences. This list does not represent a comprehensive bibliography. Teachers may certainly venture away from this list. We encourage teachers to look to familiar texts that were used as read-alouds during the 1st six weeks. We encourage teachers to find texts that meet the unique needs and interests of the students in their classrooms. Text Fireflies The Wall Piggybook Shortcut Eleven (from Woman Hollering Creek) Boy Owl Moon Wilfrid Gordon MacDonald Partridge Marshfield Dreams She Come Bringing Me That Little Baby Girl Tight Times Come On, Rain! Beekeepers Camping Saturdays and Teacakes The Ugly Vegetables Maybe a Fight (from Hey World, Here I Am) The Relatives Came Bedhead Chicken Sunday Too ManyTamales Carwash Guys Write for Guys Read Knuffle Bunny Author Brinckloe, Julie Bunting, Eve Browne, Anthony Crews, Donald Cisneros, Sandra Dahl, Roald Fox, Mem Fox, Mem Fletcher, Ralph Greenfield, Eloise Hazen, Barbara Shook Hesse, Karen High, Linda Oatman Hundal, Nancy Laminack, Lester Lin, Grace Little, Jean Rylant, Cynthia Palatini, Margie Polacco, Patricia Soto, Gary Steen, Sandra & Steen, Susan Scieszka, Jon (editor) Willems, Mo 42

53 Appendix B Additional Conferring Points Helpful Questions for Interpreting Life Narratives These questions are intended to serve as a teacher tool and are not intended to be used verbatim. The phrasing of many of the questions are not developmentally appropriate for all grade levels. Please adapt these questions into a student-friendly language that your children will understand. Possible Questions to Evoke Conversation about Personal Narratives What kind of person does the I seem to be - shy? courageous? etc. Do you believe the stories and memories that the author is telling you? What things help you believe the author? What makes you doubt the author? What kinds of evidence does this author give you to help you believe the memories? What does this author use to help you remember his or her life objects, photographs, names of people/places, etc.? How does the author organize this story? Does he/she tell the story in chronological order, or does it skip around? Where does the story begin and end? What artifacts are used objects, photographs, drawings, letters? How do these artifacts affect the story? What does the author learn about himself/herself in the narrative? What does the author learn about the world? What can the person reading this story learn? (adapted from Bomer, K. (2005). Writing a life. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.) 43

54 Appendix C Objects/Artifacts Notebook Collection August 15, 2006 Got lost riding my tricycle when I was 4 Got two peanuts stuck up my nose (age 7) Getting to stay up until midnight to see the new Star Wars movie How I thought my sandcastle would look Stopped by Wal-Mart last weekend on the way to Galveston. Bought sunglasses w/ my own $$$ 44