Weeks Dates Written Convention Skills TEKS/ELPS 1 August 22-26 Reinforce capitalization-1 st letter, I, names of people, proper nouns, months/days (with comma), salutations, official titles of people, geographical names, historical periods 2 August 29-September 2 Reinforce capitalization -titles of books, stories, and essays, languages, races, and nationalities, historical events and documents; abbreviations-initials, acronyms, organizations 3 September 6-9 Reinforce correct end punctuation- declarative, exclamatory, interrogative, imperative; Introduce italics and underlining for titles and emphasis 21B, 22B, 23B/5C,D 21A,B/5C,D 21B, 22D/5E 4 September 12-16 Reinforce nouns-singular, proper, plural; Introduce collective nouns 20A/5E 5 September 19-23 Reinforce verbs-present, past, future tense 20A/5E 6 September 26-30 Reinforce simple sentence (subject/verb agreement) 20C/5D 7 October 3-7 Reinforce irregular verbs 20A/5E 8 October 11-14 Reinforce apostrophe used in contractions 23C/5C 9 October 17-21* Reinforce pronouns/reference; apostrophe for possessive nouns 21A, 3C/5C, E,F 10 October 24-28 Reinforce reflexive pronouns; Introduce indefinite pronouns 20A/5E 11 October 21-November 4 Indefinite pronouns 20A/5E 12 November 7-11 Reinforce paragraph indentation 23D/5C 13 November 14-18 Reinforce paragraph indentation 23D/5C 14 November 28-December 2 Reinforce time order transition words 20A/5E 15 December 5-9 Reinforce time order transition, conclusion words 20A/5E 16 December 12-16* Transition words for conclusion 20A/5E 17 January 3-6 Reinforce adjectives-descriptive and articles 20A/5E 18 January 9-13 Reinforce adjectives-limiting, comparative, and superlative 20A/5E 19 January 17-20 Introduce adjectives with origin 20A/5E 20 January 23-27 Reinforce adjectives-descriptive with purpose 20A/5E 21 January 30- February 3 Reinforce compound sentences 20C/5D 22 February 6-10 Reinforce compound sentences with comma 20C/5D 23 February 13-17 Reinforce compound sentences: comma with items in a series 20C, 21C/5D,E,F 24 February 21-24 Reinforce conjunctions-coordinating and correlative 20A/5E Underline: Reinforce/Review; Bold: Master at Grade Level; Italics: District Adjustment *End of the Nine Week Grading Period 1
Weeks Dates Written Convention Skills TEKS/ELPS 25 February 27-March 2 Reinforce conjunctions-correlative; Introduce conjunctions-subordinating 20A/5E 26 March 5 March 9* Reinforce adverbs-time and manner 20A/5E 27 March 19-23 Adverbs-frequency 20A/5E 28 March 26-30 (STAAR) Flex Week 29 April 2-5 Adverbs-intensity 20A/5E 30 April 10-13 Reinforce prepositions and phrases-to introduce time and location 20A/5E 31 April 16-20 Reinforce prepositional phrases-direction and details 20A/5E 32 April 23-27 (STAAR) Flex Week 33 April 30 May 4 Reinforce quotation marks,-comma and proper spacing 21B/5E 34 May 7-11 Reinforce quotation marks,-comma and proper spacing 21B/5E 35 May 14-18 Flex Week 36 May 21-25 Flex Week 37 May 29-June 1* Flex Week Underline: Reinforce/Review; Bold: Master at Grade Level; Italics: District Adjustment *End of the Nine Week Grading Period 2
Purpose of Editing Invitations Instruction: Through an invitational process, using mentor text to read, analyze, imitate, and edit sentences, students receive quick (5-10- minute), daily editing instruction (separate or within the Writing Workshop framework). Zooming in on a whole sentence from a selected mentor text, students can more easily discover the grammar, mechanics, and craft patterns we want them to identify and use in their own writing. It s far more inviting for students to concentrate on what works in a sentence than to rip one to shreds. This shift in perspective moves students focus from red-pen thinking to thinking through editing decisions. Value of Editing Invitations Instruction: 1. Pays attentions to the affective dimension of learning 2. Post, examine and celebrate powerful models and visuals 3. Provides opportunities for social interaction 4. Focus on patterns that connect rather than rules that correct Your steps for success! 1. Begin with the end in mind. Determine what s important for your students to learn about mechanics and grammar. 2. Decide on a concept for which you d like to create a series of invitations. Start noticing how this concept is used in real writing. Start taking notes, collecting sentences, songs, books, scraps, passages anything that can be used to immerse students in writing and in this concept or pattern. 3. Start with a sentence. Look for sentences in mentor texts that address patterns or concepts you want your students to know when they walk away from your classroom. Choose literature that: connects to students worlds their interest, humor, or problems; shows a clear pattern that is easy to observe, imitate or break down; models writer s craft and effective writing powerful verbs, sensory detail, or voice. 4. Invite students into the editing, a decision making process. 3
DAY INVITATION/PURPOSE TEACHER STUDENT 1 Invitation to Notice students begin analyzing text by sharing what they notice about the sentence. *May spend more than one day. Before moving to the next step, students may need to see more examples before they imitate. 2 Invitation to Imitate by looking closely at the model, student clarify their understanding and revise and expand their thinking about the patterns or concepts editing and craft as they play with applying what they noticed to their own ideas. (Possible to add Invitation to Celebrate to Day 2) 3 Invitation to Celebrate skills that we need to edit effectively are rarely celebrated. This day pays attention to the affective dimension of learning it s a time to laugh, to listen, to clap, to praise! 4 Invitation to Write connect concepts and patterns studied to writing. Application is where the rubber meets the road. 5 Invitation to Edit provide an opportunity for students to get more practice developing a keen eye to find mistakes in their writing and on texts. Display the sentence and ask again and again, What do you notice? What do you like about the sentence? What else? - listening to their responses, going where they go, making sure we hit on the craft and at least one key point about the patterns in the sentence. ** Deconstruct the sentence for its prominent features. Show an imitation of your own and connect back to the prominent features. Show students how to insert their ideas and experiences and still imitate the structure or pattern. Class may brainstorm ways to imitate or change pattern identified. As students attempt, walk around nudging and sharing successes you see. If students stop early, send them back to writing and ask if they can do more than one imitation. Encourage students to share their imitations so celebration and feedback is provided. Provide classroom space and tools, for students to display their sentences. Review concepts with mentor text, teacher model, and/or student sentences. Give the students an opportunity to freewrite opportunity to play around and try the concept. Invite the students to try the concept in their writing. Clarify while sharing and conferring. Start with the modeled mentor text. We talk about what s good with the sentence. (How d They Do It? activity) With mentor sentence on top, show students four incorrect sentences, one at a time to compare to the mentor sentence to identify how the author created his or her message. (Try to move away from the idea of the error hunt.) 4 Share what they notice, take in, detect, etc. The most important piece is about students doing the thinking. Playing with the sentence form, students generate different sentences in their notebook. Share their imitations sparked by the model. Students treat each other as writers: learning from each other, praising each other. Some students may write their imitations on sentence strips or half sheets of construction paper to hang in classroom. Try the concept by: Imitating a powerful model Revising a piece of their own writing, adding in the new pattern Summarizing the learning with an example of the targeted concept Share what they ve identified about how the author created his/her message.
Other Possible Invitations for Consideration (additional/or change days): INVITATION/PURPOSE TEACHER STUDENT Invitation to Revise/Combine Combining sentences is an effective revision strategy to make writing more concise and connected, and can enhance sentence variety. Many researchers continue to praise sentence combining for helping to develop students sentence sense. Invitation to Collect to clarify editing concept, students can delve into texts they re reading to see how authors use the conventions we study. (Not every concepts works well as an invitation to collect.) Models how to combine sentences to make writing more connected and concise by working backward using mentor text and uncombined sentences. Give students some uncombined sentences to try to combine. Select texts from which students can collect Scaffold their collections by giving texts they can find sentences Use text students have previously read and comprehended Combine sentences given by teacher to create a concise and connected sentence. Trade sentences with other groups to compare/contrast the various ways to create the sentence. Write sentences on overhead transparency to share with class. Write sentences in a notebook or scrapbook. Post the most powerful examples in the room. Collect over time, not everyday or all at once. **Probing Beyond What Do you Notice? Invitation to Notice CRAFT What s working with the text? What s effective? Where s the good writing? The craft? The effect? What else? PUNCTUATION What s the punctuation doing? What effect does the punctuation have on my reading aloud? What changes if we remove it? Use something else? What s the writer accomplishing with his or her choices? What else? Invitation to Edit How d They Do it? When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web. Seymour Simon, Spiders (2003) When the web is finished, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web. When the web is finish, the spider waits for insects to fly into its web. When the web is finished, the spider wait for insects to fly into its web. When the web is finished the spider waits for insects to fly into its web. After seeing the correct sentence, students identify what has changed as each sentence is uncovered separately. We are open to changes from sentence to sentence so that the activity continues to be generative. 5
Invitation to Revise/Combine Uncombine the following sentence from Criss Cross (Perkins 2005) to make as many sentences as possible: After he ate dinner, he headed out to Phil s house. When Hector put on this shirt and slung his guitar over his shoulder, he and Rowanne were both surprised at how well he had turned out. Or Reverse/Combine the sentence. Try to use an AAAWWUBBIS word or subordinating conjunctions in your combined sentences: He ate dinner. Then he headed out to see Phil. Phil was at this house. Hector put on his shirt. Hector slung the guitar over his shoulder. The guitar belonged to him. Hector was surprised at how well he had turned out. Rowanne was surprised at how well he had turned out. AAAWWUBBIS As, Although, After, While, When, Unless, Because, Before, If, Since OR When the class was quiet, Gooney Bird began her Monday story. Lois Lowry, Gooney Bird Greene (2002) Uncombined: The class was quiet. Gooney Bird began her story. Gooney Bird s story was a Monday story. 6